SANTA FE (NM)
Associated Press
April 3, 2019
Four men who say they were sexually abused by the same Roman Catholic priest decades ago have been recounting the details of their experiences as children before federal jurors this week in a Santa Fe courtroom.
One of the accusers, identified as John Doe No. 8, testified, while wiping tears from his face, that he still sometimes thinks about dying, but he couldn’t take his own life because he cares for a son who is a quadriplegic.
The trial of 81-year-old Arthur Perrault before a federal judge in Santa Fe began Tuesday and is expected to last another two weeks.
Perrault’s case marks an unusual federal criminal prosecution of a former priest in a state where dozens of clergy abuse victims have won more than $50 million in settlements from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. The archdiocese also is in the midst of bankruptcy proceeding as a result of the church-wide scandal, which has tarnished parishes across the globe.
Testimony earlier this week by one of the unnamed men revealed that the archdiocese in 1992 had denied that he had been sexually abused by the priest, but the claims were settled out of court at the time with the promise that Perrault would get therapy to prevent another boy from being harmed.
John Doe No. 8, told jurors the first assault occurred when he was 12. Perrault was driving the altar boy to the mountains outside of Albuquerque, he said, and the priest had told the boy’s parents they would be doing “church business.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.