NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WWL-TV [New Orleans LA]
May 21, 2025
By David Hammer
But attorneys representing large groups of survivors say the deal is short and will advise clients to reject it.
Some attorneys involved in the bankrupt New Orleans Catholic archdiocese’s federal financial reorganization say they have reached terms on an agreement to settle decades’ worth of clergy molestation claims, but lawyers representing a sizeable share out of more than 600 abuse claimants contend the proposed deal falls short by about $100 million — and they’re hoping they have the votes to block its approval.
Both developments came on Wednesday amid a struggle to resolve a tortuous Chapter 11 case that has cost the church more than $45 million in legal and other professional costs. The case could theoretically be dismissed at a hearing toward the end of June if the presiding judge, Meredith Grabill, determines she is unsatisfied with its progress.
Wednesday’s announced agreement was between attorneys for the archdiocese and those representing a creditors committee advocating on behalf of people who have filed abuse-related demands for damages in the bankruptcy.
But most of the abuse claimants are not on the panel that helped craft the announced agreement, which requires approval from two-thirds of voting plaintiffs, many of whom are represented by attorneys not involved in the committee.
A group of attorneys who collectively represent more than 80 abuse claimants say they are against the terms of the deal negotiated by the committee and the church’s lawyers amid protracted mediation talks. And those attorneys – Richard Trahant, John Denenea, and Soren Giselson – say they will recommend that their clients vote against accepting the proposed settlement.
They also say that they have reason to believe multiple fellow abuse survivors’ attorneys will do the same, and they believe it could position them to garner more than the 200 or so survivors’ votes needed to prevent the agreement from being approved in its initial form.
According to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, the deal put on the table Wednesday calls for the archdiocese, its affiliates and insurers to pay between $180 million and $230 million, much more than the $62.5 million initially offered by the church in September – but far short of the $323 million deal approved in 2024 for a similar case pitting about 600 clergy abuse claimants against the archdiocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island, New York.
“The committee delivered on its commitment to provide survivors a settlement that provides fair compensation, transparency and, importantly, unprecedented child-protection measures,” said Jim Stang, the lead attorney for survivors’ committees in both New Orleans and Rockville Centre. “We look forward to working with all survivors to bring this five-year bankruptcy case to an acceptable resolution.”
In a letter on Wednesday, New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond said the proposed deal would protect the archdiocese’s institutions while allowing them to collectively “look to the future towards a path to healing for survivors and for our local church.”
A statement from Trahant and his associates said Wednesday’s announcement was “a backroom deal” that excluded “the overwhelming majority of survivors” and “is spitting in the face of the people (the church’s) employees raped.”
Breakdown of the proposed settlement
The New Orleans proposal calls for the church and its affiliates to provide about $130 million in cash already in hand toward a settlement. That figure would grow to at least $150 million—and up to $200 million— from the eventual sale of about a dozen archdiocesan-owned apartment complexes providing housing for low-income seniors as well as people who are disabled.
However, those Christopher Homes apartment complexes were not even on the market as of Wednesday, and there is no known buyer lined up yet—despite the archdiocese first receiving a purchase offer from an interested party days after it filed for bankruptcy in May 2020. So, even if things go smoothly, that key transaction could take a year to complete, Denenea and his associates argue.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Stang said the sale of the archdiocese-owned orphanage known as Hope Haven, which was shuttered after numerous children were abused there by clergymen and others, would also create funds for the settlement. Louisiana state senator Pat Connick has spoken publicly about leading a plan calling for Jefferson Parish’s government to spend $8 million to buy and renovate the site, which is in Marrero.
The deal at the moment says the church’s insurers would contribute about $30 million, an amount that is hundreds of millions of dollars below what the survivors’ committee’s attorneys had previously suggested those companies should pony up. Sources said the proposal does not mention any money coming from the church’s largest insurer, Travelers, though abuse claimants would be able to litigate against that company individually upon resolving the church bankruptcy.
Accepting the deal as it is, therefore, would net clergy abuse survivors in New Orleans an average payout of between $300,000 and $383,000, significantly less than the nearly $540,000 per abuse claim for which the Rockville Centre archdiocese’s bankruptcy on Long Island settled.
How much each claimant gets would be based on a matrix established under the settlement factoring in the nature of the abuse, the amount of supporting evidence and other elements.
James Adams, a clergy abuse survivor who served as the creditors committee chairperson for the first two years of the church’s bankruptcy, said he was displeased with how the plan unveiled Wednesday used “fictional numbers to come up with a speculative total.”
Adams said the settlement plan put forth was “a missed opportunity” to make “a good faith offer.”
“This is not what it is, so it’s incredibly disappointing,” said Adams, who is represented by Trahant and his associates. “I’m tired of the archdiocese, its lawyers and the committee’s lawyers telling us what’s best for the survivors. No one has asked us.”
Various non-monetary concessions from the church were also part of the newly announced settlement proposal. They include the public disclosure and archiving of clergy abuse-related documents as well as requiring independent, outside investigations over any church molestation claims that may come in the future. A statement from Stang also referred to the installation of a survivors’ memorial at the Hope Haven site slated for sale and redevelopment.
The action on Wednesday unfolded after Grabill, in late April, ordered the New Orleans archdiocese to appear before her on June 26 and show why its bankruptcy should not be dismissed.
Issued three days before the fifth anniversary of the bankruptcy’s filing, Grabill’s order suggested there had been little meaningful headway after the archdiocese and survivors’ committee filed competing plans in September for settling the case.
Further ramping up pressure on the church was a parallel request from clergy abuse survivors’ attorneys to terminate the bankruptcy, which the group made even after Grabill’s threatened dismissal.
Trahant, Denenea and Gisleson made that request alongside six other attorneys with whom they have generally aligned themselves.
Dismissing the archdiocese’s bankruptcy would force it to litigate with abuse claimants individually rather than jointly, which could be more expensive for the church.
Those nine attorneys, who often make decisions about their clients in concert, advise a bloc of roughly 250 abuse claimants in the bankruptcy.
The church’s opening settlement offer in September aimed to pay the survivors an average of $125,000 per claimant. The committee at first sought an average of about $2 million per claimant, with insurers being tapped to cough up the bulk of that amount.
During April 2024, in the recently settled Long Island bankruptcy, survivors voted to reject a church offer to settle for about $333,000 per abuse claim.
They then voted to settle in September after the church and its insurers offered about $538,000 per claim. In that case, the church put up about $235m of the total amount, with insurers providing most of the rest.
New Orleans’s archdiocese – the second-oldest in the US, with about half a million congregants – went to federal bankruptcy court to protect itself from more than 60 years’ worth of claims of child sexual abuse by priests and deacons.
Nonetheless, the bankruptcy did not prevent the exposure of how the New Orleans church shielded admitted serial child molester and retired priest Lawrence Hecker from law enforcement for decades. Hecker eventually pleaded guilty in criminal court to child rape in December and soon after died in prison at age 93.
The investigation into Hecker then widened into an inquiry over whether the archdiocese ran a child sex-trafficking ring responsible for the “widespread … abuse of minors dating back decades” that was kept under cover “and not reported” to authorities, according to statements sworn under oath by police.
As of Wednesday, none of Hecker’s superiors had been charged with crimes in the case against him.