The accuser, now 44, told investigators that the abuse began at Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church in Albuquerque. He alleges he was raped by then-Rev. Ronald Bruckner beginning in 1984, when he was 9.

According to a search warrant affidavit filed Thursday in state District Court in Albuquerque, the accuser said that within two years, the Rev. Robert Malloy also began raping him. The abuse extended for at least four years, the affidavit says, with the two men assaulting the boy not only on church property, but also in Albuquerque hotel rooms, at state parks and during church events.

Much of the abuse occurred during Boy Scouts trips throughout the New Mexico wilderness, the accuser told investigators, as both former priests had served as Scout leaders.

In addition to raping the boy, the affidavit says, the priests filmed him performing sexual acts.

The accuser spoke with the Attorney General’s Office investigators in a Feb. 15 interview, saying he had lived close to the church and that his family was deeply immersed in the church community.

Malloy, 61, denied the allegations Friday. “I can only say that I unequivocally deny all of it,” he said when reached by phone. “Nothing like that happened. It is very disturbing. That did not occur — at any time.”

He declined to comment on how he has spent his time since leaving the clergy in 1998, when he faced criminal charges of soliciting teen boys for prostitution.

Most of the counts were dismissed as part of a plea deal.

Last year, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe released a list of priests and brothers who had been “credibly accused” of sexual abuse of children. Mallow and Bruckner were both on the list.

The allegations cited in Thursday’s search warrant affidavit first surfaced in a lawsuit the accuser filed in December against the Boy Scouts of America. The complaint alleges the organization placed the men “in a position of substantial power over the lives of vulnerable boys” and knew, or should have known, that children were being sexually abused in their care.

The Boy Scouts of America told the Attorney General’s Office that it destroys records about trips or meetings seven to 10 years after such events, according to the affidavit.

The state’s investigation into Malloy and Bruckner, 85, comes after former New Mexico priest Marvin Archuleta was indicted and arrested earlier this month on charges of raping and restraining a 6-year-old boy at Holy Cross Catholic School in Santa Cruz in the late 1980s — and amid the Roman Catholic Church’s larger reckoning of sexual abuse by clergy in New Mexico and around the world.

This week’s search of records from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe is part of the attorney general’s nearly three-year investigation into sexual abuse by priests throughout New Mexico over the past several decades.

The attorney general has compelled the archdiocese to voluntarily hand over information. The search warrant affidavit indicates, however, that church officials have withheld many records and information about internal practices for addressing allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy.

The documents requested from the archdiocese’s Catholic Center in Albuquerque is extensive, with the warrant seeking more than 50 types of records on the two former priests during the four decades between 1979 and 2019.

“We are trying to have a full accounting and accountability for past crimes,” Attorney General Hector Balderas said Friday.

“I did one of the largest sweeping voluntary disclosures,” Balderas said. “… I think it is an important step for [the Catholic Church’s] healing if they really mean what they say. … I also believe there is a vast amount of information on how they handled allegations that they could be more forthcoming — and they need to be more forthcoming — on their own.”

Balderas said he wants to work with the church as a “partner in the community” when it comes to accountability regarding clergy abuse.