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State requests 15 years in prison for South Florida priest who raped parishioner

Prosecutors are asking that a Homestead priest convicted of raping a parishioner on church grounds be sentenced to the max: 15 years in prison.

Father Jean Claude Philippe, 66, was convicted at trial of raping a woman in the rectory of Homestead’s Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Philippe, who had been jailed since his October conviction, faces between 7.8 and 15 years in prison under Florida’s sentencing guidelines.

He had been scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday afternoon. But the hearing was re-scheduled to Feb. 17 after jailers told the judge that Philippe’s cell block was quarantined because of COVID-19, and he’d been hospitalized for unspecified reasons.

The sentencing will be held four months after the trial for Philippe, whose arrest was an embarrassing scandal for the Archdiocese of Miami, particularly after the victim testified that she initially told another priest, Silverio Rueda, about the attack — and he told her keep quiet.

During the weeklong trial in October, the woman testified that Philippe had become like a member of her family, serving as a godfather for her and two of her children. He’d also vacationed with the family.

But in October 2018, she told jurors, he invited her to his home, where he gave her a tea-like drink. She passed out and woke up fully naked in his bedroom. In an interview with Miami-Dade police, he later admitted penetrating her with his fingers, but insisted she grabbed his hand.

At trial, Philippe testified in his own defense, acknowledging that he invited the woman to his home, stripped down nearly naked and gave her an oiled-up body massage. But he insisted he never penetrated her and that his confession he had provided police was false.

Jurors deliberated about two hours in convicting him of sexual battery.

In a memo filed to the court this week, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office asked for the max sentence, saying Philippe planned the attack for months and “used his position of trust and responsibility as a member of the church” and the woman’s “personal spiritual guide.”

“The defendant’s criminal actions had shattered [the victim’s] sense of trust and caused irrevocable damage to her personally that she will have to bear for the rest of her life,” Assistant State Attorney Khalil Quinan wrote in his sentencing memo.