{"id":91424,"date":"2025-12-17T14:41:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/91424\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T14:41:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:41:21","slug":"former-slaton-priest-found-not-guilty-of-indecent-assault-unlawful-restraint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/91424\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Slaton priest found not guilty of indecent assault, unlawful restraint"},"content":{"rendered":"

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – A former Slaton priest accused of touching a woman without her consent was found not guilty on two charges today by a Lubbock jury.<\/p>\n

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Former Slaton priest accused of indecent assault<\/a><\/p>\n

73-year-old Ammanuel Puthuparambil was charged with indecent assault and unlawful restraint in June of this year. It took the jury just over two hours to deliver the not-guilty verdict.<\/p>\n

Court documents detailed three incidents of Puthuparambil attempting to sexually assault the victim and another incident attempting to restrain her.<\/p>\n

The court heard from both sides today including a friend of the victim, who said she met with her after the alleged assault. She said the victim was crying and<\/p>\n

The defense said the case was a \u201che said, she said\u201d situation. It also claimed the victim\u2019s story would always change throughout the process.<\/p>\n

In July, the victim filed a lawsuit against Puthuparambil, suing for more than $1 million for damage claims of emotional abuse, unlawful restraint, physical pain, medical expenses both prior and future, battery and sexual assault.<\/p>\n

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Woman files lawsuit against Slaton priest, claims sexual assault<\/a><\/p>\n

Puthuparambil avoids up to a year in prison as both charges are class A misdemeanors. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – A former Slaton priest accused of touching a woman without her consent was found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[42996,319,66,168,170,169,3348,4031,12126,42998,42997],"class_list":{"0":"post-91424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lubbock","8":"tag-ammanuel-puthuparambil","9":"tag-kcbd","10":"tag-local","11":"tag-lubbock","12":"tag-lubbock-headlines","13":"tag-lubbock-news","14":"tag-priest","15":"tag-sexual-assault","16":"tag-slaton","17":"tag-slaton-news","18":"tag-slaton-priest"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}