CALIFORNIA
Sacramento Bee
Severely admonished by the girl he molested and the parents who turned him in, Rev. Uriel Ojeda apologized to them at his sentencing today.
He also said he was sorry to officials in the Catholic Church, all priests and to the supporters who backed him from the day of his arrest, saying, “My actions were of a weak and sinful man.”
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Eugene L. Balonon then sentenced Ojeda, 33, to eight years in state prison, on the priest’s no-contest plea deal entered last month to charges that he molested the girl who was 13 when he was a priest at Holy Rosary Parish in Woodland.
“You traumatized me,” the girl told him in a letter that was read to the court by the prosecutor.
Dressed in jailhouse orange in front of a courtroom that was packed nearly to capacity with his supporters, Ojeda said, “I am sorry” and “I ask forgiveness.” Soon to be laicized by the Vatican, Ojeda said, “I’d like to, as a final act as priest, to apologize to all priests who serve faithfully before God, for bringing shame to the priesthood.”
“I have committed a crime and a serious sin,” Ojeda told the judge. “I would like to ask everybody for forgiveness and that they do find mercy for me.”
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