A 45 year old parish priest in Italy has been apprehended on charges of paying for sex with minors. He is a junior football coach and an HIV-positive man. He was among the 11 people arrested in northern Italy on charges of paying for sex with minors.
The arrest was preceeded by a six-month investigation led by detectives in Brescia into a prostitution network which used social media to put the minors in contact with potential clients. The investigation was triggered after a mother found suspicious text messages on the phone of her 16-year-old daughter.
Rota has been suspended from his post. All the accused were placed under house arrest. One of them, a 56-year-old man with HIV, had been arrested earlier this year on suspicion of seeking partners for unprotected sex.