Ex-priest pleads guilty to sex charges

A former Harford County priest pleaded guilty last week to charges of illegal sexual activity with minors in Baltimore’s federal court.

Fernando Cristancho, 65, of Bel Air, pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement of a minor he met through his work as a priest to engage in sexual activity as well as to producing nude images of four other minors, Maryland’s U.S. Attorney’s Office announced.

If the federal judge accepts his plea, Cristancho will be sentenced to between 10 years and 25 years in federal prison and register as a sex offender when he is released. He also would face at least 10 years of supervised release.

Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 20.

According to the U.S. attorney’s office, Cristancho was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in the country of Colombia in 1985 and moved to Alexandria, Virginia, where he was an assistant priest from 1994 to 1997.

Around 1999, Cristancho worked as a priest in the Archdiocese of Baltimore,

first in Baltimore County and then at St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Harford County. Shortly after arriving at St. Ignatius in 1999, Cristancho became close with a woman and her then-8-year-old grandson, according to the plea agreement.

The woman was a regular parishioner at St. Ignatius and would often bring her grandson with her, according to an agreed statement of facts. Cristancho grew close to the family, spending time with them outside of church.

When the boy turned 11, the U.S. attorney’s office said, Cristancho began sexually abusing the child when he would spend the weekend at the priest’s house. The abuse continued from 2002 through fall 2003, prosecutors said.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore revoked Cristancho’s authority to work as a priest in 2002 after he refused assignment to another parish, according to a 2017 statement posted on the Archdiocese’s website.

Late Tuesday, Christian Kendzierski, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, urged anyone with knowledge of child sexual abuse to report it. He said the archdiocese admires sexual abuse survivors’ courage to come forward and that the organization is “committed to protecting children and helping to heal victims of abuse.”

“The Archdiocese recognizes guilty pleas do not erase the pain suffered by survivors but does pray that this plea will contribute to healing,” Kendzierski said.

Cristancho’s crimes were discovered by authorities after he went to a pharmacy to use its printing equipment in September 2017, prosecutors stated. An employee at the pharmacy saw what appeared to be photos of naked children on Cristancho’s phone while assisting him and made a report to the police.

Police started an investigation, which led to a search warrant served on Cristancho’s home in September 2017. Investigators seized electronic devices from the house and found nude photos of four minors on his phone.

Most of the images were taken when the minors were less than 5 years old, prosecutors said.