About Father maurizio's Case

On March 2, 2016, Father Joseph Maurizio, Jr., a priest of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, PA, was confined to a prison cell to begin a sentence of over sixteen years in the Federal Prison System, having been first arrested in September 2014 and charged with Sex Tourism in Honduras by the United States Federal Government. At that time, he was 70 years old. The crimes for which he is imprisoned were alleged to have occurred on one day in March of 2009, at an orphanage in Honduras dedicated to helping that country’s homeless and often drug-addicted street children. To this day, Fr. Maurizio maintains his innocence of all of these charges and refused all offers of plea-bargaining. 

Despite the fact that in 2009 the Honduran Government and the FBI investigated Fr. Maurizio for accusations of abuse, (accusations not brought by children but brought by - we believe - individuals seeking financial gain from Fr. Maurizio), no credible evidence was found and no charges were filed. Years later, street kids were chosen and interviewed to testify against Father Maurizio during the 2014 investigation. As is their learned nature, these street kids will lie, cheat and steal as a matter of survival to make money.

Although investigated in preparation for this trial, no accusations were found for misconduct in the many years that Fr. Maurizio served the people in the United States.

In September 2014, federal prosecutors charged Father Maurizio with Extraterritorial Sexual Exploitation of Children (commonly known as "Sex Tourism"). To our knowledge, Father Maurizio is the only Catholic priest charged with violations of the federal "Sex Tourism" statute.

The case against Father Maurizio rested almost solely on the testimony of two Honduran men who said they were molested by him as children. Stories told by the men at trial were wildly varied and inconsistent; the abusive acts described are physically almost impossible. These men, as far as we know, are still in the United States. We can only speculate that they remain here because they are afraid to return to Honduras for fear of fatal repercussions over the probable bribes they received to testify in this case.

A third man brought from Honduras to testify recanted his original story on the witness stand, saying that he could not continue lying before God and that the other men were also lying. Federal prosecutors convinced the jury that his confession testimony was invalid, simply because his original testimony (that he was molested by Father Maurizio in his youth) was made under oath and therefore could not be a lie.

Prior to his ordination into the priesthood, Windber, Pennsylvania native Joseph Maurizio served in the U.S. Navy for five and a half years with two tours of duty in the Vietnam War. He also owned and operated World Wide Travel Agency of Exton, Pennsylvania. As an international air travel tour guide, Father Maurizio traveled to over 100 different countries and visited Latin America on more than 50 trips.

Father Maurizio was ordained into the priesthood of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1987. He has served in 14 different parishes and campus ministries throughout the diocese since his ordination, as well as various Diocesan ministries and commissions. Most recently, Father Maurizio served as Pastor of Our Lady Queen of Angels Parish in Central City, PA for 10 years.

Father Maurizio founded Humanitarian Interfaith Ministries (HIM) in 1997 to work with orphaned, abandoned and at-risk children in Latin America. He also directed an International Sponsor Child Program in ten countries. Through Humanitarian Interfaith Ministries, Father Maurizio directed mission teams from the Johnstown, PA area and Saint Francis University who built a dozen buildings at the home and education center for orphaned and abandoned children of the streets of Honduras, as well as buildings in Costa Rica. In his role as International Mission Teams Coordinator for over 16 years, Father Maurizio coordinated and visited 15 projects throughout Latin America and shipped over 150 tons of salvaged goods from Johnstown to Honduras for the orphanage.