Ex-Windsor priest faces extradition from D.R.

John Duarte charged with 9 counts of sexual exploitation

Last Updated: Friday, October 23, 2009 | 9:08 AM ET

CBC News

A former Windsor priest arrested in the Dominican Republic and accused of sexually abusing teenage boys in Haiti will be tried in Ontario, a spokeswoman for the Ontario Provincial Police confirmed Thursday.

John Duarte, 44, is currently being held in custody in the D.R. awaiting extradition to Canada, according to Const. Shawna Coulter. He has been charged with nine counts of sexual exploitation, she said.

The charges against Duarte are related to allegations involving "a number of male youths in Haiti during the years 1995 to 2005," Coulter said.

He was arrested on Tuesday at a hotel in Sosua, D.R., a beach village on the country's northern coast, following an investigation by the OPP and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Duarte was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1996 and served at a number of parishes in the Roman Catholic Diocese of London, including Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Windsor and St. Gregory the Great in Tecumseh, according to Frank Chauvin, who knew Duarte through his own charity work in Haiti.

He left the priesthood in 2003 to move to Labadie, Haiti, where he worked for a Windsor-based charity group, Hearts Together for Haiti (HTFHaiti), which he co-founded, Chauvin said.

But in June 2006, HTFHaiti's chairman, Steve McDougall, received an email from a villager in Labadie, a northern coastal town, making "a very serious complaint" about Duarte, McDougall said.

Duarte denied the allegations but resigned from HTFHaiti almost immediately, McDougall said.

He then left Haiti and moved to Dominican Republic, Chauvin said.

"The news of the arrest of John Duarte for allegations of sexual abuse that happened in Haiti is devastating," the director of communications for the Diocese of London said in a press release.

"Anyone with information about this case is encouraged to come forward," Mark Adkinson said.

Former priest awaits extradition on sex charges

23 October 2009

National Post

Jorge Barrera, Canwest News Service

 A former Canadian priest currently sitting in a Dominican Republic jail cell awaiting extradition to Canada on multiple sexual molestation charges was working as a scuba diving instructor at a hotel before local authorities arrested him this week.

Joao Jose Correira Duarte, a former Windsor, Ont., priest also known as John Duarte, faces nine counts of sexually exploiting 12 to 17-year-old boys in Haiti over a 10-year span. He was arrested Tuesday by Dominican immigration and counter-narcotics agents in a joint operation, local authorities said.

Mr. Duarte, 44, had been living quietly in Sousa, Puerto Plata, where he found work at a local hotel, first as a waiter and then as a scuba diving instructor where he mainly taught tourists, according to a statement from the National Directorate for Drug Control.

"John Duarte fled to this area like just another tourist who flock to their northern coast of the country to enjoy the warm beaches, but he decided to stay here and to dedicate himself to teach scuba diving," said directorate spokesman Roberto Lebron.

Mr. Duarte allegedly exchanged goods and money for sexual favours with Haitian youth aged 12 to 17 at two hotels in Petion Ville, a sector located in the south of Port-au-Prince, Dominican authorities say. He bought the youths clothes and paid for the lodging of some of his victims' families.

The charges stem from Mr. Duarte's alleged conduct with youth between 1995 and 2005 in Haiti, the Ontario Provincial Police said. He was a priest during that time, OPPsaid.

He was arrested under a section of the Criminal Code which allows Canadian citizens to be prosecuted for some offences committed outside of Canada.

The RCMP's national child exploitation co-ordination centre also participated in the investigation.

Mr. Duarte held many posts in the Windsor area between 1996 and 2003. He was pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Windsor and pastor-priest at Catholic Central high school from 2000 to 2003.

Mr. Duarte's involvement in Haiti dated back to the early 1990s.

23 October 2009

Canadian Press

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — Police say a Canadian missionary who worked as a priest in Windsor, Ont., has been arrested in the Dominican Republic.

Jonathan Arias of the police force in the Dominican city of Puerto Plata says John Duarte, also identified in local media reports as Joao Jose Correira Duarte, was arrested Tuesday.

Arias says Duarte was apprehended near Puerto Plata and is currently in police custody in Santo Domingo.

A published report in the online edition of the Dominican newspaper Hoy says Duarte is facing 12 sexual assault charges relating to the alleged abuse of teenage boys in neighbouring Haiti.

The report identifies Duarte as a Portuguese-born orphanage administrator who has worked in Haiti since 1995. Prior to that, a former parishioner says he was a pastor at a church in the southwestern Ontario border city of Windsor.

The Hoy report says Duarte was arrested under a warrant issued in Ontario and is now facing extradition to Canada.

Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs would only confirm that a Canadian citizen has been arrested and released no other details.

Authorities have arrested a number of men in recent years accused of taking advantage of the deep poverty in Haiti to abuse children.

-With files from The Associated Press

Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Ex-Windsor priest arrested for sex abuse in Haiti

Last Updated: Thursday, October 22, 2009 | 1:00 PM ET

CBC News

A former Windsor priest has been arrested in the Dominican Republic and faces charges of sexually assaulting teenage boys in Haiti, says a local media report.

Father Joao José Correira Duarte, also known as John, 43, was arrested Tuesday at a hotel in Puerto Plata, Hoy Digital, a Spanish-language news website based in Santo Domingo, D.R., reported Wednesday.

He faces 12 charges of sexually assaulting boys aged 12 to 17, the site reported.

Some of the charges date to 1995, when Duarte helped run an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, the site reported.

Duarte had for many years been involved in charity and missionary work in Haiti.He is a co-founder of Windsor-based Hearts Together for Haiti (HTFHaiti), a charity dedicated to "helping the Haitian community" with educational and medical programs, according to its website and worked for it in Haiti since 2003.

But in June 2006, HTFHaiti chairman Steve McDougall received "a very serious complaint" by email from an adult in Labadie, a village on Haiti's northern coast.McDougall called an emergency board meeting at which it was decided that a board member would travel to Haiti and confront Duarte directly, McDougall told CBC News.

Duarte did not admit to the allegations, McDougall said. But Duarte did return to Canada less than a week later and resigned from the charity on June 20, McDougall said.

McDougall says his organization alerted police to the allegations.

Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade confirmed late Wednesday night "the arrest of a Canadian citizen on Oct. 20, in Puerto Plata" but would not confirm if that citizen is Duarte."

Consular officers at the Canadian mission in Santo Domingo are providing consular assistance and working with local authorities to gather more information," said department spokesperson Dana Cryderman.

"Due to the Privacy Act, no further information is available at this time," Cryderman said.

Duarte is expected to be extradited to Canada, Hoy Digital reported.

Though Duarte has not been associated with HTFHaiti since 2006, his arrest is "very sad for a lot of us concerned with the organization," McDougall said. "John did a lot of good work over the years and it's pretty upsetting it's come to this." 

Dominicans Arrest Missionary Accused of Molesting Boys

Latin American Herald Tribune

21 October 2009

SANTO DOMINGO – A Canadian missionary accused of sexually abusing dozens of young boys in neighboring Haiti was arrested in the northern Dominican province of Puerto Plata, authorities said Wednesday.

Joao Jose Correira Duarte, who goes by John Duarte, was captured on Tuesday in a hotel where he was staying as a tourist, the DNCD counternarcotics agency said in a communique.

He is accused of sexually abusing dozens of boys by taking advantage of his status as a religious minister.

Duarte is facing at least a dozen charges of raping boys between the ages of 12 and 17, according to the communique put out by the DNCD, which participated in the man’s arrest along with immigration officials.

Authorities said Duarte had sexual relations with a group of Haitian youngsters while he was a guest in hotels in Port-au-Prince.

They added that the Canadian had lived in the Haitian capital since 1995 “working as a missionary and serving as the administrator of an orphanage for boys.”

Duarte had sexual relations with the minors in exchange for economic favors, including buying them clothing and paying for the housing of some of his victims’ relatives.

The alleged pedophile will be deported in the coming hours to Canada, where he is facing rape charges. EFE