SANTA FE (NM)
Associated Press
April 10, 2019
A federal prosecutor late Tuesday described a former priest and Air Force chaplain standing trial on sex abuse charges as a “serial molester” who during his final years in New Mexico exploited one young altar boy’s interests in the military and priesthood to spend more time with him.
Prosecutor Sean Sullivan’s harsh illustration of Arthur Perrault came as attorneys for both sides delivered closing arguments. Jurors now must decide whether Perrault abused the boy in the early 1990s at Santa Fe National Cemetery and Kirtland Air Force Base.
Perrault, who is 81, was returned by authorities to the United States from Morocco in September to face charges of aggravated sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact.
Once the pastor of St. Bernadette’s, one of New Mexico’s largest Roman Catholic parishes, Perrault is accused of vanishing from the state in 1992 just as an attorney prepared to file two lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe alleging he had sexually assaulted seven children.
“He fled to escape justice,” Sullivan said.
While Perrault had multiple victims in New Mexico, according to authorities, the federal charges against him stem only from the abuse of the one boy at the two military properties, which fall under federal jurisdiction.
Perrault has pleaded not guilty to charges, and his attorney questioned Tuesday why the former altar boy did not tell his mother when he was still a child about being abused.
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