NJ Priest Fled Country After Raping Teen: He ‘Wanted’ It

A Catholic priest admits to having sex with a 15-year old parishioner then fleeing the country. Now, his victim is suing the church.

In 2003 a 15-year old boy went into the confession booth at his Catholic church, telling the priest he was confused about his sexuality. A few weeks later, according to his victim, Rev. Manuel Gallo Espinoza raped him in a bedroom of the rectory at St. Mary’s Church in Plainfield, New Jersey, as NJ.com details in an exclusive report.

“I saw him as a priest, and that’s it,” the victim told NJ.com. “I didn’t even know who was in the confessional when I went in there.”

In a separate account, the victim told NJ.com the details of the attack.

“Don’t worry,” the victim said Espinoza told him. “This is what God wants.”

He says he was in the rectory and asked Espinoza to drive him home because it was late and he was tired, but Espinoza told him to stay in one of the church bedrooms.

“I just felt something very heavy on top of me,” he said. “It hurt. I was in pain. My eyes popped open, and he had his whole body on top of me. He started touching me and kissing me. I was shaking. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t talk.” 

NJ.com has received permission from the victim to publish his name but NCRM will not at this point.

Rev. Espinoza, who has been suspended from the priesthood but says he quit, “deflected blame for the incident by saying the teen ‘wanted’ it and had ‘evil in his mind,'” NJ.com reports.

Espinoza also called this actions a “mistake,” and said shortly thereafter he fled the U.S. and retuned to his home country, Ecuador,  after the rape was reported to a nun.

“One thing that I am conscious (of) is he was at that time a teenager, and it is a big mistake for me. But I didn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want,” Gallo Espinoza wrote in a lengthy letter. “He was older (sic) enough to walk away, but I think that I was attracted to him, that is the only explanation that I can think right now.”

“He had something evil in his mind. He approached me many times,” Espinoza claimed.

Via email to NJ.com Espinoza was asked if he knew having sex with a minor is a crime. He wrote, “I just came fr (sic) my country and really in Ecuador a person at 15 years old is not consider (sic) so innocent.”

Espinoza adds that after his victim’s family contacted the church, the head of the church’s youth group and the victim’s godfather, who is now a priest, told him to leave the country.

“They said, ‘You’re going to get in big trouble. You better leave. … God prays for you. Go back to your country.'”

Authorities may try to extradite Espinoza back to the U.S. He is the subject of an investigation by the the Union County Prosecutor’s Office.

 

Image by Jerry Worster via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: Raw Story