Paraguayan president’s paternity scandals ending as 3rd, final claim withdrawn

Paraguay’s Lugo sees last paternity claim dissolve

ASUNCION, Paraguay — President Fernando Lugo’s headaches over multiple paternity claims stemming from when he was a Roman Catholic bishop are apparently clearing up.

Hortensia Damiana Moran, one of three women who came forward last year and accused Lugo of fathering their children, withdrew her request for a DNA test on Tuesday, according to the judge in charge of the case.

“In a brief document, (Moran’s lawyer) requested the paternity suit be withdrawn citing personal reasons” on behalf of the plaintiff, Judge Osvaldo Caceres said. “I will probably finish the case this week.”

The lawyer, Rodrigo Aguilar, told Nanduti radio that Moran wanted to drop the claim because she was under stress.

He said he did not know whether Moran may have reached a private settlement with Lugo regarding her 2-year-old son, whom she named Juan Pablo after former Pope John Paul II.

Last year, Lugo acknowledged fathering a boy with former parishioner Viviana Carrillo, who was the first to file a paternity claim against the president. The boy has since taken Lugo’s name and has been known to visit the president at his official residence.

Soon a second woman went public with allegations that Lugo was the father of her boy. Benigna Leguizamon later dropped her claim.

It was not clear whether there was a settlement, but Leguizamon has since moved from the wooden and cardboard house where she lived with four children to a more comfortable home near Ciudad del Este. Newspapers in the capital have shown her running errands in an SUV and police guarding her residence.

Lugo’s lawyer, Marcos Farina, told local media Tuesday that “the president has no paternity claims against him at this time, but I have no information about whether any agreements were reached with the claimants.”

Lugo quit as bishop of San Pedro in 2004 and later renounced his status as a bishop entirely in 2006 to run for president. But Pope Benedict XVI did not accept his resignation, relieving him of chastity vows, until weeks before Lugo took office in August 2008.