LOS ANGELES (CA)
Palm Springs Desert Sun
November 1, 2018
By Christopher Damien
Two brothers claim in a civil suit that Carlos Rene Rodriguez, a former Roman Catholic priest who spent time in prison from 2004 to 2008 for child sexual assault, abused them as children in the early 1990s, while he was ministering at churches in Riverside.
The lawsuit includes documents that show the church had already known Rodriguez had a past of sexual abuse. Church leaders had sent Rodriguez to a treatment center for troubled priests and stripped Rodriguez of his religious order. The lawsuit also accuses Rodriguez of violating church orders not to minister, due to his previous sexual abuse.
The lawsuit comes just three weeks after Bishop Gerald Barnes’ Oct. 8 release of a list of credible child sexual abuse claims against priests who were part of the Diocese of San Bernardino. The detailed court filings allege that Rodriguez’s pattern of horrific abuse extended into churches in Riverside County.
Anthony DeMarco, the lawyer representing the two plaintiffs identified only as John Does, questions why the Diocese of San Bernardino failed to see that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had documented evidence of Rodriguez’s sexual abuse before he began ministering in Riverside.
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