OXNARD (CA)
Ventura County Star [Camarillo CA]
January 11, 2025
By Kathleen Wilson
A former Oxnard priest was sentenced Thursday to a year in jail in connection with sex offenses against two youths in Los Angeles County but avoided state prison, officials said.
Rodolfo Martinez-Guevara pleaded no contest to sodomy with a person under age 16 and a lewd act with a child age 14 or 15, according to court records. The first offense applies when the perpetrator is over age 21 and the second if the perpetrator is at least 10 years older than the child.
Besides jail, he received a suspended term of three years in state prison and five years of formal probation and is required to undergo counseling for sexual compulsions for a year.
The 39-year-old man will serve the jail term concurrently with a one-year sentence in Ventura County for possession of child pornography, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Legal officials in Los Angeles County expect him to serve both sentences in Ventura County jail.
He was sentenced to a suspended prison term of two years in Ventura County and required to register as a sex offender for at least 10 years. The prison term in each county will take effect if Martinez-Guevara violates probation, officials said.
In Ventura County, he pleaded no contest last year to one felony count of possession of child pornography and admitted all charged special allegations, including that he possessed more than 600 images of child pornography.
A member of a religious order called Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, Martinez-Guevara was associated with several churches, including Our Lady of Guadalupe parish in Oxnard, Ventura County prosecutors said. He reportedly served at the Oxnard parish from July 2021 through September 2022.
He is now laicized, meaning he has lost his legal status as a cleric and can no longer act as a priest, local prosecutors were informed by his former religious order.
Martinez-Guevara served at Our Lady of Guadalupe as a deacon and newly ordained priest, officials of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles said at the time of his 2023 arrest. He was removed from ministry by the archdiocese and by his order, officials said.
Defense attorney Christopher Welch did not return a call seeking comment.