A Roman Catholic priest was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday after being found guilty of felony sexual assault, according to local prosecutors and representatives of the 19th District Court in Waco, Texas.
On Friday, a jury found the priest, Anthony Odiong, guilty of one count of first-degree sexual assault and two counts of second-degree sexual assault. The same jury handed down his sentence on Tuesday.
A monthslong investigation in 2024 uncovered nine women who alleged that Father Odiong had sexually abused them while serving as their priest, according to Ryan Calvert, a prosecutor with the McLennan County district attorney’s office. One additional woman was discovered in 2025, he said.
DNA evidence presented by prosecutors before the trial showed that Father Odiong had almost certainly become the father of a child as a result of the abuse, according to the Waco Police Department.
During the investigation, Father Odiong, a native of Nigeria, was arrested in Florida in July 2024 while in possession of child pornography, Mr. Calvert said. However, he said, a “strategic legal decision” was made to indict Father Odiong that September only on the sexual assault charges, which are more serious.
On Tuesday, Father Odiong, 57, was sentenced to life in prison on the first-degree sexual assault charge and to two 20-year terms for the second-degree sexual assault charges. He was also fined $30,000.
“We are delighted with the jury’s verdict,” Mr. Calvert said on Tuesday. “It is a huge relief to have citizens willing to stand up and to hear victims of sexual abuse in any context, but particularly in this context when the victims’ faith was used as a weapon against them.”
Under Texas law, it is considered sexual assault if a clergy member engages in sexual activity with another person who is dependent on the clergy member emotionally as a “spiritual adviser.”
In such situations, consent is effectively impossible, according to Gerald R. Villarrial, a lawyer for Father Odiong. Mr. Villarrial, who had argued for Father Odiong to receive probation, called the jury’s decision “disappointing” and said his client would appeal.
In April 2024, Father Odiong denied the allegations against him, at least some of which had come to light in an investigation that February from The Guardian. In a Facebook post, he called them “false,” “salacious” and the product of a “one-sided smear campaign,” adding that he would “continue to faithfully serve God’s people in obedience to my bishop in Nigeria.”
Father Odiong served at St. Peter Catholic Student Center in Waco and at St. Mary’s Church of the Assumption in West, Texas, from 2007 to 2012, according to the Waco police. He also served in Luling, La., a suburb of New Orleans, from around 2015 to 2023.
One of Father Odiong’s victims, identified in court as Mary Doe, reached out to the police after the February report, which helped kick-start the authorities’ monthslong investigation, according to The Guardian.
Later, in court, she described the assaults she had endured at his hands. She had been violently raped, she said in a victim impact statement, according to The Guardian.
“They were soul murder,” she said.
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