ST. CHARLES TOWNSHIP – A former Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing two teenage boys has pleaded guilty and will serve time in prison.
Alejandro Flores, 37, agreed in court Wednesday to plead guilty to a count of criminal sexual assault.
The plea was accepted by Kane County Circuit Judge T. Jordan Gallagher. Gallagher then sentenced Flores to four years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. Under sentencing rules, Flores will need to serve at least 85 percent of that sentence. He was also credited with 236 days served.
Flores, a native of Bolivia, might face deportation after he is released from state prison, said Flores’ attorney Glenn Sowa.
“That’s the only saving grace for Alex here, is that he will still be a young man when he is released and can go back to his family in Bolivia,” Sowa said.
As the proceedings continued Wednesday, Flores quivered and requested a chair to sit in to prevent himself from falling. He also gasped when he responded to the judge, struggling to say, “Yes,” when asked by the judge if he understood the terms of the plea deal and still wanted to plead guilty. Flores faced 16 counts against him, alleging that he sexually abused a boy multiple times over five years and attempted to abuse the boy’s older brother while he served as a minister at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in West Chicago.
Prosecutors said the incidents occurred in Flores’ car and at his home in St. Charles. The charges against Flores had included predatory criminal sexual assault, criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual abuse, indecent solicitation of a child and attempted aggravated criminal sexual abuse. If Flores had been convicted on those charges at trial, he could have faced a minimum of 12 to 16 years in prison, Kane County Assistant State’s Attorney Debra Bree said. Flores had pleaded not guilty initially.
But given the evidence arrayed against him and a plea deal offer from the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office, Flores chose to plead guilty and accept a lesser sentence, Sowa said. Bree said the plea negotiations were carried out in conjunction with the victims’ family.
“They were looking forward to the end of legal process, so they could begin healing,” Bree said.
Sowa said Flores, who had been ordained in June 2009 at Holy Family Church in Shorewood in Will County, has been removed from the priesthood. Flores was arrested in January after the victims’ mother notified St. Charles Police of the sexual abuse. However, prosecutors said, suspicious behavior by Flores toward the victims in the case did not go unnoticed. Bree said Flores was known well by the family while he served as a deacon in West Chicago. Bree said Flores was known to spend much time alone with the boys and to buy them gifts.
Bree said witnesses, including Flores’ supervisors in the Diocese of Joliet, were prepared to testify that they had observed Flores alone with the boys on several occasions and had warned him that his behavior was inappropriate. On another occasion, prosecutors said, a supervisor of Flores’ was prepared to testify that Flores had admitted to viewing male homosexual pornography, including what appeared to be pornography with young males resembling boys, on a computer owned by the diocese. That incident had prompted the diocese to put Flores’ then-pending ordination on hold until a psychological evaluation could be performed.
He was later cleared for ordination. Flores was later discovered by the victims’ mother’s live-in boyfriend in “suspicious poses” with the younger boy on at least two occasions. The boyfriend informed the mother, who then notified police and the Joliet Diocese. The diocese moved the next day to remove Flores from his post as priest in Shorewood, where he had been transferred from St. Charles after his ordination.