The criminal case that authorities are building against a Roman Catholic priest accused of preying on women whom he met while working in south-east Louisiana and Texas is progressing, with a grand jury in the latter state indicting him on three felony sexual assault charges.
Anthony Odiong, 55, faces two counts of second-degree sexual assault as well as one of first-degree sexual assault in the charges handed up against him recently in the McLennan county, Texas, state court.
The charges against Odiong – who was first arrested in July – involve two women. He could receive up to life imprisonment if convicted of the first-degree charge, a stiffer penalty that stems from the fact that the alleged victim in the case was a woman whom Odiong was prohibited from “marrying or purporting to marry” under Texas law. The second-degree counts each carry up to 20 years in prison in what is one of only about a dozen states with a law that criminalizes sexual activity between clergymen and adults who emotionally depend on their spiritual advice.
Though Odiong did not immediately enter a plea, he has previously denied wrongdoing and pledged to “clear” his name.
Police in Waco arrested Odiong months after the Guardian published a report detailing prior allegations that ranged from sexual coercion and unwelcome touching to financial abuse, all made by women whom he met through his work as a priest.
Sworn police statements show that report prompted a woman to walk into the Waco police department and accuse Odiong of sexually assaulting her in 2012.
The subsequent police investigation established that Odiong would position himself as a spiritual adviser to women confronting difficulties in their personal lives.
He had sexual intercourse with at least one of the women at the center of the indictment against him, the investigation led by Waco detective Bradley DeLange determined. With respect to the other woman, he allegedly managed to pressure the victim into letting her husband sodomize her despite her faith-based objections to that form of sexual intimacy – while also successfully urging her to narrate her experience to him.
Investigators also alleged that they found digital child abuse imagery in Odiong’s possession. Those allegations were not included in Thursday’s indictment, though that does not rule out authorities eventually obtaining a formal charge in connection with that allegation.
In all, as of the summer, at least eight women had come forward with generally similar allegations against Odiong, though more alleged victims have since been identified, officials have said. That number of alleged victims, in Texas, removed statutes of limitation – or time limits to file charges – as a consideration.
Police ultimately took Odiong into custody near a home where he was living in Collier county, Florida, on 16 July. He was later transferred to the jail in McLennan county, which includes Waco, and ordered held on a relatively high $2.5m bond.
Odiong has not been able to make bail, which was set after Waco police noted that the clergyman had “access to immense amounts of money … and access to passports and multiple avenues to flee” the US. Police also described how supporters of Odiong who remained sympathetic to him could have helped him avoid his day in criminal court if he made bail.
Odiong was ordained into the Catholic priesthood in the diocese of Uyo, Nigeria, in 1993. He was allowed to work within the diocese of Austin beginning in 2006 by then bishop Gregory Aymond.
After a stop in Rome, Odiong in 2015 was invited to work within the archdiocese of New Orleans by Aymond, who by then had been appointed the archbishop there.
Aymond would later guide New Orleans’ archdiocese into federal bankruptcy reorganization amid the fallout from a clergy molestation scandal that has engulfed the organization for decades. On Friday, the archdiocese offered an average of $125,000 to settle its legal differences with about 500 clergy abuse claimants. The claimants are demanding an average of $2.5m each, which would be the largest settlement in the history of US Catholic church bankruptcies.
Two of the places where Odiong was stationed over the years were the Saint Peter Catholic student center on the outskirts of Baylor University’s campus in Waco as well as the Saint Anthony of Padua church in Luling, Louisiana. Aymond’s archdiocese did not remove Odiong from working in Luling until this past December, though his accusers had previously attempted to report him to church authorities, police or both in prior years, according to a Guardian investigation into Odiong.
Attorneys Chris King and Robert Callahan represent one of Odiong’s accusers, and they issued a statement to Texas television station KTRE saying their client planned to sue Odiong and those under whom he worked in Austin.
The client added in her own statement: “I sought spiritual direction from Anthony Odiong during one of the darkest phases of my life. Rather than helping me, he exploited my vulnerability and trust.”
