P. José Carranza Chavesta

Investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Church after an allegation that he inappropriately touched a 12-year-old boy in November 2016. Carranza was the boy’s religion student at the Gran Unidad Escolar Mariano Melgar School in Arequipa. The boy told his father, who filed a formal complaint. Carranza admitted only to having tapped the boy on his shoulders several times. Archbishop Javier Del Río (Arequipa archbishop 2006 to present) suspended him from ministry and teaching. In February 2017 he was ordered to nine months of preventive detention pending the outcome of the case, and an arrest warrant was issued. Carranza went into hiding; in May 2018 he turned himself in. During the investigation, it came to light that in 2002 and 2003, Carranza had allegedly similarly molested five boys at the school while disciplining them. Carranza was said to have locked the boys in a restroom and proceeded to touch their genitals. Then-archbishop Luis Sánchez-Moreno (Arequipa archbishop from 1996 to November 2003) was given a formal document detailing the allegations, which had been drafted by another teacher at the school. Carranza was temporarily suspended. During the 2017 investigation, the complaint to the archdiocese about the alleged 2002-2003 crimes was found to have disappeared; the school reported having lost their records too. The 2016 case went to trial in August 2018. Carranza was acquitted in October 2018, the Court citing contradictions in the alleged victim’s statements.