Monsignor Arnel Lagarejos was detained immediately after his arrest in Santo Niño, Marikina City, on Friday evening, July 28. Romulo Sapitula, Eastern Police District director, said a joint team from Marikina police and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) caught Lagarejos in his sport utility vehicle (SUV) with the minor. He allegedly came to know the girl, an out-of-school youth, through a 16-year-old gay “pimp,” who was also arrested that same night. The priest, however, initially identified himself to the police as "self employed," Police Senior Inspector Jacqueline Ta-a told Rappler. Police said it recovered the following as evidence:
• Lagarejos' iPhone 5s containing text messages of "transactions" between him, the victim, and the pimp

Ta-a said Lagarejos underwent inquest on Saturday for allegedly violating the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003. Sapitula said barangay officials and social workers had actually spoken with the girl a day before the entrapment. ADVERTISEMENT

Based on the suspect’s LinkedIn account, Lagarejos is the current president of Cainta Catholic College (CCC) and former parish priest of the Our Lady of Abandoned Parish also in Cainta. Lagarejos holds a doctorate in theology from the Gregorian University in Rome and a licentiate in theology from the Loyola School of Theology in Quezon City, according to his profile on the CCC website. The priest supposedly handed P500 to the pimp, after which the pimp got off.
Monsignor Arnel Lagarejos, a Catholic priest from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Antipolo, Philippines was arrested in Marikina for sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl, by inviting her to a motel with a 16-year-old pimp.