AVE MARIA (FL)
The Guardian [London, England]
July 16, 2024
By Ramon Antonio Vargas
Anthony Odiong, prohibited from ministering in Texas and Louisiana amid criminal investigation, arrested in Florida
A Catholic priest under criminal investigation for sexual misconduct with multiple women – and consequently prohibited from ministering in two states – has been charged with illegally possessing child abuse imagery depicting girls.
Anthony Odiong was arrested Tuesday as he was leaving his home in Ave Maria, Florida, on a warrant obtained by police in Waco, Texas, charging him with possessing child abuse images showing disrobed children. According to sworn statements in support of the arrest warrant that were obtained by the Guardian, police said they discovered the illicit pictures while investigating complaints from at least four women that made officers aware Odiong, 55, could be “a potential serial sexual assault suspect”.
The Waco police statements say that at least some of the women’s complaints are too old to prosecute due to statutes of limitation. But the police said statutes of limitation in Texas are irrelevant if “probable cause exists to believe that the defendant has committed the same or similar sex offense against five or more victims”. And they have asked anyone with information about Odiong to contact them as they weigh the possibility of charging him with the women’s complaints.
Odiong drew media scrutiny that eventually landed him on the police’s radar in February, when the Roman Catholic diocese of Austin – which administers Waco’s church institutions – revealed he was removed of his ability to minister there in 2019.
That revelation came nearly two months after Louisiana’s most important diocese had similarly suspended him. The suspensions stemmed from complaints by women – including two he encountered while they were at the Baylor University campus in Waco – who publicly accused Odiong of trying to use his influence as a priest to pursue sexual contact they either did not welcome or could not consent to participating in.
Texas is one of about a dozen states with a law that says it is impossible for there to be a consensual relationship between clergymen and adults who emotionally depend on their spiritual advice.
And in March, less than a month after the Guardian published a report detailing how the prior allegations against him ranged from sexual coercion and groping to fiscal abuse, an unidentified person walked into the Waco police department and accused Odiong of sexually assaulting her in 2012.
Police subsequently secured judicial permission to access an email account belonging to Odiong and found messages from another woman who had never come forward explicitly detailing sexual encounters with the priest, including one where her colon was injured.
Investigators later spoke with the woman, who “came forward to admit that” she had met Odiong under “the same circumstances” and been subjected to some of the behavior his prior accusers had, according to the police’s sworn statements.
From there, a judge permitted police to search Odiong’s iCloud online data storage account. Waco police detective Bradley DeLange later wrote under oath that he “discovered images depicting a clearly prepubescent child”, which had been saved to the account in September 2020.
DeLange said there were also “two images of what is believed to be [another] child” with what appears to be an adult touching an unclothed body part.
While none of the images show the face of a child, DeLange said it was evident that at least some of the images displayed someone “under 10 years of age which … may enhance the eligible punishment that may be assessed”.
McClennan county, Texas, judge Thomas C West on 5 July signed off on DeLange’s request for a warrant to arrest Odiong in connection with the child abuse imagery, records show. The judge’s suggested bail was $1m.