A Catholic priest, Anthony Odiong, has been convicted by a jury in Texas, United States, for sexually assaulting women seeking spiritual guidance.
According to a report by The Guardian, the jury in Texas, consisting of eight women and four men, found Odiong guilty of a two-count charge of sexual assault.
Odiong, a priest of the Diocese of Uyo, Akwa Ibom, Nigeria, risks life imprisonment for the first-degree charge and 20 months in prison for the second-degree charge.
In 2024, Odiong was arrested after a group of women accused him of sexual coercion, unwanted touching and abusive financial control during his priestly assignment in Waco, a city in Texas, and in the New Orleans suburb of Luling, Louisiana.
Subsequently, a grand jury in Texas indicted him for charges bordering on sexual assault.
The prosecutors said the police investigation revealed that the cleric positioned himself as a spiritual adviser to women who were facing difficult moments in their personal lives.
The Guardian reports that a police investigation revealed that Odiong had sexual intercourse with at least one of the women.
The Catholic priest was said to have allegedly pressured another woman who was in an abusive relationship to allow her then-husband to sodomise her and later urged her to narrate the experience to him.
One of the victims, identified as Mary Doe, narrated how the Catholic priest commenced a sexual relationship with her after he provided her with spiritual direction amid a tumultuous divorce that left her with primary custody of seven children.
The victim told the court that her son walked in on her and Odiong having sex in her bedroom after a family party.
The child also testified during the trial.
The jurors also heard testimony of how Waco police investigators obtained DNA evidence establishing that Odiong, in 2023, had fathered a child with a woman, assigned the pseudonym Presley Jones.
The cleric was said to have provided spiritual direction to the woman while he was the pastor of St Anthony of Padua church in Luling.
