Former Aurora priest fighting expert testimony in sex abuse case

ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Harry Hitzeman

A 50-year-old former Aurora priest accused of sexual abuse plans to fight prosecutors’ attempts to have child abuse experts testify at a future trial that “inconclusive exams and/or cultures do not disprove abuse.”

Alfredo Pedraza-Arias of Rockford was arrested in early 2016 on charges he sexually abused two girls younger than 13 — one at her Aurora home and another in an office at Sacred Heart Church in Aurora — between January 2009 and November 2014.

Defense attorney David Camic is seeking any and all possible emails that were sent between police and investigators and four proposed experts.

“If the police and experts communicated, we need to know about it,” he said. “It’s a statement of witnesses in the case.”

Camic also expressed skepticism of testimony from four experts who, according to court records, would testify as to “how inconclusive exams and/or cultures do not disprove abuse.”

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