CALIFORNIA
CalCoast News
[Monsignor Peter Garcia 1984 – via DeMarco, Jeff Anderson & Associates]
A Los Angeles priest used bondage and targeted illegal immigrants in his decades long practice of raping Southern California boys, Catholic church records released Monday show.
Confidential letters filed as evidence in a civil case against Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera reveal that church leaders protected Monsignor Peter Garcia and several other priests who sexually abused boys.
Garcia threatened to have one boy deported if he came forward to law enforcement with sexual abuse allegations. A monsignor documented the case in a letter to an archbishop.
“The priest took him to the jail and instructed him to either behave or else he would end up either in jail of back in Mexico,” the letter reads. “He was supposedly told if you talk, I have lawyer friends and I will surely have you deported.”
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