Conroe police picked lock at Houston archdiocese to uncover priest child sex abuse records

By Nicole Hensley
HoustChronicle
May 16, 2019

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Conroe-police-picked-lock-at-Houston-archdiocese-13852411.php

Dallas police officials cart out boxes from a raid on the Catholic Diocese of Dallas on Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Dallas police officers on Wednesday morning raided several Dallas Catholic Diocese offices after a detective said church officials have not cooperated with investigations into sexual abuse by its past clergy members. Photo by Tom Fox

Authorities used a lock pick to open a “bank vault” containing a trove of clergy files that the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston failed to hand over following a subpoena, according to court documents.

The picking tool helped Conroe Police Department investigators access the documents last November during a raid at the church’s Houston headquarters, Detective Joe McGrew said while describing the church’s lack of cooperation with their criminal probe. The agency was looking for evidence in the case against indicted priest Manuel La Rosa-Lopez and other clergy members who may have committed a crime.

A Dallas investigator said he contacted the Conroe Police Department and Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office regarding their search warrants. A sworn statement states that McGrew told his North Texas counterpart, David Clark, that after issuing a subpoena, his agency later “learned the Diocese of Galveston-Houston did not turn over everything” involving the priest in their investigation.

The undisclosed files were in the locked vault, Clark wrote in a lengthy search warrant affidavit that the Dallas Police Department used on Wednesday to search the Diocese of Dallas.

“They had to pick the lock in order to enter into the vault,” Clark continued. “They found files involving the priest for whom they sought.”

The four search warrants that Conroe police used to access the chancery for the nation’s fifth largest diocese, a priest rehabilitation facility in Splendora and two churches in Richmond and Conroe resulted in the collection of about 16,000 documents, Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon said last week.

The archdiocese declined to comment on the Dallas search warrant and McGrew did not return a call requesting comment.

The sworn statement does not identify La Rosa-Lopez as the priest, but Ligon said at the time of the Nov. 28 search that more than 60 law enforcement officials were looking for employment and disciplinary records related to the priest and his time at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe. Any evidence of additional victims or accused priests from outside Montgomery County would be handed to the Texas Rangers, he said.

The obstacles were not isolated to Houston, Clark revealed in his affidavit.

Law enforcement agencies in Maryland and New Mexico described similar attempts by local dioceses to stonewall their investigations.

A state investigator said a box containing “victim information relevant to their search warrant” was found stashed in a random closet at the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in New Mexico. In Maryland, the attorney general’s office found that the church had supplied an insurance company with details about sexual abuse allegations in claimant files, according to the sworn statement.

In Dallas, Clark said he was denied the files of priests who were flagged for possible child sex abuse. For the files he did receive, most were missing pertinent records about allegations, he said.

Clark also noted that Bishop Edward Burns declined to identify six former law enforcement officials whom the church hired to review more than 2,400 personnel documents. Clark was told the team was initially hired in February 2018 to look for financial mismanagement, rather than abusive priests.

Last year, a Dallas diocese spokeswoman said that a former FBI agent and state trooper were among the team. At the time, Burns characterized the group as being in high demand, without elaborating.

The search warrant in Dallas was used to find evidence involving five priests: Edmundo Paredes, Richard Brown, Alejandro Buitrago, William Hughes Jr. and Jeremy Myers. Authorities targeted their search at the diocese headquarters, parish offices at St. Cecilia Catholic Church and a storage warehouse believed to have contained files.

The priest at the heart of the Conroe investigation, La Rosa-Lopez, was indicted earlier this month on two counts of indecency with a child. The charges stem from allegations that he molested two young parishioners at the Conroe church. A grand jury has yet to meet on the remaining two charges.