Photo: Stock Image
In reporting the arrest of Los Angeles resident Rodolfo Martinez-Guevara, a Catholic priest attached to the L.A. Archdiocese, Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko described Martinez-Guevara as “in a position of tremendous power, authority, and trust.”
According to Nasarenko, the crimes for which Martinez-Guevara was arrested and booked on September 14 include aggravated possession of child pornography involving “over 600 images and videos of child sexual abuse material including images of prepubescent minors under the age of 12.”
Martinez-Guevara, affiliated with Our Lady of Guadalupe in Oxnard, came to the attention of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force in April of 2023 pursuant to “several reports” filed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The ensuing investigation indicated that Martinez-Guevara was in possession of and dealing with the aforementioned images and videos that Nasarenko described as “not simply images and videos” as they are evidence of “horrific exploitation of our most vulnerable.”
That evidence led to the issuance of an arrest warrant which was served on Martinez- Guevara at the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit in Long Beach where he was in residence at a facility “adjacent to St. Maria Goretti Church and Catholic School. He was taken into custody and transported to Ventura County Jail, where he is now residing, with his bail set at $750,000.
