A deacon of the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York has been sentenced to 16 years in prison after he admitted to prosecutors that he engaged in sexual acts with minors he met on the hookup app Grindr.

Rogelio Vega, 52, was sentenced March 15, two years after he was arrested in an NYPD sting operation using Grindr.

Vega, who previously served in the Brooklyn diocese’s parish of St. Sebastian, Woodside, pled guilty last September to three counts of “enticing a minor” to engage in sexual acts with him.

Reading the sentence in Brooklyn Federal Court on Wednesday, the judge noted the “especially complex” nature of the case, but said that deterring the sexual exploitation of minors is “one of the most important, most essential tasks of the criminal justice system.”

Vega was arrested in January 2021, after he made contact with an NYPD detective posing as a teenager on Grindr, a…