January 31, 2006

Ex-priest apologizes

CALIFORNIA
The Press-Enterprise

12:12 AM PST on Tuesday, January 31, 2006

By MICHAEL FISHER / The Press-Enterprise

Edward Anthony Rodrigue, a former Inland priest and twice-convicted child molester, apologized Monday to the children he abused during his nearly 20 years as a Catholic cleric.
"To those I have been involved with, I am genuinely sorry for their problems, for those I've known and the unknown," says Edward Anthony Rodrigue, standing outside his room at a downtown San Bernardino motel. A twice-convicted child molester, Rodrigue has lived at the motel since being paroled from prison on Wednesday.

"To those I have been involved with, I am genuinely sorry for their problems, for those I've known and the unknown," Rodrigue, 69, said standing outside his room at a downtown San Bernardino motel, where he has lived since being paroled from prison on Wednesday. "It upsets me that there are a few (accusers) that I don't know."

Rodrigue has spent the last 8½ years behind bars, after he pleaded no contest to molesting an 11-year-old, developmentally disabled boy in Highland. Rodrigue had been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Rodrigue told detectives he molested five or six boys annually while a priest, according to a copy of a 1997 San Bernardino County sheriff's report.

Posted by kshaw at January 31, 2006 08:13 AM