LOUISIANA
KATC

By Tina Macias

A retired priest is being investigated over decades-old allegations of sexual abuse during his time in Lafayette Parish, according to the Youngsville Police Department.

Roy Lee Touchet, 65, of New Jersey is accusing Gerard Smit, 91, of Newark, Delaware, of abusing him in the 1960s when Touchet was an alter boy. The Youngsville Police Department is in the beginning stages of the investigation, said Chief Rickey Boudreaux.

Smit worked for St. Anne in Youngsville and St. Joseph in Milton in the early 1960s. He’s listed as a former assistant pastor of St. Anne on the St. Joseph website.

In 2006, he was among several priests named by the Diocese of Wilmington as a priest with “substantiated allegations of sexual abuse, molestation and rape of minors” on the Diocese of Wilmington website. It’s noted that his allegations came while working in another diocese.

Smit served…