Arrested Louisiana priest was accused of ‘inappropriately touching a child’, report says

The arrest of a Roman Catholic priest in south-west Louisiana occurred after local authorities were told that the clergyman had “inappropriately touched a child” over the course of a year, according to investigators’ initial report on the case.The Guardian obtained the report Friday through a public records request, a week after the sheriff’s office of Acadia Parish, Louisiana, booked Korey LaVergne with three counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile.According to the report, it was the evening of 2 December when Acadia deputies received a complaint that LaVergne had previously molested a juvenile. The accuser had disclosed to a third person “that he was inappropriately touched by father Korey LaVergne … on multiple occasions within the last year,” the report alleged.Deputies wrote that the inappropriate touching allegedly took place at St Edward Catholic church in the Acadia community of Richard, where LaVergne was pastor.LaVergne was then jailed the evening of 16 January. He soon made bail in the amount of $15,000 to secure his release from custody pending the outcome of the case.The sheriff’s office at first said it couldn’t immediately provide details about the nature of the allegations against LaVergne, saying the agency would put that out later as the investigation allowed.Louisiana law defines indecent behavior with a juvenile as “any lewd or lascivious act … in the presence of any child under the age of 17”. Messages – including texts – and actions alleged to be grooming can constitute the offense under Louisiana’s law.That particular crime in many cases can carry up to seven years in prison upon conviction.LaVergne’s arrest came at a crucial juncture in the history of the Lafayette, Louisiana, diocese to which St Edward belongs. Founded in 1918 and tending to a congregation of about 150,000 Catholics, the diocese disclosed in a financial report published in November that it estimated its “total range of potential loss on [pending litigation] … is $88,187,500 to $162,450,000”.The diocese released that estimate years after the exposure of a Lafayette diocese priest named Gilbert Gauthe effectively brought the decades-old, international Catholic clergy molestation scandal to the United States by pleading guilty in 1985 to molesting several boys. He served 10 years in prison while many more cases across the US subsequently came to light, collectively costing the Catholic church billions and in instances resulting in criminal convictions.Elsewhere in Louisiana, about 135 miles (217km) east of Lafayette, the Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans agreed in December to pay about $305m to roughly 600 survivors of clergy molestation. New Orleans’s archdiocese reached that agreement more than five years after seeking federal bankruptcy protection amid the financial fallout of the worldwide clergy abuse scandal.LaVergne was ordained into the priesthood in 2018, a biography on the St Edward church’s website said. The biography said he had been appointed the pastor of St Edward in July 2021.Prior to his arrest, LaVergne had served as the Lafayette diocese’s official courier. In that role, he attracted news headlines for bringing thousands of pages of documents to the Catholic church’s global headquarters at the Vatican outlining the cause for sainthood for Charlene Richard.Nicknamed the Little Cajun Saint, Charlene Richard died from acute lymphatic leukemia at age 12 in 1959 and became known for offering up her suffering to God as well as others. She is buried at St Edward.The Lafayette news station KADN reported on 16 January that the complaint which led to LaVergne’s arrest that day had been made by a fellow priest.Meanwhile, the Lafayette diocese issued a statement saying it would “continue to assist law enforcement and requests prayers for all who are involved” in the case.Attempts to contact LaVergne for comment have not been successful.