A Colombian priest is among the clergies who escaped U.S. justice despite child abuse allegations, a 10,000-page document, declassified by the church on Monday, showed.
One of the names in the document that was not known to the public before is that of Father Luis Eugene de Francisco, a Cali-born Colombian who served in San Diego in the early 1960s where he allegedly abused children.
According to the Associated Press, Francisco was arrested in 1963 for “violation of the State Penal Code,” but the church arranged for Francisco to avoid penalty so long as he went to Colombia and never returned to the U.S.
Before arriving in San Diego, de Francisco worked in Florida and Texas. Following his dismissal, he returned to Colombia where he died 20 years ago.
Terry McKiernan from AccountAbility.org , a website devoted to uncovering abuse cases by church clergies, told the Associated Press that Monday’s document is the largest release of church records in the U.S. Lawyers are still working on the release of another 2,000 pages.