Honduras: congregation elder convicted on 13 counts of rape of a 12-year-old
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Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
congregational elder (anciano)
Organization
No organization assigned
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
The defendant held the formal office of congregational elder, a recognised position of spiritual authority within his denomination, and that standing is what afforded him access to and influence over the child.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
- Institutional obedience or isolation
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2019-09-06 · unanimous conviction and sentence
Tribunal de Sentencia, San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Roger Abraham Flores Díaz, an elder (anciano) of a Jehovah's Witnesses congregation in San Pedro Sula, was unanimously convicted on 13 counts of violación especial against a 12-year-old girl, committed between July and December 2016, and was sentenced to 221 years. He was expelled by the congregation after the facts emerged.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- formal office of religious authority within the congregation
Cited record
Sources
- national newspaper court reporting verdict report 'Exlíder religioso es declarado culpable por abusar de niña de 12 años', La Prensa (Honduras), 6 Sept. 2019.
Honduran paper of record reporting the unanimous verdict on 13 counts and the defendant's role as a congregational elder.
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.laprensa.hn/sucesos/exlider-religioso-culpable-violacion-nina-testigos-de-jehova-LYLP1316580 Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: verdict-report. SHA-256 89cb5a5e01ea8ae8212bc40b9e2bee01ee477663b2cbf8ed87c8f4dec70a6c5a
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
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