Costa Rica: pastor convicted on 13 counts of sexual abuse, 66 years nominal
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Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
pastor of a church in Santa Cruz
Organization
No organization assigned
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
At least one victim, a 13-year-old, was summoned by the pastor to a church meeting where abuse occurred, and the pattern ran through church-related activities — the pastoral office supplied both the summons and the trust.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2019-01-01 · conviction and sentence
Costa Rican criminal court, Guanacaste. Hilario Gutiérrez Pérez, pastor of a church in the Buenos Aires district of Santa Cruz, was convicted on 13 counts of sexual abuse against four victims, including a 13-year-old summoned to a church meeting. The nominal sentence of 66 years was adjusted to an effective 21 years under Costa Rica's concurrent-sentence rules.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- church meetings and church-related activities used to isolate victims
- pastoral standing over congregants including a minor
Cited record
Sources
- national newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report 'Pastor evangélico condenado a 21 años de cárcel', La Nación (Costa Rica).
Costa Rica's paper of record reporting the conviction and the effective sentence.
Source provenance
Source access and integrity log
This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.nacion.com/sucesos/judiciales/pastor-evangelico-condenado-a-21-anos-de-carcel/X5RPN4BDVZCBVPGQVJQUU2U2IQ/story/ Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: verdict-and-sentencing-report. SHA-256 6c92e24c027790ec135ccd3583bc3f60fb423f91ddad7760c185c38c4fba3d8e
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
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