HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
May 2, 2019
By Nicole Hensley
A grand jury on Thursday indicted a former Conroe priest on charges stemming from child sex abuse allegations, according to court records.
Manuel La Rosa-Lopez was indicted on two of the four counts of indecency with a child that led to his Sept. 11 arrest, records show. The two charges stem from incidents alleged to have happened to a female parishioner on April 9, 2000, while the cleric was assigned to Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Montgomery County.
The document from the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office made no mention of the two other indecency with a child charges that La Rosa-Lopez was facing in connection with allegations from a male parishioner.
Prosecutors handling the case did not respond to requests for comment.
The female accuser, now an adult, came forward to police a month before La Rosa-Lopez’s arrest that in 2000, while her family attended the parish, the priest was grooming her for a sexual relationship, according to a sworn statement from a Conroe Police Department detective. On April 9 of that year, La Rosa-Lopez brought the girl to his office after confession, took off his clerical collar and kissed her, the investigator wrote.
The priest groped her two days later in the church kitchen after practice for a Passion of the Christ play, the statement read.
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