Ex-priest seeks pardon for molestation

A former Bay Area priest serving a decade in prison for repeatedly molesting a young girl at his Daly City church is asking officials in his native country of The Philippines to help secure a pardon from President Barack Obama.

Jose Superiaso, 54, asked the Public Attorney’s Office in the Philippines with help relaying the request to the White House, the PAO confirmed to a newspaper in Manila.

According to a PAO spokeswoman, the nearly five years Superiaso has already spent behind bars "to our humble opinion has already satisfied the rehabilitative and reformative intent of incarceration.”

She added the hope Superiaso can return to his native country and "revert to his spiritual duties and responsibilities.”

Superiaso is serving a 10-year sentence imposed after he pleaded no contest in 2005 to six counts of lewd and lascivious activity with a child under the age of 14. The deal came after a judicial tug-of-war in which Superiaso, who acknowledged engaging in sexual intercourse between 30 and 40 times with a young girl he baby-sat in the mid-1990s, was acquitted of some charges, faced retrial on others and was ultimately offered a settlement. The woman testified her memory of exact dates was unclear, a sticking point for the law which uses age 14 as a cutoff for the charges in his case.

Superiaso was arrested in June 2003 after a 22-year-old woman accused him of sexual abuse while he served at St. Andrew Church in Daly City. At the time, Superiaso was working as a priest on an Indian reservation in Santa Fe, N.M. and was lured back to California by the accuser.

A jury found Superiaso not guilty of three counts and deadlocked on 18 other charges. Superiaso accepted the plea offer after prosecutors decided to retry him on the counts using new evidence the girl was under age 14 at the time.

Superiaso is currently eligible for parole in 2013, barring his desired presidential pardon.

News of Superiaso’s request was met with opposition by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

"If anyone related to clergy sex crimes deserves a pardon, it’s the hundreds of deeply wounded victims who have run afoul of the law trying to bury or cope with overwhelming pain through drugs or alcohol,” said SNAP Outreach Director Barbara Dorris.

In addition to the Daly City church, Superiaso also served as a priest at Our Lady of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Belmont and at Our Lady of the Pillar Church in Half Moon Bay.

Michelle Durand can be reached by e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 102.