UPDATE:: Court upholds priest's sex-abuse conviction involving orphans in Honduras_
A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the conviction of a former Somerset County priest who was found guilty in 2015 of traveling to Honduras to sexually abuse orphans and sentenced last year to more than 16 years in federal prison.
The Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio Jr., who at the time of his September 2014 arrest was the pastor at Our Lady Queen of Angels Parish in Central City, had asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to overturn his conviction.
We haven't heard the last of this horrid affair,,,
A Somerset County priest was found guilty Tuesday of sexually abusing three orphan boys during trips to Honduras between 2004 and 2009.Somerset County priest found guilty of molesting Honduran orphans | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
After an eight-day trial in U.S. District Court in Johnstown, Joseph D. Maurizio Jr., 70, suspended pastor at Our Lady Queen of Angels in Central City, was convicted of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places, possession of child pornography and international money laundering.
The jury acquitted him on a fourth sex count involving one of the victims as well as two other counts of transferring money to Honduras for illicit purposes.
U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson set sentencing for Feb. 2.
The Justice Department said the priest was known as the “money man” who used cash from a charity he created to fund trips to the ProNino orphanage in rural Honduras, where he paid boys with money and candy for sex acts.
Rev. Maurizio's lawyer, Steven Passarello, had argued that the prosecution failed to prove its case and pointed out that the FBI had examined the same facts in 2009 without taking action. It was the Department of Homeland Security that pursued the case, arresting Rev. Maurizio a year ago.
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