NEW ORLEANS — Days after being jailed in Florida on counts of possessing child abuse imagery, a Roman Catholic priest with ties to south-east Louisiana and Texas has been charged with two counts of sexual assault.
Police in Waco, Texas, announced the new charges against Anthony Odiong late on Thursday in a statement. It said a total of eight victims had come forward alleging Odiong, 55, tried to use his influence as a priest to pursue sexual contact they either did not welcome or to which they could not consent.
Odiong was a popular priest at St. Anthony of Padua in Luling, Louisiana, before being removed after a variety of issues, including disparaging comments about members of the LGBTQ community and allegations of sex abuse claims.
Texas is one of about a dozen states with a law that criminalizes sexual activity between clergymen and adults who emotionally depend on their spiritual advice. Furthermore, Texas deems statutes of limitation – or filing deadlines – irrelevant if a “defendant has committed the same or similar sex offense against five or more victims”, according to officials.
The investigation which led to Odiong’s arrest began after the Guardian published a report in February detailing prior allegations that ranged from sexual coercion and unwelcome touching to financial abuse. That report prompted an unidentified person to walk into the Waco police department and accuse Odiong of sexually assaulting her in 2012.
A judge subsequently granted permission for police to access an email account belonging to Odiong and found messages from another woman who had not come forward, but explicitly detailed sexual encounters with the priest, including one which wounded her colon.
Bradley DeLange, a Waco detective, later spoke with the woman, who allegedly confirmed that Odiong had subjected her to some of the behavior his prior accusers had described.
A judge then permitted police to search Odiong’s iCloud data storage account. DeLange later wrote under oath he “discovered images depicting a clearly prepubescent [disrobed] child”, which had been saved to the account in September 2020.
DeLange said there were two more images of who is believed to be another child with someone who appears to be an adult touching an unclothed body part.
Waco police secured a warrant to arrest Odiong, and authorities took him into custody at his home in Ave Maria, Florida, on Tuesday. That day, DeLange issued a statement through his department asking anyone else “victimized by Anthony Odiong anywhere in the United States” to cooperate with his investigation.
Several new accusers had apparently come forward between Tuesday and Thursday, clearing the way for the new sexual assault charges against Odiong.
Odiong was ordained in the diocese of Uyo, Nigeria, in 1993. He was invited to work within the diocese of Austin, Texas, in 2006 by the then bishop Gregory Aymond. Odiong was then invited to work in Luling, Louisiana, in 2015, about six years after Aymond became the archbishop of nearby New Orleans.
Places to which his assignments brought him over the years included the St Peter Catholic student center on the outskirts of Baylor University’s campus in Waco as well as St Anthony of Padua in Luling.
Odiong was able to build a loyal following in Texas and Louisiana largely by claiming to have a special understanding with the Virgin Mary through prayer. The charismatic clergyman would hold so-called healing masses after which some parishioners reported recovering from major medical ailments, improving church attendance as well as boosting his popularity with both congregants and diocesan officials.
But Odiong came under scrutiny after his various accusers spoke out against him – including a Pennsylvania native who reported him to the sheriff’s office in Luling, which said it could not determine if the clergyman had committed a crime.
The Austin diocese decided to prohibit Odiong from being able to minister in its region in 2019. Its counterparts in New Orleans waited until this past December to do the same.
In a statement after Tuesday’s arrest in Ave Maria, the New Orleans archdiocese made it a point to say the charges against Odiong “stemmed from allegations reported in Waco”. But on Thursday, a source with direct knowledge of the investigation told the Guardian that at least one of the new accusers who made possible Thursday’s sexual assault charges against Odiong resided in the community of Luling, about 22 miles (35km) from the archdiocese of New Orleans.
Odiong remained in custody in Florida late on Thursday, jail records show. He had been ordered held without bail. It was not immediately clear when he may be transferred to Waco.
Attempts to contact an attorney who has previously represented Odiong have been unsuccessful since Tuesday. Before his arrest, Odiong had posted an open letter on social media dismissing the allegations against him as “a false, salacious, one-sided smear campaign”.
It remained to be seen on Thursday whether Odiong’s arrest would attract the attention of Louisiana state police troopers who served a search warrant on the archdiocese in April as part of an investigation into whether the church and its local leadership had operated as a child-sex trafficking ring responsible for “widespread sexual abuse of minors dating back decades” that was then “covered up and not reported to law enforcement”.
