Priest Sentenced To 4 Years In Jail For Molesting 9-Year-Old Girl

oge okonkwo

November 13, 2014 1:02 PM

Father O'Reilly, who over the years befriended many powerful conservative businessmen and politicians in Chile, will not be confined at home nor be required to periodically check in with a parole officer

Father John O'Reilly, who moved to Chile from Ireland in 1985 was also given a day of "supervised liberty" by the judge, after he was declared guilty of abusing the girl between 2007 and 2009.

Reports say the abuse took place at the private Colegio Cumbres in the affluent neighbourhood of Las Condes in Santiago.

But father O'Reilly, who over the years befriended many powerful conservative businessmen and politicians in Chile, will not be confined at home nor be required to periodically check in with a parole officer.

He will also be free to travel out of the country.

According to Ireland local newspaper, he will have to attend semi-regular rehabilitation therapy sessions, and his name will be appear on a national pedophile registry intended to keep him from working with children.

Prosecutors had requested that he be sent to prison for ten years.

The school where the abuse took place is part of the network of the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative religious order whose founder, Mexican Father Marcial Maciel, was found by a Vatican investigation to be a fraud and paedophile who had fathered several children.

"This was not an easy case. It has special connotations, at a particular school and involving a person who's not just anybody," prosecutor Lorena Parra told journalists as she left the courthouse, praising the decision to bar O'Reilly from working with children.

Defence lawyer Luis Hermosilla said he and his client would decide whether to appeal in the next ten days.

The court found O'Reilly had sexually abused the now nine-year-old student at the school in eastern Santiago between March and December 2010 and March and July 2012.

He was also accused of molesting the girl's older sister, but the court found insufficient evidence to support the charge.

O'Reilly was previously one of the most highly regarded priests in Chile, which granted him citizenship in 2008.

oge okonkwo