Legionnaire seeks to continue trial outside prison after being accused of abuse

CDMX.- At the request of the accused, a judge in the State of Mexico will decide this Sunday whether to grant Father Antonio María Cabrera Cabrera, a member of the Legionaries of Christ , the benefit of pursuing his trial for rape of a minor outside of prison .

According to court records, this Sunday at 10:00 a.m., 24 days after being imprisoned at the Barrientos Prison, Sonia Alejandra Ayón Menes, the Tlalnepantla control judge, will determine in a hearing whether to grant the priest a change in precautionary measure.

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The hearing will take place after the defendant's defense team requested in writing last Friday that the measure be changed from pretrial detention , arguing that the conditions that initially justified the measure have objectively changed in less than a month.

According to the information obtained, in their hearing request, the defense attorneys did not specify whether they would request provisional release, accompanied by other protective measures, or house arrest with police protection.

However, they point out that church authorities have already taken the necessary steps to ensure that, if he is released from prison, he will not have contact with minors.

The arrest of Father Antonio María Cabrera, a member of the Legionaries of Christ, is an unprecedented event in Mexico, as it is the first time a member of this powerful religious congregation has been imprisoned. https://t.co/xgTlZN9eGw pic.twitter.com/JAZn9z8sK9

— SinEmbargo (@SinEmbargoMX) June 21, 2025

" It is hereby brought to your attention that it would be justified before Your Honor that there is no risk for my client to leave the country and that, even before the arrest of the accused, precautionary measures have been taken by the religious authorities to prevent him from having contact with girls, boys or adolescents and any vulnerable group," the request states.

In fact, one of the pieces of evidence his defense will present at this Sunday's hearing is a letter dated January 31, 2023, imposing various canonical precautionary measures on Cabrera. It also includes expert reports on psychology, victimology, and forensic medicine.

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Because the request for a change in precautionary measure was filed on Friday and the hearing is scheduled to be held within 48 hours, the ruling this Sunday will not be issued by Judge Paulina Piña Pérez, who oversees the case, as she only presides over proceedings on business days. Instead, the ruling will be issued by her colleague, Sonia Alejandra Ayón Menes.

Just last June 17, Piña charged Father Cabrera, a member of the Legionaries of Christ and close to its founder Marcial Maciel, with three rapes allegedly committed between 2004 and 2011 against a child.

At that hearing, the judge upheld the justified pretrial detention that had kept him in prison in Barrientos for five days and stated that, up to that point, the objective conditions had not changed to warrant reconsidering the precautionary measure.

The priest was arrested on June 12 at Mexico City International Airport on the basis of an arrest warrant for rape.

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Cabrera is accused of raping the victim with the initials PZDF at his home in the Lomas de Tecamachalco neighborhood on May 16, 2004, April 29, 2007, and December 24, 2011 , when the victim was between 7 and 15 years old.

For each alleged sexual assault, he filed a crime , which is why, if found guilty, the member of the Legionaries of Christ would be sentenced to 20 to 46 years in prison.

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