LAFAYETTE (LA)
Arcadian News First [Lafayette, LA]
November 2, 2026
By Jim Hummel
Father Michael Guidry will be released from prison later this month. Guidry, 83, was sentenced to 7-years in prison in 2019 after pleading guilty to molesting a teenage boy. The victim and his family have been notified that Guidry is set to be released from prison on November 14. He will have to register as a sex offender.
Guidry molested the son of a deacon he served alongside at St. Peter Catholic Church in Morrow. The victim’s father, Scott Peyton, later resigned from the diaconate and left the church citing the clergy sex abuse crisis; he was then excommunicated by Lafayette Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel. The Vatican recently upheld Peyton’s excommunication, citing public statements he made about joining an Anglican church.
Guidry was permanently removed from ministry, but the Diocese of Lafayette has never responded to inquiries if he was excommunicated or defrocked. Dawn Eden Goldstein, a canon lawyer for the Peyton family, recently claimed in an interview on ANF that Bishop Deshotel allowed Guidry to remain in the priesthood out of compassion for his age. The diocese did not respond to requests for comment on that claim.
Goldstein released a statement to ANF about Guidry’s pending release, saying in part:
“The Rev. Michael Guidry is a convicted child molester whose depravity has caused lasting harm to my client Scott Peyton’s son and the entire Peyton family. At the will of Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel, this criminal, who has never displayed remorse for his crime, will walk out of prison still able to present himself as a priest of God. Although he may not be permitted to minister publicly, we know Guidry will continue to call himself ‘Father,’ for he boasted that he gave spiritual direction from his prison cell.”
ANF Investigates has uncovered that Guidry is facing a new allegation of child sex abuse. In a lawsuit filed against the Diocese of Lafayette, a man claims he was sexually abused by Guidry as a teen while serving as an altar server in the 1970’s. It’s one of dozens of new lawsuits filed against the diocese under a “lookback window” approved by state lawmakers and upheld by the Louisiana Supreme Court. The law gives survivors of childhood sexual abuse an opportunity to seek damages regardless of when the alleged abuse occurred. The lookback window closes on June 14, 2027.