A state criminal court jury in Waco, Texas, has sentenced Anthony Odiong, a 57-year-old Nigerian-born Roman Catholic priest, to life imprisonment after convicting him of first-degree and second-degree criminal clerical sexual assault for illegally exploiting his spiritual authority as a clergyman to pursue years-long sexual relationships with devout female parishioners, compel a victim to yield to intercourse with another man to which she did not consent, and engage in a pattern of sexual predation spanning more than a decade across multiple states and church assignments.
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Odiong, who was ordained in Nigeria in 1993 and later became a naturalised United States citizen, received the life sentence on June 2, 2026, following a two-day sentencing hearing that began on June 1 at a state courthouse in Waco. He was also sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment on each of two second-degree sexual assault charges, to be served concurrently with the life sentence. Jurors imposed fines of $10,000 on each of the three charges. Odiong will be eligible for parole after 30 years.
The conviction and sentence followed a four-day trial in which the same jury determined that Odiong was guilty of exploiting his position as a spiritual director to sexually assault two women identified in court proceedings as Mary Doe and Jane Doe. The jury rejected the defence’s argument that Odiong’s actions constituted consensual dating relationships pursued in his personal time rather than criminal exploitation of his clerical authority.
Odiong’s attorney, Gerald Villarial, told media he would seek an appeal. Odiong had previously rejected at least one plea offer of 20 years’ imprisonment in exchange for a guilty plea.
The emotional weight of the case was captured in victim impact statements read in court during the sentencing phase.
Mary Doe, who initiated the criminal case, read a statement in which she described Odiong’s crimes as “violent, unsolicited, non-consensual rape” and characterised them as “soul murder.”
“I pray that you never weary in the sad pursuit of guardians who abuse those whom they have a responsibility to guard,” Mary Doe stated.
In a statement read by prosecutor Liz Buice, Jane Doe said: “I am not looking for vengeance. I am not here because I want Odiong to suffer. I am here because what he did has a name, and that name needs to be spoken: soul stealing. What was stolen cannot be given back.”
“Here, what he did cannot be buried, softened or reframed as a private matter. What he did was a crime against personhood,” Jane Doe’s statement continued.
In a post-sentencing news release, Mary Doe and her attorney Paul Manigrasso expressed relief that “Odiong will never be in a position to use the confessional as his personal deer stand again.”
The prosecution established that Odiong spent approximately 17 years beginning in 2006 ministering in a region including Waco, Texas, and serving as the pastor of St Anthony of Padua Catholic church in Luling, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans. Throughout this period, he used his position as a priest providing spiritual direction, a form of religious counselling in which believers entrust their deepest spiritual and personal struggles to a cleric, to identify, groom, and sexually exploit vulnerable women.
Under Texas law, sexual conduct by a clergyman who exploits his spiritual authority over a congregant constitutes felony sexual assault, regardless of whether the victim appears to have consented, because the law recognises that the power imbalance inherent in the clergy-congregant relationship renders genuine consent impossible.
Mary Doe told authorities that Odiong fostered a sexual relationship with her in Waco from 2008 to 2011 while providing her with spiritual direction. The relationship was characterised by Odiong’s exploitation of his clerical authority and the trust that Mary Doe placed in him as her spiritual guide.
Jane Doe’s case involved a different but equally disturbing form of exploitation. She maintained that Odiong, while serving as her spiritual director in Waco in 2010, compelled her to permit her then-husband to engage in a form of intercourse she found painfully distressing, presenting it as a desperate measure to save her marriage, and then required her to convey details about the encounter to him. Prosecutors argued that these actions, indirect though they were, qualified as sexual assault by Odiong under Texas law given his position in Jane Doe’s life as her spiritual director.
The trial and sentencing hearing revealed that Odiong’s sexual exploitation of women under his spiritual care was not limited to Mary and Jane Doe but formed a pattern stretching across years and multiple church assignments.
Two women who were students at Waco’s Baylor University while Odiong served as a priest at a nearby campus ministry testified during the sentencing phase that he touched them inappropriately while acting in his capacity as a priest.
The first, a woman who had previously spoken to the Guardian newspaper for its February 2024 investigative report, testified that after a confession, Odiong touched her leg and gave her a “bear hug” during which she could feel his erection. She said Odiong would not let her leave the office, caressed her arms, and breathed sensually.
The second Baylor student testified that Odiong had nibbled her ear while giving her a hug on one occasion and lifted her from the ground by her buttocks on another. She also testified that Odiong would share intimate details about other people in the community, details he could only have learned through the sacred seal of confession or confidential counselling.
A third woman, from Odiong’s Luling congregation, testified that Odiong had counselled her husband as he was dying from a long-term illness and then made sexual advances within months of her being widowed. She recounted that after her husband’s death, she travelled with Odiong and other Catholics to Medjugorje, a pilgrimage site in Bosnia. One evening, while she was crying and discussing her future without her husband, Odiong pulled her face to his and kissed her on the lips. When she pulled back, he pulled her in for another kiss.
In a separate incident just days before Odiong’s arrest, the same woman and a friend were staying at his home in Florida. She testified that she was startled awake in the middle of the night to find Odiong standing next to her bed. When she woke, Odiong threw the covers over her body and ran from the room.
Most damaging of all, prosecutors established that one woman who began receiving spiritual direction from Odiong after meeting him at the Luling church had a child with him in the spring of 2023, proving that his sexual exploitation of congregants continued until virtually the moment of his removal from ministry.
During the sentencing phase, a therapist who had evaluated Odiong testified on his behalf and told the court the clergyman would be a suitable candidate for probation. However, on cross-examination, the therapist revealed that Odiong had lied to her about having any child, a falsehood directly contradicted by the evidence that he had fathered a daughter with a parishioner in 2023.
Under further questioning, the therapist disclosed that Odiong had acknowledged having sex with a congregant in 2008, the year he met Mary Doe, and that the details of Jane Doe’s complaint against him were true.
The revelation that Odiong lied to the very professional whose evaluation was supposed to support his case for leniency may have been a significant factor in the jury’s decision to impose a life sentence rather than probation.
Odiong’s defence team called several former parishioners as character witnesses during the sentencing phase, but their testimony often proved more damaging than helpful under cross-examination.
One man, a Nashville, Tennessee, resident who said he met Odiong at the Luling church while struggling with alcohol and drug addiction, testified that he had been “possessed by demons” and that Odiong performed an exorcism on him, saving his life. He described Odiong as a caring and compassionate faith leader.
However, when questioned by lead prosecutor Ryan Calvert, the same man admitted he did not doubt that Odiong had sex with his parishioners, including fathering a daughter with one.
“I think that it’s very understandable if he has had intimate relationships with women because he is a human being,” the man stated, before alluding to a past remark by the late conservative political activist Charlie Kirk: “You play certain games, you win certain prizes, if you’re gonna go have sex.”
The man also pledged to financially support Odiong’s child and her mother, inadvertently reinforcing the prosecution’s case that the priest’s sexual relationships with congregants were well known within his circle.
The criminal case against Odiong was initiated after Mary Doe saw an investigative report published by the Guardian newspaper in February 2024. That report detailed the experiences of a group of women, including Jane Doe, who had accused Odiong of sexual coercion, unwanted touching, and abusive financial control after meeting him in his role as a priest.
Mary Doe, who had not been interviewed for the Guardian article, took a copy of the report to Waco police and told them that Odiong had also fostered a sexual relationship with her in their jurisdiction from 2008 to 2011 while providing her with spiritual direction. Her complaint triggered the investigation that led to Odiong’s arrest, prosecution, and conviction.
Lead detective Bradley DeLange told the Waco news outlet KCEN that the Guardian reporting “provided a road map of sorts” for the investigation into Odiong.
Investigators secured corroboration from multiple additional Odiong complainants to meet the legal standard of probable cause to charge him with assaulting Mary and Jane Doe, regardless of how long ago the reported crimes had occurred.
The case has raised serious questions about how the Catholic hierarchy handled Odiong across multiple church jurisdictions over many years.
Church officials who supervised Odiong while he was in Texas have said they suspended him from ministering in and around Waco no later than 2019 because of accumulated clerical misconduct complaints, and that they informed their New Orleans counterparts of the decision.
However, evidence presented during the sentencing hearing suggested that Odiong may have been banned from ministering in the Waco area as early as 2018. Prosecutor Buice asked a secretary of a church near Waco, called as one of Odiong’s character witnesses, whether she knew the priest had been suspended from local ministry in 2018. The secretary confirmed she did. Yet other testimony established that Odiong was performing masses as a priest in and around Waco beyond that date, suggesting the suspension was either not effectively enforced or was disregarded.
One of the former Baylor students testified that she had alerted the local diocese twice about Odiong’s conduct. The first time, she contacted the bishop’s office directly but heard little in response. She reported the incident a second time in 2019 through a reporting system designed for accusations of clerical molestation involving children because there was no equivalent online option for adult clergy abuse.
Despite being notified of Odiong’s suspension from Texas ministry, New Orleans church officials waited at least four, and possibly five, additional years before similarly suspending him. In late 2023, leaders of the New Orleans archdiocese confirmed to the Guardian and local reporting partner WWL Louisiana that they had finally removed Odiong from his role as pastor of St Anthony of Padua over clerical misconduct with multiple women. He had also come under scrutiny for making homophobic comments from his Luling pulpit around the same time.
In their post-sentencing statement, Mary Doe and her attorney Manigrasso warned that “the power structures that allowed a worm like Odiong to flourish for so long still exist, insulated from the ramifications of both their actions and inaction. Their victims, past, present and future, still cry to heaven for vengeance and justice.”
The sentencing hearing also revealed the extent of Odiong’s support network and resources even while incarcerated. An auditor at the Waco jail testified that Odiong had spent more than $24,000 on telephone calls at the facility since his July 2024 arrest.
Supporters of the priest had testified that they were willing and able to contribute up to $25,000 to cover his bond, which was ultimately set at more than $5 million, keeping him in custody for the duration of the court proceedings.
At a bond hearing in late 2024, Detective DeLange had testified that supporters of the priest were helping him build a luxurious home in Nigeria.
In the immediate aftermath of the sentencing, St Anthony of Padua church in Luling initially published a parochial bulletin that conspicuously included Odiong by name in a list of prayer intentions for upcoming masses. A spokesperson for the New Orleans archdiocese explained that a parishioner had requested Odiong’s inclusion because Catholics are called upon to pray for “those who have turned away from God to turn back towards His mercy.”
When asked about the prayer intention, Mary and Jane Doe observed there was no corresponding one for the healing of his victims. Jane Doe stated that the intention made clear to her that “a lot of people have yet to reckon with the fact” that Odiong had “used the love and trust of communities.”
Mary Doe said praying for “Odiong’s soul” was a right and just purpose but that so was praying for his victims.
St Anthony subsequently removed the original bulletin from its website and published an updated version replacing Odiong’s name with “Special Intention and Victims of Clergy Abuse.”
The New Orleans archdiocese stated that Archbishop James Checchio, who has led the archdiocese since February, had “instructed” St Anthony’s pastor to include “all who were hurt by Odiong’s actions” in the church’s prayers. The archdiocese added: “What Odiong is convicted of is reprehensible, and we are disgusted by the behavior revealed in trial.”
The Bishop of Austin, Daniel Garcia, whose diocese includes Waco, stated that his prayers “focus on the victims, their families, law enforcement, investigators and the community” affected by Odiong’s conduct. “I pray that this process has brought them some peace. The longer process of healing continues,” Garcia stated.
The New Orleans archdiocese itself had agreed in December to pay $305 million to hundreds of survivors of the Catholic church’s decades-old clergy abuse scandal.
Odiong was ordained into the Catholic priesthood in Nigeria in 1993. He developed a following in the United States in part by holding prayer services after which some attendees reported healing from significant ailments. He became a naturalised American citizen and built a ministry that spanned Texas and Louisiana over nearly two decades.
His conviction and life sentence represent one of the most significant criminal accountability outcomes in the ongoing global clergy abuse crisis, demonstrating that the sexual exploitation of vulnerable adults by clergy can be prosecuted as a serious felony when the legal framework recognises the power imbalance inherent in the clerical relationship.
The life sentence also carries a message that lead prosecutor Calvert explicitly articulated during his closing argument: he told jurors he hoped the punishment caught the attention of the Catholic church’s global leaders at the Vatican, and that it eliminated the possibility that Odiong could ever reach new victims or his old ones.
Odiong did not testify in his own defence at either the trial or the sentencing phase. He remains in custody at the Waco jail pending the processing of his sentence. His attorney has indicated he will appeal.
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