A New Orleans attorney penalized for warning a Catholic high school about its chaplain’s past sexual misconduct says the financial cost was “worth it” after the archdiocese formally listed the priest as credibly accused of abuse. Richard Trahant spoke after the late Paul Hart was added to the list on 6 November, years after concerns about his conduct reached church officials.
Trahant learned about Hart while representing clergy abuse claimants in the New Orleans archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings, which began in 2020. Documents available through that work showed Hart had privately acknowledged sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl he met through his ministry in the early 1990s. She reported the misconduct to the church in 2012, and Hart admitted it during a confidential internal investigation, according to legal records reviewed by the Guardian.
An advisory board recommended that the then archbishop, Gregory Aymond, remove Hart from public ministry. It noted that church law had considered someone of the girl’s age a minor since 2002. Aymond allowed Hart to remain, however, because the age of consent under church law had been 16 when the conduct occurred. Louisiana’s age of consent is 17. In 2017, Aymond appointed Hart chaplain at Brother Martin, a boys’ high school with some activities open to girls.
After discovering Hart’s history near the end of 2021, Trahant alerted the school’s principal, who is also his cousin, that the priest faced a credible allegation involving a minor. He also suggested that a journalist pay attention to Hart. Legal documents show Trahant declined to provide details to either recipient, citing a bankruptcy court confidentiality order. The archdiocese subsequently disclosed Hart’s misconduct to the school, which requested his removal. Hart retired in January 2022, nine months before his death.
A subsequent Times-Picayune report described the circumstances surrounding Hart’s departure, using sources and methods independent of Trahant. The archdiocese maintained that Hart had retired because of difficulties with brain cancer treatment. Bankruptcy judge Meredith Grabill nevertheless found that Trahant’s actions had triggered events constituting a breach of the confidentiality order. She imposed a $400,000 fine, later increased by $60,000 in interest, and removed four of his clients from a survivors’ committee negotiating the settlement.
An investigation ordered by Grabill found that the school received the details from the archdiocese, rather than Trahant. Investigators also acknowledged evidence supporting his denial that he supplied confidential information to the journalist. Trahant challenged the penalty unsuccessfully. After the US supreme court declined to hear his appeal in June, he paid it.
Archbishop James Checchio, Aymond’s successor, added Hart and 26 other priests and deacons to the archdiocese’s list on 6 November, bringing it to 106 names. The update fulfilled a key provision of the bankruptcy settlement announced in December 2025, under which the archdiocese and its insurers are to pay $305 million to hundreds of abuse survivors.
The archdiocese said records concerning those listed would be housed in a public archive at Louisiana State University. Trahant views Hart’s inclusion, alongside a notation recording three bankruptcy claims against him, as acknowledgment that officials mishandled the case. He is considering further legal action to recover his fine and litigation costs.
James Adams, one of Trahant’s clients removed from the settlement committee, called on Checchio to apologize to the lawyer and return the money. Adams said the listing vindicated both Trahant and the clients who had been removed.
