HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
January 10, 2019
By Nicole Hensley
The criminal probe into a Houston-area priest is on pace to go to trial, which could become the region’s highest-profile clergy sex abuse case in more than two decades.
The priest’s lawyer, Wendell Odom, made the prediction Thursday afternoon after his client, Manuel La Rosa-Lopez, was rushed out of the Montgomery County courthouse through a back door after a status hearing.
“This is such a high-publicity case, in all probability, I think this case is going to go to trial,” Odom said.
The clergy investigation, which expanded last fall with a fourth search warrant at the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston headquarters in downtown Houston, has produced a hefty load of evidence for authorities to examine. The three prior searches happened at the Shalom Center in Splendora, Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe and La Rosa-Lopez’s most recent assignment at St. John Fisher Church in Richmond.
La Rosa-Lopez last appeared in court in October. He was arrested Sept. 11 on four counts of indecency with a child for claims that he molested a boy and a girl at the Conroe parish from 1998 to 2000.
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