A priest who crawled into the bed of a 13-year-old girl to molest her when he was an overnight guest in her parent's home admitted his betrayal to his victim and her family Friday in a case that unnerved Sacramento's Catholic community for more than 20 months.
"My actions were of a weak and sinful man," the Rev. Uriel Ojeda said in his first public admission to molesting the girl – first when he worked at Holy Rosary Parish in Woodland and later after he had been transferred to Our Lady of Mercy in Redding.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Eugene L. Balonon then sentenced Ojeda, 33, to eight years in prison for touching the girl in a manner that "constitutes substantial sexual conduct" under the California Penal Code.
Ojeda's remarks came in front of a courtroom nearly packed with supporters who have maintained his innocence from the day of his Nov. 30, 2011, arrest through the no-contest plea he entered July 5.
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