Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Church Accused of Shuttling Abusive Priest

LOS ANGELES (CN) - The Catholic Church sent a child-molesting priest to Mexico instead of defrocking him, and has spent "many years ... engaging in the international trafficking of known child molesting priests," shuttling them between California and Latin America, a man claims in Superior Court.

The John Doe plaintiff claims that Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera molested "numerous children" as a priest in Mexico in 1986. When parents and police confronted him, Cardinal Noriberto Rivera Carrera helped Rivers escape from Mexico by transferring him to a Los Angeles church, according to the complaint.

There, Rivera "immediately ... began having altar boys and students from the parish school come to his rectory bedroom," the lawsuit states. When one of the children complained to a church employee, the church allegedly transferred Rivera a second time.

Rivera's actions at the first L.A. church caught up to him when several children he'd molested, including the then-10-year-old plaintiff, reported the abuse to their parents, the complaint states.

Doe claims that parents contacted the church, and that before calling police, Bishop Thomas Curry encouraged Rivera to flee Los Angeles. Police interviewed 26 children who claimed that Rivera had molested them during his 9 months at the church, according to the complaint.

Doe claims that Rivera continues to serve as a priest in Mexico. Doe is represented by Raymond Boucher with Kiesel Boucher Larson of Beverly Hills.

Follow @@karinapdx
Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...