Police search Conroe, TX church after ex-priest accused of sexual assault
CONROE, Texas - Conroe police and investigators with the Montgomery County district attorney's office searched the Sacred Heart Catholic Church Monday after a former priest there was accused of sexual assault.
Manuel La Rosa-Lopez is charged with sexually abusing two parishioners when they were teenagers at Sacred Heart.
Investigators Monday obtained documents related to his time at the Conroe church during the early 1990s to the early 2000s.
“To us, it’s important for the community to know that we’re going to follow this case wherever it goes,” said Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon.
Ligon said authorities are trying to unravel a pattern of behavior.
“It’s important to look at employment records, to look at all potential complaint history to see if not only can we corroborate the things that the victims say…but also to see if there other complaints about them, in regards to this particular priest," he said.
Officials said Sacred Heart and St. Fisher Church in Richmond where Rosa-Lopez is currently a priest are cooperating with the investigation.
On Monday, the archdiocese revealed where Lopez was between 2001, the year the 16-year-old came forward about the alleged abuse, and 2004, when Lopez was reassigned to his most recent church in Richmond.
The archdiocese says Lopez was in "residential treatment," although details as to what that means and where it took place weren’t provided. He was then assigned to administrative work at the Chancery until 2004.
The district attorney is urging other possible victims or witnesses to come forward.
Both alleged victims who recently came forward said they were inspired after seeing news coverage of the church scandal in Pennsylvania.
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