AURORA (IL)
Aurora Beacon-News / Chicago Tribune
October 7, 2017
By Hannah Leone
[See the entry for Pedraza-Arias in BishopAccountability.org’s database of accused priests.]
New disclosures are raising questions in the case of an Aurora priest charged with sex abuse whose trial has been repeatedly delayed while he faces deportation.
“I know the state wants to keep this trial on the calendar,” Kane County Circuit Judge Linda Abrahamson said Friday. “But this recent disclosure is like an atomic bomb.”
Alfredo Pedraza-Arias, 51, has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, which allege that he sexually abused two girls at Aurora’s Sacred Heart Church between 2012 and 2014, when both girls were younger than six. He appeared in custody in the courtroom Friday, along with his attorney, David Camic; Assistant State’s Attorney Reagan Pittman; a representative from the Rockford Diocese; and a Spanish translator.
Abrahamson said the trial, slated for November, may be affected by whether lawyers have access to a man who investigated the case for the Kane County Child Advocacy Center.
New material disclosed last week includes notes about interviews the investigator conducted that weren’t turned in when they should have been, Camic said.
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