An Irish-born Chilean priest has been sentenced to four years of probation for sexually abusing a minor while he was chaplain at a school in Santiago.
A court in the Chilean capital also banned John O’Reilly from any job near children. Prosecutors had asked for a 10-year prison sentence.
O’Reilly was found guilty last month. The court said he committed the abuse while he was the spiritual guide at the school. Relatives had accused him of molesting two pre-teen girls between 2007 and 2011. The court cleared him in one of the cases.
O'Reilly arrived in Chile in the mid-1980s and was granted Chilean citizenship in 2008. He was not present during Tuesday's sentencing.
The sentence handed down means that the priest will avoid jailtime, and will instead undergo four years and a day of “supervised liberty” for abusing the girl at the private Colegio Cumbres in the neighborhood of Las Condes.
O‘Reilly will not be confined at home nor be required to periodically check in with a parole officer, though he will have to attend semi-regular rehabilitation therapy sessions, and his name will appear on a national pedophile registry intended to keep him from working with children.
Prosecutors had requested that he be sent to prison for 10 years.
Agencies