Bronx: man charged with drugging and sexually abusing clients during purported Santería 'healing' rituals
Request a correction or replyRecord class
Core record
Evidence status
Charged
Authority role
man operating a purported Santería spiritual-healing practice
Organization
No organization assigned
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
The staged 'healing' ritual — including a spirit-possession claim and an incapacitating potion given as part of the rite — was the direct mechanism used to isolate, drug, and assault the clients, rather than incidental religious affiliation.
- Spiritual healing or treatment
- Threatened spiritual consequence
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2018-05-09 · arrest and charges
Bronx, New York (NYPD arrest and charges). Christian Robles, who ran a purported Santería spiritual-healing practice from his Bronx apartment, was arrested and charged in May 2018 after five clients alleged he had them drink an incapacitating potion during ritual sessions and then sexually abused them; one pregnant complainant alleged he stood on her during a 'ritual,' causing a miscarriage. The charges are allegations pending adjudication.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- incapacitating potion given as part of a 'healing' rite
- staged ritual used to isolate and assault clients
Cited record
Sources
- national broadcaster court reporting charging report 'Cops: "Spiritual healer" accused of sex abuse walked on pregnant woman's stomach', CBS News (May 2018).
CBS reports the NYPD charges alleging Robles drugged clients with a potion during Santería 'healing' sessions and sexually abused them.
Source provenance
Source access and integrity log
This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cops-spiritual-healer-accused-of-sex-abuse-walked-on-pregnant-womans-stomach/ Corpus classification: national-broadcaster-court-reporting; evidentiary role: charging-report. SHA-256 ff323be2ed79c84625d252059407e2513007a8105956a40ff7fd68b8c9e127f0
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Named in this record? Request a correction, report a changed disposition, or submit a response.
Related record
Related cases · Cuban Santería
- 1999 · Miami, FL, USA Fernandez — Santeria babalao in a capital-murder case
- 2025 · Hialeah, FL, USA Santeria ritual precedes deadly Hialeah shooting
- 2024 · Gran Canaria, Spain Gran Canaria court convicts a Santería practitioner who used rites to assault a child
- 2012 · Nacozari de García, Sonora, Mexico Nacozari family killings: convictions after sacrifices attributed to Santa Muerte devotion
- 2014 · Mission, Texas, USA United States v. Maya: Santería ritual blessing of a marijuana load documented in a federal trafficking conviction
- 2009 · Laredo, Texas, USA Zetas teenage sicarios Cardona and Reta: murder convictions in a cartel kill-team that toasted killings to Santa Muerte
- 2026 · Gran Canaria, Las Palmas, Spain Gran Canaria: Yoruba/Santería 'padrino' convicted of fraud for a coerced 'coronación' initiation payment
- 2024 · Ibagué, Tolima, Colombia Ibagué: santería practitioners charged with extorting clients using disclosures from spiritist sessions