Costa Rica: pastor's 34-year sentence for abusing a teenage congregant confirmed through the Supreme Court's criminal cassation chamber
Request a correction or replyDisposition and response
Material that narrows or disputes the record
Appellate history
2023-01-01
Affirmed by the Sala Tercera de la Corte Suprema de Justicia, cassation sentence 00791-2023 — final.
Record class
Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
pastor, Heredia congregation
Organization
No organization assigned
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
The victim was a member of Arce Díaz's congregation and the abuse occurred both at his home and during a church-organized trip — the pastoral relationship supplied both the access and the pretext for unsupervised contact.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2023-01-01 · conviction, appeal and cassation all affirmed
Tribunal Penal, first instance; Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia Penal, III Circuito Judicial de Alajuela, San Ramón; Sala Tercera de la Corte Suprema de Justicia (cassation). Ronaldo Adolfo Arce Díaz, then 55, was found guilty on 28 November 2022 of three counts of sexual abuse, one count of aggravated rape and one attempted aggravated rape against a girl who was 14-15 at the time, with incidents occurring at his home and during a church trip to Limón, and was sentenced to 34 years. The Court of Appeal (resolution 00459-2023) and the Supreme Court's Third Chamber (cassation sentence 00791-2023) both affirmed the conviction and sentence.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- pastoral authority over a congregant beginning when she was 14
- access through church activities including a church trip to Limón
Cited record
Sources
- court record appellate decision Poder Judicial de Costa Rica, Tribunal de Apelación de Sentencia Penal III Circuito Judicial de Alajuela, resolución 00459-2023.
Appellate resolution affirming the conviction of Ronaldo Adolfo Arce Díaz for sexual abuse and aggravated rape of a minor congregant, confirming the 34-year 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://nexuspj.poder-judicial.go.cr/document/sen-1-0034-1156335 Corpus classification: court-record; evidentiary role: appellate-decision. SHA-256 d8b7a7fa2b4c66ea97ad56ca206482e1fab0bde8bda54f982a0e3608b525140c
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Named in this record? Request a correction, report a changed disposition, or submit a response.
Related record
Related cases · Christian institutions & contexts
- 2018 · Harrisburg, PA, USA PA grand jury: 301 priests, 1,000+ child victims documented ('weaponized' faith)
- 2009 · Dublin, Ireland Ryan Commission: abuse 'endemic' in Catholic-run institutions (state inquiry)
- 2021 · Paris, France CIASE/Sauvé Report: est. 216,000 abused by French clergy since 1950
- 2019 · Vatican City McCarrick: ex-cardinal found guilty by Vatican canonical process, laicized
- 2010 · Oregon City, OR, USA Beagley faith-healing death: parents convicted (criminally negligent homicide)
- 2014 · Philadelphia, PA, USA Schaible: 3rd-degree murder, second child dead of untreated pneumonia
- 2001 · London, UK Victoria Climbié: murder convictions; possession belief; Laming Inquiry followed
- 2012 · London, UK Kristy Bamu: kindoki 'deliverance' murder convictions (30/25-yr minimums)