LAS CRUCES (NM)
Albuquerque Journal
February 11, 2019
By Angela Kocherga
Acknowledging that it must “atone for past mistakes,” the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces on Monday said it has given the state Attorney General’s Office personnel files and other documents connected to 28 priests and other clergy “credibly accused” of sexual abuse of children and minors.
“We have sent these files to the attorney general for his review, and in those files are the allegations against these individuals and how the situation was managed by the diocese,” Bishop Gerald Kicanas told a news conference in Las Cruces. The diocese said roughly 12,000 pages were turned over, although some of the documents were redacted.
Release of the documents comes three days after the AG’s Office arrested and charged former Archdiocese of Santa Fe priest Marvin Archuleta, 81, on first-degree felony counts of criminal sexual penetration of a child under 13 and kidnapping in the rape of a 6-year-old boy in the 1980s at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Santa Cruz, near Española.
And in September, federal agents extradited former Kirtland Air Force Base chaplain Arthur Perrault from Morocco and charged him with six counts of aggravated sexual abuse and one count of sexual contact in the molestation of an 11-year-old boy in the early ’90s. Perrault has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
The Diocese of Las Cruces, meanwhile, has also added the names of 13 priests “credibly accused of sexual misconduct with minors” to the list of 28 individuals released in November. The new names were of priests who had allegations against them but not during their time in the Las Cruces Diocese.
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