A Texas priest has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of indecency with a child. Father Manuel was first charged with five counts involving sexual contact, but he accepted a plea deal instead of going to trial. He entered the plea early Tuesday morning.
His attorney, Wendall Odom Jr., said Father Manuel pleaded guilty to accept responsibility and move on with his life, and that the related civil suits had been settled.
Under the deal, he will serve a decade behind bars and be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life. Nancy Herber, the lead prosecutor with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, said the victims were consulted before the deal was offered. She said their biggest concerns were that he never be around children again and that he be registered as a sex offender, and that they were relieved not to have to testify.
According to reports, he was accused of abusing a girl and a boy in the late 1990s and early 2000s while serving at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe, Texas. Years later, a third person came forward and said he was abused as an altar boy in the mid 1990s. Reports say the victims were between the ages of 13 and 16 at the time.
Reports also say each victim told police that they had informed church officials about the abuse at the time, but that it was never passed on to authorities. Instead, he was sent for treatment at the Shalom Center in Houston and then assigned by the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston to St. John Fisher Church in Richmond, Texas. He stayed there until he turned himself in to the Montgomery County Jail in September 2018. Baller Alert did not find a response from the Archdiocese in the reports reviewed.
The victims have also filed a $20 million civil lawsuit over claims that the Archdiocese and the Vatican failed to protect them.
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