A Priest Gets 99 Years for Abusing Women in His Care

What Happened

A jury in Texas sentenced Catholic priest Anthony Odiong to 99 years in prison on June 2, 2026. The 57-year-old priest was found guilty on May 29, 2026, of sexually assaulting three women. At his age, a 99-year sentence means he will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.

Odiong was a priest from a Catholic diocese in Nigeria, but he worked in the United States for years. During his time in the U.S., prosecutors said he used his position as a priest to control the women he harmed. He told them to trust him as their spiritual leader — then abused that trust.

Where He Worked

Odiong worked at two main places in America. From 2007 to 2012, he was a chaplain at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. His job was to provide spiritual guidance to students. Then he moved to a parish in Luling, Louisiana, where he worked from 2015 to 2023 — almost eight years.

The Louisiana job is especially important to understanding what prosecutors said he did. Court records show that one of the women he harmed became pregnant with his child. She was supposed to be receiving spiritual guidance from him — a confidential counseling relationship where the person asking for help is meant to trust the priest completely. Prosecutors argued this made the abuse even more serious. He wasn't just breaking the law; he was violating a sacred relationship of trust.

The Florida Arrest

Before the Texas trial started, Odiong was arrested in Florida in July 2024 on charges related to child pornography. At that time, he was living near a Catholic university in southwest Florida and looking for another job working with students. This arrest is what led investigators to uncover the assault charges in Texas.

What's striking about this timeline: Even after he was removed from his Louisiana parish in 2023, he was still able to move to Florida and apply for work at another university. This raises questions about how thoroughly Catholic institutions check the backgrounds of priests, especially those from other countries.

How He Used His Authority

The prosecutors' argument was straightforward but serious. They didn't just say Odiong committed assault; they said his job as a priest was the tool he used to commit the crime. The confessional, the counseling room, the collar — all the authority that comes with being a priest — allowed him to get close to victims and control them.

This approach has become more common in recent years. Prosecutors now see clerical abuse not as something that happens to occasionally occur to priests, but as something where the position itself becomes the weapon. The 99-year sentence reflects this: Texas law allows judges and juries to add extra time when someone in power abuses that power to commit crimes.

The International Dimension

Here's a broader problem this case raises. Odiong came from the Diocese of Uyo, located in Nigeria. The Catholic Church sometimes sends priests from dioceses in other countries to work in American parishes, especially when the U.S. has a shortage of priests.

Under church law, even when a priest works abroad, his home bishop is still responsible for him. But this can create gaps. When a priest moves between different U.S. dioceses — or between the U.S. and his home country — information about past problems doesn't always follow him. American dioceses requesting foreign priests don't always get complete background information. Home dioceses don't always tell American churches about concerns.

This isn't new. A major investigation in Pennsylvania in 2018 found that priests who moved between dioceses were a big problem precisely because nobody was keeping track of them properly. Adding an international border makes that problem worse.

What Happens Next

The 99-year sentence closes the Texas case. But Odiong still faces the separate charges from Florida related to child pornography. That case could bring additional prison time.

The Vatican and American Catholic dioceses are currently revising their rules for how to check the backgrounds of priests assigned from other countries. The facts in Odiong's case — a priest who worked in two states over fifteen years, fathered a child with someone he was counseling, was arrested on pornography charges while seeking work at another university, and was convicted of multiple assaults — show exactly why those new rules are needed.

The women who reported him and testified in court now have a guilty verdict and a life sentence. Whether the Louisiana diocese or the Vatican take further action through their own religious processes remains unclear.