El Paso jury finds ex-priest guilty in 1990’s child sex abuse case
A jury Monday evening convicted a former El Paso Catholic priest in a child sexual assault case that dates back to the 1990’s, when he was still an active priest.
Jurors in the trial of Miguel Luna, 68, deliberated for about five hours before returning a guilty verdict on all 12 counts he faced. Luna, who had been free, was immediately taken into custody in the courtroom after the verdict was read.
The sentencing phase of the trial was set to begin Tuesday morning, with Luna facing the possibility of a life prison sentence.
In closing arguments, prosecutors — just as they did in their opening statements — called Luna a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” saying he used God to manipulate his victim. But the defense sought to hammer away on what it said were discrepancies in the story told by Luna’s accuser.
The accuser, now a 36-year-old woman, testified he sexually abused her from age ten through her teen years, beginning when she was an altar server at Corpus Christi church. Luna vehemently denied those accusations on the witness stand in his own defense, proclaiming “No, never” multiple times when asked if he had ever raped or touched her inappropriately.
But perhaps the most salacious moment of the trial came when it was disclosed by prosecutors – and later confirmed by Luna himself — that he fathered a “secret baby” with a prostitute in Juarez while in the priesthood, and then used church money to pay for the child’s care.
Luna was a priest from 1982 until 2013 when the Catholic Diocese of El Paso removed him from the ministry. Bishop Mark Seitz testified during the trial that Luna admitted to sex assault when the church had first looked into the allegations.
Luna was sent in 1988 to the Shalom Center in Houston, a rehab facility for priests accused of sex crimes, but prosecutors contend the therapy clearly failed given this abuse case that spanned seven years during the 1990’s.
