United States: Costa Rican priest sentenced to 15 years for abusing a teenager in his parish
Request a correction or replyRecord class
Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
Catholic parish priest
Organization
St. Paul's Catholic Church, Nampa
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
The complainant was a teenager connected to the parish where the defendant served as priest; the office and the trust it carried are what produced the access.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2026-05-06 · conviction and sentence
Idaho state court, United States. Robert Méndez Esquivel, a Costa Rican priest serving at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Nampa, Idaho, was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment for sexually abusing a 16-year-old. He had been arrested in August 2025 while serving as a priest at the parish.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- pastoral authority over a teenager connected to his parish
Cited record
Sources
- national newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report 'Condenan a 15 años de prisión a sacerdote costarricense en Estados Unidos por abuso sexual contra un menor', Infobae, 6 May 2026.
Reports the Idaho sentence, the parish at which the defendant served, and the circumstances of his 2025 arrest.
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.infobae.com/costa-rica/2026/05/06/condenan-a-15-anos-de-prision-a-sacerdote-costarricense-en-estados-unidos-por-abuso-sexual-contra-un-menor/ Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: verdict-and-sentencing-report. SHA-256 abc7030d9b8da1dc76f5644e1860e3660a362eef4091979c04dd0f95942f2070
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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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)