Brooklyn Priest, Who Allegedly Groped, Kissed Former Secretary, Suspended: Report

A former Catholic Church secretary accused a parish priest of groping her and trying to kiss her and said she was fired when she complained about it to the Brooklyn Diocese.

The accused is the Rev. Charles Oduro, 56, who presides in the offices of St. Catherine of Genoa in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York City.

The unnamed woman told New York Daily News that she had to tolerate months of sexual innuendo and inappropriate hugging from Oduro and at one point even recorded the priest on tape, begging her for a kiss.

The woman, who is a devout catholic and started to work at the church part time from April 2017, said that initially she would choose to ignore the inappropriate compliments the clergyman made on her looks and the little-too-tight hugs he gave her.

“I just brushed it off,” she said. “I was just hoping he was joking and it was nothing serious. I was willing to tolerate it — maybe I didn’t want to believe it.”

However, the more she kept quiet, the more the unwanted attention escalated. On Dec. 18, Oduro “accidentally” bumped his butt against hers in the rector kitchen and immediately apologized for doing it — a move the woman suspected was intentional.

It got worse in early January when Oduro came into a room where the secretary was typing on the computer, closed the curtains and forcefully started kissing her. After politely rejecting his advances, the woman decided to tape the conversation that followed as proof of the priest’s misdemeanor.

In the recording the woman provided the Daily News, the male voice is heard saying, “Relax. You don’t want us to go this route, hmm? I want a kiss. That you can give me, hmm?”

In reply, a woman is heard saying, “Not today. It would complicate things.” However, the man, who the woman claimed was Oduro, kept pressing on.

“Oh, come on. Feel me,” he countered. “You are not a complicated woman, I know . . . you don’t want any complications. Me too.”

When the woman told the priest to stop what he was doing because she did not think it was appropriate, he asked, “Tell me why? So if we kiss, does that mean that we can’t f---?”

The woman said that during the exchange, the priest groped her butt and kept on following her round the room.

“It was just like an attack,” she told the News. “He had both his hands on each side of my head and he kissed me. He had his tongue in my mouth. He had his teeth grinding against my lips. It was actually painful.”

After discussing what had transpired with a former colleague, the woman was advised to report the behavior of the priest. However, when she reported it to the diocese through her lawyer, Christopher Brennan, she said they fired her.

“She was ordered not to return to work and they stopped paying her,” Brennan said.

However, diocese spokeswoman Adriana Rodriguez said the woman was placed on paid leave after she filed the complaint against the priest.

“The pastor had been instructed to pay the employee while she was on leave. Apparently he failed to do so,” Rodriguez said. “A check has been issued to the employee for retroactive pay and she will continue to be paid until this matter is resolved.”

She also added the pastor was placed on administrative leave after news of his misdemeanor went public.

Oduro has denied sexual harassing anyone, in an interview after a mass saying that the woman in question had falsely accused him after he refused to give her a raise.