Gerardo Beltran (also known as Gerardo Beltran Rico and Gerardo Rico), born January 16, 1957, in Mexico, was ordained a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Sacramento, California, in July 1982. He served at St. Dominic Parish in Orland (1982-1988), the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento (1988-1989), St. Joseph Parish in Sacramento (1989-1991), and St. Anthony Parish in Winters (1991). In May 1991, the Sacramento Police Department opened an investigation into Beltran following allegations of sexual abuse involving minors. On February 10, 1992, the Sacramento Municipal Court issued a local arrest warrant charging Beltran with four counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of fourteen, based on allegations from four female victims that the conduct occurred in 1991. Beltran left the United States for Mexico in December 1991, before the warrant could be served, and did not return.
On June 17, 2005, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Sacramento, issued a federal warrant charging Beltran with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Mexican authorities arrested Beltran in March 2008 in a remote Mexican village where he had continued working as a priest; he was released in August 2008, before extradition to California could occur, after a Mexican court determined the applicable statute of limitations had expired. The Diocese of Sacramento involuntarily dismissed Beltran from the priesthood in April 2008. Additional accusers have since come forward; as of the diocese's most recent public accounting, at least fifteen individuals have alleged abuse by Beltran between the 1980s and 1991. Beltran remains at large. The FBI's Sacramento Field Office leads the fugitive investigation; the FBI notes Beltran may have fled to southern Mexico. Identifiers: NCIC W267747279. Anyone with information is asked to contact their local FBI field office, the nearest American Embassy or Consulate, or submit a tip at tips.fbi.gov. Internal case number: 19910101-Beltran-Gerardo.
