The case of the 37-year-old priest in Lower Patissia it seems to have a lot of depth. The investigation of the Juveniles of the Attica Security and the Prosecutor's Office on mobile phones, tablets and computers, the complaints of women that are increasing day by day and the minor's description of what she experienced for several months open new avenues for unlocking other cases.
Father Stefanos Verlekis is a man who from a young age acrobatized two selves. On the one hand, an enclosed student at the Ecclesiastical High School of Tinos, growing up next to priest his father and, on the other hand, a child of the square who had just finished school, worked in construction, delivery, and even a clerk in a funeral home. At the age of 37, the father of three boys, it is alleged that he had a particular weakness in women, to the extent that he could not control his passion and dropped it on any female who approached the church.
He skillfully created the profile of the modern pope with social media and a presentation that does not refer to the classic priest with the plait, the long beard and the all-black races, taking care to have short hair and a well-groomed beard. Those who knew him speak for a man who has a tremendous ability to approach his neighbor, to convey peace and tranquility and most importantly, security.
But in women his modus was one and only. Through ten stages, as he typically told them, to lead them to bed. "THEMA", through the case file, testimonies of people who knew him but also Security analysts, unfolds the tangle of the pedophile priest of Patissia.
Seven years deacon
Stefanos Verlekis spent all the years of his life in the church. He was only 63 days old when he attended the ordination of Hercules's father and since then his life has been intertwined with Christianity. Benjamin grew up with his father in a family of five siblings after his parents divorced when he was just three years old.
Papa-Iraklis publicly revealed that his young son was growing up crying and looking for his mother, while at the age of 12 he was stigmatized by his mother's second marriage, in which his father also starred. Following on the way to his older brother, he decided to leave Arta and in closed to finish the Ecclesiastical High School of Tinos.
No one knows if he really decided to become a priest or something else pushed him to take this path. Because, as those who know him say, Stefanos, finishing high school and to leave his father's arms, went to Nafplio where his older brother who was a soldier lived.
Before joining the army, he managed to work in construction and funeral homes, digging graves, buying a motorbike and for a while becoming a food distributor.. His life was like that of a normal young man who did not seem to have a particular inclination towards the church. and nothing indicated that a few years later he would wear the robe and be transformed into a clergyman who acquired the status of spiritual and confessor. Everything seems to have changed for Stefanos Verlekis, when he was fired from the army.
Father Stefanos Verlekis had a strong presence on social media. In the photo, a message he sent to the minor to follow him on Facebook
Spending difficult months in the 7th Infantry Brigade in Provaton Evros, he was around 23 when he met his wife Stefania. He was an idiosyncratic consul made by his military brother Evangelos, who was friends with the girl's police father. The two young people immediately came close and have been together ever since. They got married and immediately after, Stefanos Verlekis was ordained a deacon in Arta.
Those who know the ecclesiastical events wonder why he remained a deacon for seven years, he had to change the parish and in 2015 he became a priest by Metropolitan Dodonis. Papas now comes to Athens for the first time with his family and is placed in the Church of Agios Dimitrios Oplon in Kato Patisia.
The ten stages
In Kato Patisia, Father Stefanos is slowly building the profile of a modern priest. He does not wear black but gray, has short hair, a trimmed beard and is active on social media. He even sets up a team in the area to be close to the youth. But its purposes are different. Unorthodox and especially cunning. As Security analysts typically say, the rasoforos starts chasing women.
In a passionate, inappropriate and obsessive way. To such an extent that he does not care if they are underage girls or mothers of children who go to the Catechism. He is blinded by the excitement of forbidden pleasure and all he seeks is to satisfy in any way his unbridled impulses.
The way he chooses his victims is unclear. When he puts a woman in the eye, as the data gathered by the officers of the Attica Minority Protection Sub-Directorate show, she does everything to gain her trust. She talks about the ten stages she has to go through, about the rules she has to apply and most importantly, about complete submission to her spiritual being, that is, to himself.
If the victim is a minor, then his approach is different. The questions are simpler and the manipulation is of course easier. In fact, he does not hesitate to give examples of the relationship he should have the spiritual father with his child to take him by the hand and lead him to the… way of God. When women are older, he enters the "roast" faster, looking to find people trapped in dead-end and problematic relationships to throw them in his arms.
The trailer from the TV series "13 Reasons Why" which became the occasion for the 17-year-old girl to file a complaint against the priest
The complaints
It was November 9, 2021 when a 17-year-old girl entered the special room of the Juvenile Department, determined to tell the psychologists everything about the dark priest of Patissia. In the 17 pages of her testimony unfolds the whole tangle of the action of the perverted clergyman who was transformed into the Marquis de Sade of the center of Athens, with details that cause disgust and common sense.
A heartbreaking confession from a child who was raped in the most brutal way, threatened and blackmailed, to the point of seeing him and faints out of terror and even flirting with the idea of suicide. "I cried almost every day out of fear. I did not know what to do. I wanted to do something, but I was very scared. I was broken up. "I felt that this man did not just rape my body, but raped my soul", the little girl states in her testimony, which, as the police point out, she constantly interrupted because she burst into tears with sobs.
As he says, he did not speak because "I had not found the strength to do it for so long and I thought I was doomed to this thing that will haunt me for the rest of my life. "But I could not take all this pain, all this fear, and so I came to denounce it," he says. «And after I told my mother, I started to feel very strong and to give myself strength to be able to punish, not to punish is not a nice expression what I say, to get in quotes this man what he should, because he raped me. He raped me, raped me while I did not want to. "I did not want this thing."
The child describes in detail how these unthinkable acts were committed by the priest, who in one case, just completed the sexual assault, he called his wife to tell her he was coming back because he could not find their child's toy, in another he bombarded her with messages to send him obscene photos, forcing her with threats to erase the evidence so that his wife would not notice the slightest thing, while in another case he pushed the student to the Catechism when she herself had gone to get some forgotten sweets saying of "You will get your sweet" and then raped her.
The child states that the series "13 Reasons Why" was what made her a psychological rascal and at the same time armed her with a force to break the suffocating limits of silence that she had set out of fear and to speak to the Authorities. I happened to see a series called "13 Reasons Why" which has to do with various rapes with a girl. It was an episode where the girl was raped and I cried for 2 hours. I could not stop crying, because things came to my mind… ".
Regarding the juvenile's complaint, the now imprisoned priest in his apology claims that the forensic examination does not confirm the version of the rape, while it reaches a point to attribute the student's complaints to the influence of "13 Reasons Why", stating that "the young woman of her age and the programs she watched would be sufficient as motivation, as this series tells the 13 reasons why a beautiful girl committed suicide because she was raped by a classmate and all her friends, classmates, parents "Her teachers have shown her that she must commit suicide because she is not important to anyone."
Erotic relationship with an 18-year-old
An 18-year-old woman also testified at the Juvenile Protection Sub-Directorate, who allegedly claimed that she had had an affair with the priest since 2019, but did not file a complaint, as well as that she had feelings for him. The police also have at their disposal photographic material of erotic content from the mobile phone while the girl's mother has also testified, who said that the last time she went to confess, Verlekis "threw" her, telling her to meet in a private space to meet erotically.
When the woman looked at him embarrassed by everything she heard, he told her not to be afraid and to see it as redemption of her soul. Finally, comes the complaint of a 16-year-old, who on the TV air of the show "Truths with Zina" claims that she had a traumatic experience from the priest when she was 14 years old. The child was going to the Catechism at the urging of the clergyman, who, as he said, without wasting time spread his nets on her. After pushing her to become her spiritual father, he then started asking her for nude photos.
"I have conversations that he speaks to me indecently and begs me to take him on camera. I was 14 years old, but fortunately I had a conscience. He put God in everything he said. He told me to send him pictures without my clothes on camera. "Who knows what I would see," said the student, referring to a shameful incident that took place when she went to confess. The rasoforos looked at her intently, told her that he was in the house of God, where she should not feel uncomfortable, and asked her to lift her bra.
The 37-year-old is legally represented by Mrs. Irini Maroupas and Mr. Konstantinos Gogos. Ms. Maroupa points out in "THEMA": "The paralysis of the institutions invalidates the rule of law in our country, a basic condition of democratic societies. Police do not arrest on the spot, but intervenes only after a complaint, years after the offenses were committed. Weak legal arrest warrants are issued, precisely because there are no spontaneous offenses leading to the arrest of the accused.
The pre-trial case becomes a flyer on television channels. making it extremely difficult, if not invalid, to verify the truth during the interrogation stage and later, as all witnesses and parties are informed in detail of the testimonies and evidence.
Finally, the repeated, exhaustive analysis of the smallest detail by journalists and journalists without legal education, accompanied by the simultaneous receipt of television "complaints - deposits", before they are made institutionally to the Police or the investigator, where the case is pending, all this institutional to erroneous judicial conclusions based on the surrounding atmosphere and to testimonies that they are not spontaneous and honest. This institutional deviation does not lead to reliable and solid court decisions, based on evidence. And we all have a responsibility to restore this overthrow of the rule of law. "
Source: First Topic