NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Guardian [London, England]
November 11, 2026
By Ramon Antonio Vargas
Richard Trahant says accusers have been vindicated after Catholic church officially classifies Paul Hart as sex abuser
An attorney who was fined more than $400,000 after getting an abusive Roman Catholic priest removed as a New Orleans high school’s chaplain says it was “worth it” now that the church has officially classified the cleric as a clergy molester.
That remark from Richard Trahant came days after the archdiocese of New Orleans, having waited years, added Paul Hart on 6 November to a list of Catholic priests and deacons faced with credible claims of clergy abuse while serving in the area.
The late Hart had previously dismissed news coverage of his admitted but largely unpunished sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl he met in the course of his ministry as “bogus” and “made-up”. But, while continuing to implement the terms of an agreement to settle a bankruptcy protection case that it filed amid the fallout of the Catholic church’s worldwide clergy abuse scandal, the New Orleans archdiocese ultimately included Hart on a list of more than 100 credibly accused priests and deacons – vindicating those who spoke out against him and his religious superiors.
“This is the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory,” Trahant said, invoking a phrase for something achieved at a high cost. “Sure, it’s exoneration – yet only after I paid a fortune.
“But if the question is: was it worth it? The answer is yes, and I would do it again tomorrow.”
Hart and Trahant were at the center of one of the most contentious chapters of the New Orleans archdiocese’s bankruptcy, which the institution filed in 2020.
Trahant’s work representing clergy abuse claimants whose cases became ensnared in the archdiocesan bankruptcy gave him access to documents chronicling how Hart had secretly admitted to his supervisors that he had sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl in the early 1990s after meeting her through his role as a priest.
In 2012, she reported Hart to the church for that behavior and confessed to it during a confidential internal investigation, according to hundreds of legal documents obtained and reviewed by the Guardian.
An advisory board working with New Orleans’s archbishop at the time, Gregory Aymond, recommended removing Hart from public ministry, saying the case victimized someone who was considered a minor under canon – or church – law since 2002.
But Aymond let Hart continue his ministry because in the early 1990s the age of consent under canon law was 16. And Louisiana law sets the age of consent at 17.
Aymond then appointed Hart to serve as chaplain at Brother Martin after the New Orleans Catholic high school asked for one in 2017.
“Please know that I not only appreciate your ministry but will pray for you that God will use you to be a sign of pastoral care to our young people,” Aymond wrote to Hart after appointing him to Brother Martin, an all boys’ school where there are activities that girls can participate in.
Hart was still in that role toward the end of 2021 when Trahant became aware of his past. He notified Brother Martin’s principal – coincidentally, Trahant’s cousin – that Hart had “a credible allegation from [his] past that involved a minor”.
Also, Trahant emailed this journalist to keep Hart on his “radar”. But he would not elaborate to either Gallagher or this journalist, citing a bankruptcy court confidentiality order, according to the legal documents stemming from the case.
Aymond and the archdiocese soon provided Brother Martin with the details about Hart’s past misconduct. And he retired in January 2022, nine months before his death, after Brother Martin requested that Aymond remove him from its campus.
Meanwhile, using methods and sources exclusive of Trahant, this journalist wrote an article in New Orleans’s Times-Picayune newspaper detailing the circumstances of Hart’s departure – though the archdiocese insisted the priest had retired because of “struggles with treatment for brain cancer”.
The federal judge in charge of the archdiocese’s bankruptcy, Meredith Grabill, later ruled what Trahant had done set off a chain of events that was enough to constitute a confidentiality order violation. She fined him $400,000 – which eventually grew by $60,000 because of interest. And she expelled four of Trahant’s clients from a committee of clergy abuse survivors helping negotiate an archdiocesan bankruptcy settlement, contending that it would aid the group’s functioning.
Grabill so acted despite a court investigation which she ordered having determined that Brother Martin got the specifics about what Hart had done from the archdiocese – not Trahant, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.
Court investigators also conceded there was evidence supporting Trahant’s denial that he ever provided any confidential information to this journalist.
Trahant unsuccessfully appealed his fine from Grabill up to the US supreme court. But the supreme court declined to hear his case in June, months after Aymond’s retirement as New Orleans archbishop – so he paid the levy.
Aymond’s successor, archbishop James Checchio, on 6 November then added 27 priests and deacons to a list of credibly accused clergymen which the New Orleans archdiocese first released in 2018, calling it a step toward “accountability and healing”. The list now had 106 names after the update – a key provision of an agreement announced in December 2025 requiring the archdiocese and its insurers to eventually pay $305m to hundreds of clergy abuse survivors to resolve the bankruptcy.
Hart’s name being listed immediately leapt out at Trahant, he said.
The archdiocese said that records associated with Hart and all others on the credibly accused list would be kept at a public archive hosted by Louisiana State University. A release of such records for Hart would mean none of the information in them was ever confidential, according to Trahant.
Trahant also said he interpreted Hart’s inclusion on the credibly accused list – and a notation that he had three claims filed against him in the bankruptcy – as an admission that archdiocese and court officials had mishandled his case. Furthermore, he said it was perhaps the ultimate repudiation of one of Hart’s last known statements – telling bankruptcy court investigators that news media reporting on his departure from Brother Martin was “so bogus that it looked … almost made up”.
“He was lying,” said Trahant, mentioning that he is contemplating seeking further legal action out of principle to attempt to recoup his fine and the costs he incurred fighting it. “And … now they’ve admitted [it].”
Separately, one of the Trahant clients who was ousted from the bankruptcy settlement committee said Checchio could “truly” promote accountability by apologizing to the advocate and returning the fine money to him.
“At least [now], everyone knows that we were wrongly removed,” James Adams said. “The court sanctioned an innocent lawyer and his clients.”