Sex-abuse trial of fugitive priest tests federal reach

SANTA FE (NM)
Associated Press

April 3, 2019

By Susan Montoya Bryan

Four men who say they were sexually abused by the same Roman Catholic priest decades ago have recounted the details of their experiences as children as federal jurors prepared Wednesday to hear more about the alleged patterns of abuse.

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 on Tuesday 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.

That man, identified only as John Doe #8, told jurors the first assault occurred when he was 12. Perrault was driving the altar boy to the mountains outside of Albuquerque. He told the boy’s parents they would be doing “church business.”

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