A Catholic priest who once worked in Maryland and Louisiana becomes pregnant with a teenage girl and lies in the process of acquiring US citizenship before being deported to his hometown of Columbia.
Monday, US Lawyers' Office for Western Louisiana 69-year-old Jorge Antonio Veres Lopez announced that he “changed naturally as a US citizen” after District Judge Dee Dorrell sentenced him to 12 months for passport fraud.
The Veles incident actually moved from Bogota, Colombia. Baltimore Archdiocese. Within a few years he began whispering that he had an inappropriate relationship with a teenage girl. According to 2023 Investigation report published by the Maryland Attorney General's Officehe was even caught naked in bed with a girl, but both denied it separately.
The complaints against Velez were not initially considered reliable. However, they ultimately “suggested questions about Father Veles' ability to serve effectively,” according to a 2010 letter identified in the AG report, which only identified as the official B, and the archdiocese stripped Beles of his ministerial “faculty.”
Veres was then transferred to the Parish of Alexandria, Louisiana. However, before he left Baltimore, the girl became pregnant with Velez's child. While in Louisiana, Veres signed an affidavit in recognition of him as the father of the child, and the child's birth certificate lists him as a father, the AG report said.
The victim alleged that her sexual relationship with Veles began when she was only 15 years old, the AG report said. Veles claimed it began in June 2005 at the age of 49, according to a press release from the US Lawyer's Office.
“We guarantee that justice is done.”
Meanwhile, in 2013, Veres took steps to become a naturalized citizen. In the process, he vowed under perjury punishment for his application, “he had never committed a crime that had not been arrested.” He also vowed that a press release from the U.S. Lawyer's Office never stated that “for immigration benefits…for immigration benefits…for immigration benefits” or “lied to US government officials.”
He later confirmed in an oral interview with immigration officers that he had never lied or given any misleading or misleading statements to secure citizenship, the press release said.
So in May 2013, Veles took the pledge of loyalty and became a US citizen. Four months later, he applied for his US passport and his certificate of citizenship. Again, Veles has vowed under perjury penalties that he has not submitted any false documents as part of his application.
By 2016, the victims had come forward and reported abuse by Veles. “When faced, Veles admitted that everything the victim said was true,” the AG report said.
That same year, the Parish of Alexandria issued a statute declaring it.”good– Sexual claims The misconduct of women with minors has been levelled against Veles, which means he was removed from his duties in two local parishes, his Hispanic outreach and ministerial work in federal prisons.
In 2020, Veres was arrested in Maryland and charged with five counts of three sex offences and one count of four sex offences. The following year he was temporarily liable for supervision and committed a crime of sexual abuse of a minor sentenced to 25 years, but was suspended for 16 years of his sentence and served for nine years.
Since then, Veres has been locked up at Jessup Correctional Facility in Maryland. He is also forced to register as a sex offender.
Veres will remain in the United States until he completes both his state-level sentences related to child sexual abuse and federal-level sentences for passport fraud. Once they're done, he's remanded to ice custody and deported to Colombia. It remains unclear whether he lied by the Catholic Church.
“The U.S. Department of Justice, ICE and other federal law enforcement partners will use all the tools in our arsenal to protect children and seek prosecution and deportation of those who have unauthorizedly acquired US citizenship.”
“This case sends a clear message to any type of sexual offence, especially those committed by a child during the naturalization process. It ensures that justice is done.”
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