The woman who publicly alleged that she was 17 when a longtime Roman Catholic priest in Alabama successfully offered her financial support in exchange for sex and other forms of private companionship – recently prompting him to resign from the clergy – says “there is no real winner in this situation”.

In her first remarks since Robert “Bob” Sullivan’s self-imposed removal from the priesthood was announced by his church superiors, Heather Jones wrote in a statement that the only thing she gained was “truth finally coming to light after years of gaslighting myself into thinking it wasn’t a big deal”.

“I am experiencing a lot of mixed emotions,” Jones’s statement added. “My hope now is for healing, accountability and protection for anyone who has ever been harmed by someone powerful.”

Alluding in part to criminal charges filed against her shortly after she first spoke out about Sullivan, Jones continued: “Coming forward was painful. The attempts to discredit me and all the hateful comments got overwhelming.”

But, without elaborating or supplying more details, she said other women “who have shared their own experiences with me, including things that happened with Bob,” provided her with vital support.

“Their voices are the reason I have stayed strong, and I encourage anyone with similar experience to get that weight off their chest,” Jones’s statement said.

Those comments from Jones, 33, marked the latest turn in a saga she says began while she was growing up in foster care after being removed from her mother’s custody “due to severe neglect”. She wrote that she lacked reliable “adult support” during her formative years and therefore tried to make a living as an exotic dancer at an establishment outside Birmingham, Alabama.

Jones says she was 17 when she met Sullivan at that establishment, where she managed to get work despite being under an applicable age limit. Sullivan regularly patronized the place, tipped her money during her shifts and soon offered to “change my life”, as she put it.

Sullivan ultimately proposed “to form an ongoing relationship that would include financial support in exchange for private companionship”, Jones wrote in a complaint that she would later file with church leaders. Jones alleged that Sullivan took her shopping, dining and drinking, and to hotel rooms in various Alabama cities in part to engage in sex, beginning when she was 17 and over a span of several years. She also said he paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars to remain silent about it all.

Jones said she didn’t immediately understand the predatory nature of her acquaintance with Sullivan, now 61, but went along with what he wanted because she was in a “desperate state”. She described grappling with depression, addiction and emotional instability during her and Sullivan’s arrangement – and she said she eventually decided to speak out against him because he had continued working closely with families and their children as the popular pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows church in Homewood, Alabama.

Jones filed her allegations in a formal written complaint to the Birmingham diocese that she then provided a copy of to the Guardian in August.

Birmingham church officials forwarded her allegations to the Vatican entity which investigates clergy misconduct cases. They also said they investigated “the significant payments alleged to have been made by … Sullivan”, finding no link between the allegations and any church funds.

Sullivan nonetheless asked Pope Leo XIV “to be dispensed from all the obligations” of the priesthood, according to those officials. And the pontiff granted Sullivan’s request on 22 November.

Catholic priests promise to be sexually abstinent. Furthermore, people younger than 18 are classified as minors – and sexual contact with them is considered to be abusive – under policies which Catholic bishops in the US adopted in the early 2000s amid the worldwide church’s decades-old clergy molestation scandal.

Yet there is no indication Sullivan has ever drawn scrutiny from Alabama law enforcement authorities. While Alabama – whose legal age of sexual consent is 16 – has made it a felony for clergy to engage in sexual activity with people younger than 19, that didn’t happen until the spring of 2024.

Jones, on the other hand, was charged with a criminal misdemeanor in connection with accusations that she filed a legal motion on behalf of a man involved in a court case, as Alabama media outlets have reported. Prosecutors in a county north of Birmingham allege the motion was signed under Jones’s name as an “advocate/law student” – and that in itself constituted having illicitly “engaged in practicing law” without being a licensed attorney, as WHNT.com noted.

A trial was tentatively scheduled for 28 January.

Jones has mostly declined to comment on prosecutors’ allegations, saying she would prefer to let her attorney handle the matter. But she said she can’t help but wonder if the charges were meant to undermine her credibility for having spoken out against Sullivan.