Sacramento Area Local News

by Sam Shane
(CBS13) Esperanza Yanez says she can remember what her priest did to her like it was yesterday. She was a fourteen-year-old, in the eighth grade.

"I was in shock," says Yanez. "He gave me a hug, and the hug was a regular hug like always, but it just led into something more, with a kiss on the lips, a kiss that I knew wasn't right, and he just started from that, the touching."

Her priest was Gerardo Beltran – a man with a warm smile; a man of God; a family friend who stopped by the Yanez family home almost every day. Then one day, Esperanza says, she was alone with Beltran in her bedroom. Her brother and sister were in the room next door. Her mother was downstairs.

"He basically just laid me on the bed," says Esperanza. "He caressed me and everything. I just kept looking up to see, hoping someone would come up, thinking 'what's taking so long?'"

She says Beltran stopped when he heard her brother near her bedroom door. According to Esperanza, before Beltran left, he told her no one would believe her, that she was a "bad girl" and that "even your mother won't believe you."

More than fifteen years ago Father Gerardo Beltran said mass in Sacramento at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament and at Saint Joseph's Church. Two days before Christmas in 1991, Esperanza says Beltran did it again . . . not to her, but to her sister.

"When it happened to my sister, it was December 23rd when she was molested in our home."

The next day Esperanza's mother called the police. Father Gerardo Beltran flew to Mexico and never came back.

To this day Esperanza says she deals not just with the fact that Beltran molested her, but she feels that if she had said something she could have stopped Beltran from molesting her sister.

In early 1992 the Sacramento County District Attorney's office filed felony molestation charges against Beltran. But the case stalled. Thirteen years later, after Beltran's name appeared in an article in the Dallas Morning News – an article profiling priests who fled prosecution – the District Attorney filed for extradition, asking the FBI to classify Beltran as a fugitive for fleeing the country.

Three weeks ago we boarded a plane and flew to Southern Mexico to find the place where Gerardo Beltran has been hiding for more than ten years. At five AM on Saturday, January 11th, we met our translator, Abelardo Cisneros, and drove North for an hour then East for two hours on a two-lane mountain road. By eight AM, we're in Chalapa, Mexico. We still have hours to travel, and at this point we're not sure what we'll find. In fact, there's a good chance we may not find Beltran at all.

As we leave Chalapa, we get lost. Once we find our way, it's clear that this is a land of breathtaking beauty and widespread poverty. Farm animals roam the roads. Huts and shacks sit in the shadows of majestic churches. It is also clear that the Catholic church is both obvious and very powerful here.

Our next stop is the town of Tlapa. We've been told that Beltran's diocese is based here, yet the Tlapa website says that the bishop has been transferred to another Mexican state. It's unclear who is in charge at this point. By now it is Noon and we've been driving for seven hours, and the toughest stretch of road is still ahead of us.

One hour later, at 1PM, after driving eight hours, we arrive at the village of Igualita. Two years ago the Dallas Morning News took photos of Fr. Gerardo Beltran here surrounded by children, washing their feet in a festival. Our own independent sources told us that this is where they believe Beltran has been hiding. They were right.

Villagers call him "Padre". We're told he's due back in the village in a few hours so we wait. Father Beltran never shows up. We leave a business card and a note on the front door of his home asking him to call us. We had no idea what we would find here. It turns out we found out much more about Gerardo Beltran than we ever imagined.
In a barren, concrete village hall we meet with Margarito Leon Merino, the Igualita Chief of Police, and his two assistants. Within minutes, through out translator, they begin to confirm our suspicions about Beltran.

Translator: They're afraid to send their daughters to the church.
Sam: They're afraid to send their daughters to that church?
Translator: Yeah, because they don't trust him.
Sam: They don't trust him?
Translator: No, they are afraid he is trying to touch the girls.
Sam: They're afraid he will molest their children?
Translator: They are afraid, yes.

They tell us they fear for their children's safety because the stories, rumors and accusations abound: stories that Beltran has been molesting young girls here for years.

Translator: 12 to 18
Sam: 12 to 18 years of age.
Translator: Uh-huh.
Sam: So there are rumors that he's been having relationships with 12 to 18 year old girls?
Translator: Yes.

Chief Merino says village leaders went to the Catholic Church, pleading with the Bishop of Tlapa – the same bishop now heading another diocese – to take Beltran out of their village.

Sam: So they asked the bishop to remove him.
Translator: He didn't recieve them.
Sam: He didn't receive them?
Translator: They asked the bishop to remove him and the bishop wouldn't receive them, wouldn't do it.
Sam: Wouldn't do it.
Translator: No, no.
Sam: He wouldn't even listen to them?
Translator: No, he didn't listen to them.

Just when we thought we had heard it all, Juan Leon Aviles, one of Chief Merino's associates, dropped a bombshell. It is widely believed in Igualita that Beltran impregnated the daughter of Juan Leon Aviles when she was seventeen years old.

Sam: So let me get this right, there's speculation in this village that Beltran has a son?
Translator: Yes, his [Aviles] grandson.

When we told Esperanza Yanez – the woman who first accused Beltran of molesting her fifteen years ago – what we found in Igualita, she heaved a deep sigh, saying this was what she was afraid of.

Igualita Mexico is the home of fugitive Gerardo Beltran, a home where he is no longer welcome. Young children wald the rugged roads here, and parents fear what the "Padre", Gerardo Beltran, will do to the young and the innocent.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)