COSTA RICA
Tico Times
The Costa Rican Prosecutor’s Office last week announced criminal charges against a Guanacaste pastor on 22 counts of sexual abuse allegedly involving three adult victims and one minor.
The charges, made public last Wednesday, range over a six year period from 2007 to 2013. The suspect, identified as A. Gutiérrez, was an evangelical pastor at the Iglesia Dios del Evangelio Completo in Santa Cruz, in the northwestern province of Guanacaste.
According to the daily La Nación, the pastor’s defense attorney said his client denied all charges. A spokeswoman for the Prosecutor’s Office said Gutierréz could face up to 50 years in prison if found guilty on all counts.
La Nación reported the testimony of one of the alleged victims, a Nicaraguan man who said the relationship with Gutierréz began when he sought private counsel as a member of his congregation. The man alleged that Gutierréz touched his genitals in an act of blessing them 80 times, performed oral sex on him, and circumcised him with a pair of scissors.
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