![Rev. Fr. Anthony Odiong, a US-based Nigerian Louisiana Catholic priest, was arrested in Florida on Tuesday for possessing child pornography, according to law authorities. The suspect is reportedly accused of many other cases of sexual assault. The Waco, Texas, Police Department announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday that officers detained Father Anthony Odiong in Ave Maria, Florida, with assistance from the United States Marshals Service. Waco police announced in March that they had received "credible information" about a sexual assault allegedly committed by Odiong in Texas in 2012. “During the subsequent investigation, a case of possession of child pornography was uncovered,” the police said. The priest was apprehended in Florida by the Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force. The Waco Police Department said that he will be extradited to Texas. Odiong had previously served in the Archdiocese of New Orleans before being removed as priest in December of last year due to controversy over homilies in which he claimed, among other things, that the Catholic Church was being taken over by "the gays." At the time, the priest was also accused of abusive behaviour; a Louisiana lady claimed in U.S. bankruptcy court that Odiong had committed both financial and sexual abuse against her. Prior to joining the New Orleans Archdiocese, Odiong served in at least two Texas parishes. On Tuesday, Waco police stated that during their sexual assault investigation, "the presence of other survivors was revealed." “Multiple women have come forward to tell similar experiences as the sexual assault survivor who reported the initial allegation,” the police department said. “Survivors’ experiences ranged from sexual assault and indecent assault, more commonly recognised as groping, and financial abuse, with some survivors experiencing every element of Anthony Odiong’s manipulation.” The police said they “believe there may be more survivors, and we wish to speak with anyone who [has] had similar encounters” with the priest. The Archdiocese of New Orleans issued a brief news release on Tuesday noting Odiong's arrest in Florida. The archdiocese “encourages anyone with any information to contact law enforcement,” the release said.](https://www.chronicle.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ezgif-6-4730550ede.jpg "Anthony Odiong, US-based Nigerian priest fathered children with sexual assault victims")
Rev. Fr. Anthony Odiong, a Roman Catholic priest with links to Texas and Louisiana who is facing criminal charges for allegedly abusing his position of authority within the church to pursue sex with vulnerable women, fathered at least two children with them, authorities have alleged.
The stunning information about 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.
Authorities are concerned about Odiong’s biological fatherhood because Catholic clergymen are not permitted to engage in sexual behaviour.
They see the children as proof that Odiong had a history of chasing women he met while serving as a priest, which is a criminal in Texas.
The hearing concluded that Odiong was the “father of offspring who were conceived as a direct result of sexual assault… committed against a known survivor” in the US.
DNA evidence supported this conclusion. Prosecutors on Tuesday asked Waco police detective Bradley Delange, who has been investigating Odiong for months, to testify during the hearing if the cleric and the victim, who gave birth to one of his children, had sexual relations within the previous year.
“Yes,” DeLange said. “They shared a pregnancy scare in June.”
Officials also made reference to a second child fathered by Odiong, believed to be 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 Texas’s capital, Austin, and adjacent Louisiana’s best-known city, New Orleans.
Odiong, 55, is charged with five counts of sexual assault in the first degree and two more in the second degree in connection with three other women.
DeLange stated that he had confirmed nine purported Odiong victims in the United States and abroad, with two more identified as recently as Tuesday morning.
There is no evidence that any of the three women leveling allegations against Odiong are his children’s mothers.
However, prosecutors and police believe Odiong’s children are important because at least one of them was born during the time he allegedly committed his crimes.
He could face life in prison if convicted on any of the first-degree counts.
