WA Catholic Priest Charged With Raping Adult Woman

The Kennewick Tri-Cities Herald reports:

A Tri-Cities priest has been arrested on suspicion of rape. Rev. Tomás Vázquez Téllez, 49, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of third-degree rape with an aggravating factor of being a person of trust. Vázquez Téllez has been serving at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Pasco since Sept. 2021. Vázquez Téllez was booked into the Benton County jail after being arrested at his home. According to the diocese the suspected sexual assault happened on Aug. 19-20.

According to the diocese, a woman in her 30s told diocese officials that she had been invited to Vázquez Téllez’s home for dinner last month, a few weeks before he was set to travel to Jerusalem for the three-month study program. The trip had been delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she was raped by Vázquez Téllez after the dinner. She contacted another priest within hours of the incident to report it, according to the diocese.

Read the full article.

The incident happened just weeks before he was set to leave the country on a months-long study trip. https://t.co/lX5VOGgola

— TriCityHerald (@TriCityHerald) September 7, 2022