Former Luling priest had child with abuse victim, police say
The stunning information about Father Anthony Odiong surfaced at a bail hearing on Tuesday in Waco, Texas.
A Roman Catholic priest, who served for eight years at a church in Luling, La., and is facing criminal charges in Texas for allegedly abusing his position to pursue sex with women parishioners, fathered at least two children with victims of his behavior, authorities alleged.
The stunning information about Father Anthony Odiong surfaced at a bail hearing on Tuesday in Waco, Texas, where prosecutors have charged him with several counts of sexually assaulting women to whom he ministered.
Odiong requested a reduction of his $5.5 million bail. But a judge denied that request after prosecutors established Odiong had communicated plans to flee to his native Nigeria if he were released – while simultaneously airing the most complete account yet about the alleged double life he had built.
Authorities are not interested in Odiong’s parental status because Catholic clergymen are required to abstain from sexual activity. Instead, they perceive the children as proof that Odiong had a pattern of pursuing women he met in his role as a priest, which is a felony in Texas.
DNA evidence presented at the hearing concluded there was a more than 99.99% chance that Odiong was the “father of offspring who was created as a direct result of [a] sexual assault … committed against a known survivor” in the US. Prosecutors on Tuesday asked Waco police detective Bradley DeLange – who has been investigating Odiong for months – at the hearing whether the clergyman and the alleged victim who birthed one of his children had engaged in sexual intercourse within the last calendar year.
“Yes,” DeLange said. “They shared a pregnancy scare in June.”
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Officials also made reference to a second child fathered by Odiong – a minor the Guardian has reason to believe is living in Nigeria. Both children, younger than 18, were born during Odiong’s career in the priesthood, which began in the 1990s and saw lengthy stretches under the command of Catholic church officials in Austin and New Orleans.
New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond helped bring Odiong to the US when Aymond was bishop of Austin and was in charge when Odiong came to the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 2015.
Odiong, 55, is facing a total of five charges of sexual assault in the first degree and two more such counts in the second degree in connection with three separate women. DeLange testified that he had confirmed nine alleged victims of Odiong’s across the US and abroad – and had two others that he had identified as recently as Tuesday morning. There is no indication that any of the three women at the center of the charges against Odiong are the mothers of his children.
Nonetheless, prosecutors and police believe Odiong’s progeny was relevant because the mother of at least one of the children gave birth during the period of time that he allegedly committed his charged crimes.
He could face life imprisonment if convicted of any of the first-degree charges.
Plans to flee
While some of Tuesday’s hearing focused on Odiong’s children, other parts dealt with his ability to flee to Nigeria – and therefore beyond Waco authorities’ reach – if given the chance.
DeLange testified under oath in a two-hour hearing that Odiong was constructing a luxurious home in his native Nigeria to which he could flee if he were to be granted bail. He also has a wealth of money – including from congregants who still believe in his innocence – that could aid any potential escape from the law. But exactly how Odiong has accumulated his wealth is the subject of a parallel financial crimes investigation, Texas law enforcement officials said in a separate statement. Many of the priest’s past congregants packed a courtroom gallery on Tuesday.
According to DeLange, Odiong sees himself as above the Catholic hierarchy and has managed to raise substantial funds directly from his congregants through claims of healing and spiritual guidance. Prosecutors asked the detective if he was forcing his followers to donate to his defense. DeLange said it wasn’t forced but did describe the situation as “an abuse of faith”.
Some of Odiong’s followers confirmed their aid for him was indeed not forced, testifying on Tuesday that they would be able and willing to contribute up to $25,000 to cover their priest’s bond.
“He is a dear friend of myself and my family,” said Rose Ann Vanek, who testified she would assist Odiong financially if he were to be released. While she testified, she grinned at Odiong, who smiled and nodded back. “Thank you, father,” she said. “We love father.”
DeLange further testified that Odiong had placed monitored calls from jail to his followers, telling them that he planned to escape to Nigeria if he managed to get out. Citing the content of the calls, DeLange added that the faith doctrine Odiong preaches to his followers – which implements non-Catholic religious beliefs – predicts an imminent apocalyptic “coming of the apostles” in Africa.
Odiong intends to eventually speak directly with Donald Trump and advise him on that apocalypse, DeLange testified.
A naturalized US citizen with an American passport, Odiong has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. Odiong’s attorney insisted on Tuesday that his client would not be able to flee the country because his Nigerian passport had expired. Judge Thomas West rejected that argument, keeping Odiong’s bond amount at $5.5m.
Not every past congregant of Odiong watching Tuesday’s hearing in person was there to support him. Nonetheless, West’s ruling prompted one courtroom spectator to gasp: “Are you kidding me?”
Other evasive maneuvers
Prior to Tuesday, Odiong was arrested within months of the Guardian having published a report detailing prior allegations against the clergymen that ranged from sexual coercion and unwanted touching to abusive financial control. All came from women who met him through his work.
Sworn police statements show that Guardian reporting from February prompted a woman to walk into the Waco police department in March and allege that Odiong had sexually assaulted her in 2012.
DeLange’s ensuing investigation found evidence to suggest Odiong would position himself as a spiritual adviser to women navigating personal problems, particularly marital ones – and then exploit his closeness to seek sex with them.
He allegedly had sexual intercourse with at least one of the women he is charged with assaulting. With respect to at least one of the other victims, Odiong allegedly convinced her to submit to anal sex with her husband despite faith-based conscientious objections to that form of intercourse – and he also allegedly made her tell him all about it to satiate his alleged prurient interest.
Furthermore, detectives combing through Odiong’s messages via text, email and social media have said they found digital child abuse imagery in his possession. But they have not pursued formal charges in connection with those findings, choosing to focus on the sexual assault aspect of the case.
Texas law allowed authorities to charge Odiong without regard to how many years had passed since his alleged crimes because of the sheer number of accusers involved in the case, even if not all led to charges.
Police arrested Odiong at a home where he was living in the planned community of Ave Maria, Florida, on 16 July. He has been unable to make bail since.
Odiong was ordained into the Catholic priesthood in the diocese of Uyo, Nigeria, in 1993. In 2006, Aymond, then the bishop of Austin, allowed Odiong to transfer into the clerical ranks there and work.
After a stint of apparent studying in Rome, Odiong in 2015 gained permission to work within the archdiocese of New Orleans, where Aymond had been appointed archbishop six years earlier, according to church documents obtained by the Guardian. There, at St Anthony of Padua church in the community of Luling, Louisiana, Odiong fostered a large following by hosting special masses, after which some congregants maintained they had recovered from major medical ailments.
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Officials within the diocese of Austin said they notified Odiong in 2019 that their institution had gotten “complaints … regarding [his] behavior with adult women.” The organization said it then told Odiong he did not have permission “to engage in priestly ministry in the diocese of Austin, even on a temporary basis” – and “that a violation of these restrictions could necessitate making them public”.
The notification to Odiong, therefore, implied that the church chose to keep the allegations against him secret from congregants at the time.
Austin church officials said they immediately notified their counterparts in New Orleans about the allegations involving Odiong. But, after one of Odiong’s accusers had reported him to church officials in New Orleans hoping they would at least suspend him from ministry there, the archdiocese’s legal counsel issued a letter as late as November 2023 claiming “we do not have other similar allegations” against Odiong, according to copies of the correspondence that were obtained by the Guardian.
Nonetheless, just one month later, the archdiocese abruptly pulled Odiong out of ministry, at last announcing that allegations of misconduct with multiple women had forced the organization to remove him from his role at St. Anthony in Luling. Odiong at the time sought to falsely persuade his parishioners that his removal resulted from his opposition to efforts endorsed by Pope Francis to make the church more welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community.
Furthermore, DeLagne testified on Tuesday that Odiong was allegedly ordered to return to the diocese of Uyo, though he had not complied with that mandate at the time of his arrest. He also said that Odiong made calls within days of his arrest in Florida, instructing a parishioner to empty one of his personal bank accounts, pack up all of his belongings, and ship them to Nigeria.
The recipient of the New Orleans archdiocese’s November 2023 letter about Odiong and her attorney, Kristi Schubert, has demanded damages from church officials as part of an unresolved bankruptcy protection case that the organization opened in 2020 after years of grappling with litigation otherwise mostly related to clergy abuse victimizing children.
Revelations spurred by that bankruptcy triggered a Louisiana state police investigation – which is continuing – into whether the church ran a child sex-trafficking ring in New Orleans that inflicted “widespread … abuse of minors dating back decades” that was illicitly covered up, according to statements sworn under oath by authorities.
