Current:Home > FinanceExpanding clergy sexual abuse probe targets New Orleans Catholic church leaders -Prime Capital Blueprint
Expanding clergy sexual abuse probe targets New Orleans Catholic church leaders
View
Date:2025-04-11 15:45:23
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Authorities have expanded an investigation of clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans to include senior church officials suspected of shielding predatory priests for decades and failing to report their crimes to law enforcement.
Louisiana State Police carried out a sweeping search warrant last week at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, seeking a long-secreted cache of church records and communications between local church leaders and the Vatican about the church’s handling of clergy sexual abuse.
The search signaled a new phase of the investigation that will seek to determine what particular church leaders, including current and former archbishops, knew about claims that the warrant describes as “ignored and in many cases covered up.”
The warrant contained several new details about the sex-trafficking investigation, including claims that some victims were sexually assaulted in a seminary swimming pool after being ordered to “skinny dip.” Separately, the warrant says, predatory priests developed a system of sharing victims by giving them “gifts” that they were instructed to pass on to clergymen at other schools or churches.
“It was said that the ‘gift’ was a form of signaling to another priest that the person was a target for sexual abuse,” state police investigator Scott Rodrigue wrote in an affidavit in support of the warrant.
The warrant sought an exhaustive range of personnel records, “files contained in any and all safes” and documents showing the extent to which the archdiocese continued supporting clergymen even after they were added to the so-called credibly accused list of suspected predators.
The warrant also confirmed a parallel FBI examination of clergy sexual abuse reported by The Associated Press nearly two years ago. That investigation has examined whether priests took children across state lines to molest them.
Archbishop Gregory Aymond did not respond to a request for comment and has rebuffed repeated calls by clergy abuse accusers to step down. The Vatican also did not respond to a request for comment.
“No one and no institution is above the law, especially when we are talking about protecting children from the horrors of child sexual abuse,” said Kathryn Robb, executive director of Child USAdvocacy, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of child sexual abuse accusers. “This warrant is the necessary muscle of the criminal system to protect children.”
Many of the most explosive church records surfaced in a flood of sexual abuse lawsuits that drove the archdiocese to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection four years ago. The documents chronicle years of abuse claims, interviews with accused clergy and a pattern of church leaders transferring problem priests, but they have been shielded under a sweeping confidentiality order in the bankruptcy case that has long hampered the state and federal investigations.
“We have been forced, against our own professional obligations, to keep them secret,” said attorneys Richard Trahant, Soren Gisleson and John Denenea, who represent the accusers.
The search could deepen the legal peril for church leaders, exposing them to potential state court prosecutions even as the U.S. Justice Department has struggled to identify federally prosecutable crimes related to clergy sexual abuse.
Last year, an Orleans Parish grand jury indicted Lawrence Hecker, a now-92-year-old disgraced priest, on charges accusing him of sexually assaulting a teenage boy in 1975 — an extraordinary prosecution that prompted the broader search of the archdiocese last week.
Hecker has pleaded not guilty to counts of rape, kidnapping, aggravated crime against nature and theft. He is accused of choking the teen unconscious under the guise of performing a wrestling move and sexually assaulting him.
The archdiocese failed to report Hecker’s admissions to law enforcement while permitting him to work around children until he quietly left the ministry in 2002. Church officials reassigned Hecker even after he was sent to a psychiatric facility in Pennsylvania and “diagnosed as a pedophile,” the warrant says.
“Hecker was not the only member of the archdiocese sent to receive psychiatric testing based on allegations of child sexual abuse,” Rodrigue wrote in the warrant.
The age of the Hecker case presents legal and evidentiary hurdles for prosecutors, who also face the political sensitivity of prosecuting a longtime clergyman in heavily Catholic New Orleans. Many predator priests have escaped criminal consequences in Louisiana for those reasons, making the scope of last week’s search even more notable.
One high-profile exception came in 2019 in the case of George F. Brignac, a longtime deacon and schoolteacher charged with sexually assaulting a then-altar boy in the 1970s. Brignac died in 2020 while awaiting trial at the age of 85. He had pleaded not guilty.
Litigation involving Brignac turned up thousands of still-secret emails documenting behind-the-scenes public relations work that New Orleans Saints executives did for the archdiocese in 2018 and 2019 to contain fallout from clergy abuse scandals.
___
Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield contributed from Rome.
___
Contact AP’s global investigative team at [email protected] or https://www.ap.org/tips/
veryGood! (13934)
Related
- Pregnant Kylie Kelce Shares Hilarious Question Her Daughter Asked Jason Kelce Amid Rising Fame
- The exact link between tornadoes and climate change is hard to draw. Here's why
- Vanderpump Rules' Ariana Joked About Being in a Throuple With Tom and Raquel Before Affair News
- The Prettiest, Budget-Friendly Prom Dresses Are Hiding at Amazon
- Romantasy reigns on spicy BookTok: Recommendations from the internet’s favorite genre
- Two years later, the 2021 blackout still shapes what it means to live in Texas
- Why Sleuths Have Determined Only Murders in the Building Season 3 Is Coming Soon
- Miranda Lambert Talks Pre-Show Rituals, Backstage Must-Haves, and Her Las Vegas Residency
- Kylie Jenner Shows Off Sweet Notes From Nieces Dream Kardashian & Chicago West
- Meghan Markle Responds to Report About Alleged Letter to King Charles III
Ranking
- Brianna LaPaglia Reveals The Meaning Behind Her "Chickenfry" Nickname
- An oil CEO who will head global climate talks this year calls for lowered emissions
- Lionel Richie Shares Insight Into Daughter Sofia Richie's Luxurious Wedding to Elliot Grainge
- Christina Ashten Gourkani, OnlyFans Model and Kim Kardashian Look-Alike, Dead at 34
- 'No Good Deed': Who's the killer in the Netflix comedy? And will there be a Season 2?
- Across Canada, tens of thousands have evacuated due to wildfires in recent weeks
- This fishing gear can help save whales. What will it take for fishermen to use it?
- How to save a slow growing tree species
Recommendation
How to watch the 'Blue Bloods' Season 14 finale: Final episode premiere date, cast
Arizona's farms are running out of water, forcing farmers to confront climate change
Barefoot Dreams Flash Deal: Get a $120 CozyChic Blanket for $30 Before It Sells Out, Again
Denise Richards Is Returning to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: Find Out What She Revealed
Have Dry, Sensitive Skin? You Need To Add These Gentle Skincare Products to Your Routine
Bachelor’s Sean Lowe Recalls Keeping Son Sam Safe During Attempted Armed Robbery of His Truck
The Hunger Games' Alexander Ludwig Celebrates 5 Years of Sobriety in Moving Self-Love Message
The heat is making squirrels 'sploot' — a goofy act that signals something serious