SNAP Mexico City challenge unique: find protection and safe haven for victims before going to the police

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By Kay Ebeling

“To accuse a priest in Mexico is like going to the White House and saying I’m going to kill the president.”-- Eric Barragan.

Among pedophile priests who’ve evaded prosecution in the US by running to Mexico: Nicolas Aguilar, Gerardo Beltran, Jesus Armando Dominguez, a Salesian whose cases are set for jury trial in LA August 2008, Jose Luis Urbina, Xavier Ochoa, and Fidencio Simon Silva, who is discussed at the end of the first video in the top row above. (We found 10 short videos about pedophile priests and linked them here at the top of City of Angels Blog, for your weekend viewing.)

“There's more than a hundred priests accused of molesting kids who fled from the US to Mexico,” said Eric Barragan who since July of 2007 has run an office of SNAP* in Mexico City. Barragan founded the branch with money from a settlement with the LA Archdiocese in Fall of 2006. He’s already working with 15 families there.

Priests wanted for sex crimes in the US today work in Mexico in orphanages, schools, hospitals, as psychologists, as teachers. “Also they have churches in provincia,” he added, “which means out in the boonies, where there’s no TV, no radio, where people don’t have access to information about who’s working in their community.”

HALFWAY HOUSES
Unlike SNAP’s US approach to opening new regions with press conferences and leafleting, in Mexico the first job is to get victims and families into halfway houses.

“Society down there is so Catholic,” said Barragan. “A lot of times when someone denounces the perps, they get threatened, thrown out of their homes, thrown out of their jobs, thrown out of their communities.”

The street location of SNAP Mexico City has to be kept secret.

“It’s really a Catch 22 with the work we're doing down there,” Barragan said, “because we want to help the victims, but then they have even more damage done to them by the community and the society.

“A lot of them are really scared. We have to work with the victims, make sure they have enough strength and courage.

“We have to create a lot of halfway houses.

“We're working right now with offices of the state and federal government in Mexico to provide support so that when survivors do go to the police, they have somewhere to go and they have money to live on.

“Because again, they're losing their homes, they're losing their jobs, and they're getting kicked out of the communities.”

“To accuse a priest in Mexico is like going to the White House and saying I’m going to kill the president,” Barragan said. “The priest is not only the god of the community, but he is mayor, he is sheriff. He is the priest, the courts, and he is the do all and say all, whatever he says goes.”

As we stand outside LA Cathedral talking, the bells start to toll.

“They do that down there all the time,” Barragan said.

“Whenever we have a press conference outside the cathedral they start ringing the bells,” he says and laughs.

More on priests hiding out in Mexico after this:

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Cardinal Norberta Rivera, the Roger Mahony / George W Bush of Mexico

Barragan and his colleagues in Mexico are following the case in LA where Cardinal Norberto Rivero of Mexico, the most powerful bishop hence most powerful man in Latin America, and LA’s own Roger Mahony conspired to protect pedophile priest, Nicolas Aguilar.

Nicolas Aguilar abused 80 kids in Mexico, was moved to LA, abused 24 kids in LA, then was transferred back to Mexico, where he was charged with forcing four more children to have sex with him.

The charges in Mexico did not stick.

“We're working with some of those victims now,” Barragan said.

To Call SNAP Mexico City: Call 55 1993 3678

The web page for SNAP Mexico is snapmexico.org but it is still in production.
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PRIESTS ON THE LAM IN MEXICO

JESUS ARMANDO DOMINGUEZ
Likely fled to Mexico right before Riverside County prosecutors charged him in January 2005 with 58 counts of unlawful oral copulation, sexual penetration and sodomy. A conviction on all charges could carry a prison sentence of 43 years.

Civil cases regarding the former Salesian Dominguez were set to take place in January 2008, but when Judge Haley Fromholz retired late last year, the Salesian jury trials moved to Dept. 308, Central Civil West Courthouse, 600 South Commonwealth Ave., Los Angeles, Judge Emilie H. Elias.

The Dominguez Jury Trial is now on calendar for August 25, 2008. (we’ll see. . .)
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JOSE LUIS URBINA
Has served as a priest in his hometown parish in Navojoa, Mexico, for more than a decade.

While in the Sacramento diocese, Urbina molested a boy over a period of several years. In one episode, he pointed a gun at the boy before raping him. Urbina admitted guilt and was convicted of sex molest of a minor in 1989.

Urbina left the country before sentencing.
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NICOLAS AGUILAR
According to: Houston Chronicle
Nicolas Aguilar is believed to be hiding out in his native Puebla state, where witnesses say he surfaces occasionally to officiate Mass and sell religious music outside churches.

In 1997, he was charged with sexually abusing four boys in the state, according to Mexican news reports.

Aguilar was convicted on one count in 2004, but the Mexican judge waived the sentence, citing the statute of limitations.

In Mexico the statute of limitations on sex crime charges expires in some cases after a year.

In 1987, got a fresh start in Southern California, after he developed problems in his home parishes in Mexico. Nine months later, he was back in Mexico again. He left behind a reputation as one of the fastest pedophiles in LA Archdiocese.

In California, police say Aguilar molested at least 26 boys. There were more matters was pending in Mexico, even after his conviction in 2003.

Cardinal Rivera famously wrote to Cardinal Mahony in a letter dated March 17, 1988. "I can tell you that the (Fr. Aguilar ) was in San Sebastian Cuacnopalan parish for over 10 years, and surely the police there can find much information."

From: The Dallas Morning News, June 22, 2004

By 1997, Father Aguilar was back in his home Diocese of Tehuacan, working on the outskirts of town. His base was the chapel of San Vicente Ferrer, a spare, concrete building in San Nicolas Tolentino Parish.

One day, a 12-year-old boy who'd become active in the parish ran away. His frantic parents found him at a relative's house 75 miles away, where he'd gone by bus with a 14-year-old friend.

The son told his father why he ran: Father Aguilar had been molesting him for months, according to the boy's statement to police. Soon, his friend and two other boys said Father Aguilar had abused them, too.
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GERARDO BELTRAN
Disappeared in 1991 after Sacramento police began investigating allegations that he molested two young girls. Beltran was known to be serving as a priest in a remote region of southern Mexico as of March 2005.

A CBS 13 (Sacramento) investigation revealed that Beltran has been hiding out in the tiny village of Igualita, Mexico for more than a dozen years.

The people of Igualita told CBS 13 numerous stories of how they believe Gerardo Beltran continues to molest children there.

Their investigation also revealed that 15 years after filing charges against Beltran the Sacramento county district attorney's office, headed by Jan Scully, has still not filed the necessary paperwork with federal authorities to have Beltran arrested by Mexican police and extradited back to the United States.

FROM the CBS 13 Website:

One week before we flew to Mexico, A CBS 13 producer placed a phone call to Igualita Mexico and personally spoke to Beltran. Beltran's name is engraved on the front of the only church in Igualita. More than a dozen people who live in Igualita confirmed to us, on-camera and off-camera, that Beltran has been living there and saying mass there for more than a dozen years.

Scully also writes none of statements about Beltran's alleged conduct in the village of Iqualita, Mexico made by the people of that village appear to be reliable. Margarito Leon Merino chief of police in Igualita told us that not only is Beltran suspected by many in Igualita of molesting children there for years, but that villagers were so concerned they tried to meet with their bishop to have Beltran removed from their village, but the bishop refused to meet with them.

Then there's Juan Leon Aviles, the Assistant Police Chief who told us that he and others in Igualita believe Beltran impregnated his daughter when she was 17-years-old.
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FIDENCIO SIMON SILVA
Accused of abuse of boys from 1979-1985. Criminal charges dropped due to Supreme Court ruling in 2003.

Believed to be in Mexico.

He molested at least 15 persons at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Oxnard from 1977 to 1992.

15 plaintiffs in the recent LA cases had claims against him from that Oxnard parish from 1977 to 1992.

June 30th 1993 Silva was assigned tto Hispanic Young Adult Ministry in the Archdiocese's Office of Hispanic Ministry, residing in Long Beach.. . .
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XAVIER OCHOA
Sonoma County district attorney's office prepared a criminal complaint and requested an arrest warrant for Sonoma priest, Francisco Xavier Ochoa

He was charged with committing lewd acts against three underage boys.

Ochoa, 67, is believed to be in Mexico.

The complaint alleges 10 felony offenses and one misdemeanor offense, including forcible sodomy and forcible oral copulation, against three alleged victims between 1988 and the present.

Sonoma County District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua said Ochoa faces life in prison if convicted of the offenses against two or more victims.

Ochoa admitted the most recent alleged sexual assault at a meeting with Santa Rosa Diocese Bishop Daniel Walsh and other priests on April 28 and Ochoa was relieved of his duties, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department. Ochoa then left for Mexico and arrived by May 4.

From: CBS 5 [Santa Rosa CA]
June 22, 2006

Onward. . .

*SNAP is Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests