ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
Reuters
Sept. 13, 2019
A former Roman Catholic priest who fled to Morocco before he was returned to the United States and convicted of sexually abusing an altar boy in New Mexico in the 1990s, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The US district judge, Martha Vazquez, imposed the sentence on Arthur Perrault, 81, a onetime Air Force chaplain and colonel.
“There are few acts more horrific than the long-term sexual abuse of a child,” said the US attorney, John Anderson, in a statement. “At long last, today’s sentence holds Perrault accountable for his deplorable conduct.”
Perrault was convicted by a federal jury in April on six counts of aggravated sexual abuse and one count of abusive sexual contact with a minor in 1991 and 1992 at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque and at the Santa Fe National Cemetery, prosecutors said.
The victim, now an adult, testified that Perrault befriended him when he was 9 years old, showering him with gifts and trips before sexually assaulting him, prosecutors said.
Although he was convicted of abusing just one victim, prosecutors alleged in court filings that Perrault was a serial child molester who abused numerous young people over more than 30 years as a priest in New Mexico and Rhode Island.
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