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September trial date for former Santa Fe priest accused of child sex abuse
By Phaedra Haywood, Jul 7, 2023
Sante Fe New Mexican
The Rev. Daniel Balizan places ashes on a man's forehead in March 2019 at Santa María de la Paz Catholic Community. Balizan faces trial in September on charges of enticement of a minor with the intent to engage in sexual activity.
Luis Sánchez Saturno/New Mexican file photo
The U.S. District Court for New Mexico has set a September trial date for a former Santa Fe priest facing federal charges of sex abuse of a minor.
Daniel Balizan was a pastor at Santa Maria de la Paz Catholic Community in Santa Fe for a decade before he was removed by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in 2022. He is accused of enticement of a minor with the intent to engage in sexual activity during a relationship prosecutors say he had with a 15-year-old boy in 2012, according to a previous report in The New Mexican.
The federal court in Albuquerque issued a notice Tuesday setting a Sept. 11 trial date in the case.
Balizan was arrested June 29 in Springer. He will be allowed to await trial at his home there on house arrest with electronic monitoring, U.S. Magistrate Judge Laura Fashing ruled Monday.
Balizan, who has pleaded not guilty, faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison if he is convicted.
Retired priest in Diocese of Richmond accused of sex abuse
against a minor
The Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, says it has received allegations of child sexual abuse against Father Walter Lewis, a retired priest. | Powhatan County Sheriff's Office
By Daniel Payne
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 24, 2023 / 12:00 pm
The Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, says it has received allegations of child sexual abuse against a retired priest, with law enforcement investigating the claims as the priest remains removed from public ministries.
The Richmond Diocese — the larger of the two in the state in front of the Diocese of Arlington — said in a July 1 press release that it had “received a recent report of alleged child sexual abuse against Father Walter Lewis.”
“The allegation reports that the abuse took place in the 1980s while Father Lewis was serving as pastor of St. Anne Catholic Church, Bristol,” the diocese said. “The allegation has been reported to law enforcement.”
Bristol is located in the extreme southwestern part of the state near the Tennessee border. Lewis served at the parish from 1983–1995.
Bishop Barry Knestout “immediately prohibited Father Lewis from any public ministry in the diocese” for the duration of the investigation, the press release said, adding that diocesan officials would not “reach any conclusions regarding this allegation until the investigation concludes.”
Lewis has denied the allegations, the diocese said. He retired from active ministry in May of this year.
The priest in 2017 pleaded guilty to a drunk driving offense, his second in less than 10 years. Pulled over after driving erratically, Lewis blew .11 on a breathalyzer test, above the legal limit of .08. He received a 12-month sentence, with all but 10 days in prison suspended. He had previously been found guilty of drunk driving in 2011.
The diocese did not immediately return a request for comment on the investigation, which was launched earlier this month.
In 2019 Knestout released a list of any diocesan priests who have “a credible and substantiated claim of sexual abuse against a minor.”
Twenty-three priests are currently on the list; Lewis has not yet been added. Three other lists include priests “alleged to have committed abuse in the present-day territory of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond” who were “later incardinated to the Catholic Diocese of Arlington” as well as priests from outside the diocese alleged to have committed abuse there and clergy who worked in the diocese but who have been accused of abuse outside of it.
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