BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) A Brazilian priest mentioned in the Catholic clergy sex abuse film “Spotlight” has been found dead in a prison cell after he was arrested again for suspected pedophilia.
The Rev. Bonifacio Buzzi, 57, hanged himself with a sheet in a jail in the state of Minas Gerais, where he was taken after his arrest on Friday, authorities said in a statement. His body was discovered on Monday (Aug. 8).
A decade ago Buzzi was convicted of abusing a 10-year-old boy in Minas Gerais and jailed from 2007 to 2015. He was arrested last week after criminal complaints that he had molested two boys aged 9 and 13.
Buzzi was cited among the pedophilia cases listed at the end of “Spotlight,” the Oscar-winning 2015 film based on The Boston Globe newspaper’s investigation of sexual abuses by Catholic priests and efforts by the Archdiocese of Boston to cover them up.
Allegations against Buzzi first emerged in the 1990s in his home state of Santa Catarina. In 1995 he was convicted of molesting two boys in his parish near the city of Mariana after their parents accused him of performing oral sex on their children.
Buzzi got a reduced sentence and the Catholic Church obtained a court order allowing him to serve it out at the home of the local archbishop.