Court upholds $400,000 fine against lawyer who warned Catholic school about predator on staff
"I did what I had to do," Richard Trahant told reporters after his punishment was upheld
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In December of 2021, attorney Richard Trahant discovered that a chaplain at a private Catholic school—Brother Martin High School in New Orleans, Louisiana—had previously been accused of sexual misconduct.
Trahant contacted the school and informed them of what he had just learned. Within days, that chaplain, Paul Hart, announced his “retirement.”
And then that lawyer was fined $400,000 for warning people about the predator priest.
I repeat: The attorneynot the priest and not the school and not the Catholic Churchwas fined $400,000 for alerting people about Hart’s past actions.
And now, a federal appeals court has upheld that decision to punish the whistleblower.
It’s hard to make sense of it because it seems so backwards and so egregiously, obviously wrong. (Because it is.) But the details are worth understanding.
The allegations against Rev. Paul Hart
Paul Hart began working for the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 1989. At some point during his tenure there, when he was in his late 30s, he met a 17-year-old girl who attended Mount Carmel Academy and was a member of a youth group at his church. Things took a disturbing turn after that:
By 1990, he was allegedly spending his personal time with the student, and began kissing her, groping her chest, and at least once engaging in what church investigators described as dry sex which involves people simulating intercourse with their clothes on while in the rectory, the sources said.
As criminal as that was, the girl didn’t tell anyone what happened at that time. She later said she didn’t understand just how inappropriate his actions were.
By 2012, however, that same girl had grown up and had children of her own. She even sent them to a Catholic school in the same archdiocese. But she soon found out that Paul Hart, who had moved around quite a bit during his career, was now back at their church and in close proximity to her kids. Knowing now how egregious Hart’s behavior had been, she told the archdiocese what happened to her years earlier.
The woman filed a complaint with the archdiocese, accusing Hart of grooming her before pursuing sexual contact she now realized was inappropriate. In a church investigation, Hart denied initiating what happened but admitted contact, which he could not say did not cause him to ejaculate.
The Church’s investigation didn’t go anywhere. They said Hart broke the Catholic Church’s rules about celibacy, as if that was the real issue, but didn’t commit child sexual abuse because canon law at the time said the age of adulthood was 16. (That was raised to 18 in 2002, but investigators were going by Church rules that were in place in the 1990s.)
The end result was that Hart remained a priest within the diocese. He wasn’t fired. He wasn’t even seriously in trouble. Because he had not abused a “minor,” his name never appeared on any list of priests accused of such behavior.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans filed for bankruptcy
In May of 2020, the Archdiocese of New Orleans filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Faced with the high costs of child sex abuse lawsuits and the huge financial hit from the pandemic, there was no other choice. The filing put a temporary stop to the lawsuits and began a process to figure out the archdiocese’s assets and liabilities. That process, however, involved sharing details about internal investigations.
That’s when attorney Richard Trahant (pronounced TRAY-hant) entered the story.
He represented some of the victims of sexual abuse and was part of a committee investigating the archdiocese. In that position, he saw the paperwork documenting the allegations against Hart. He also knew that Hart was currently working at Brother Martin High School. While that’s an all-boys school, girls are in the building for some extracurricular activities, so Trahant felt obligated to let the school know they had an alleged predator in their midst.
Trahant’s cousin also happened to be the principal of that school, which led to this exchange over text:
Trahant: Is [priest] still the chaplain at [high school]?
Principal: Yes
Trahant: You and I need to get together soon.
Principal: Sh*t
Trahant: Indeed.
Principal: You beat me to the text. That’s an ominous question coming from you.
Within days after the school learned about Hart, they released a statement announcing his sudden retirement. Both sides claimed Hart was stepping down “due to his ongoing battle with brain cancer.” Obviously the goal was to keep the allegations quiet.
But when the Times-Picayune wrote about Hart’s departure, reporter Ramon Antonio Vargas had the real scoop: Hart’s retirement was announced right after the school discovered the allegations of abuse against him.
The chaplain at Brother Martin High School abruptly left his post earlier this month, just days after the school was notified of allegations that he kissed and fondled a Mount Carmel Academy senior in 1990 while serving at another local Catholic institution, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation.
How was Vargas able to connect those dots?! The archdiocese clearly didn’t want anyone to know the real reason Hart was being let go, but Vargas seemed to have inside information.
Why the lawyer was fined for reporting the priest
It wasn’t until several months later when we finally learned the backstory. In a piece for the Guardian, written by none other than Ramon Antonio Vargas, he explained how he got a major tip from… attorney Richard Trahant.
It turned out that when Trahant alerted Brother Martin High School about Hart, he also emailed Vargas “advising him to ‘keep’ Hart on his ‘radar’, without saying why.”
Vargas began digging and it soon led to the scoop mentioned earlier, connecting Hart’s retirement with what seemed to be the actual reason for his departure.
When that story came out in late 2022, the judge in charge of the archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings, Meredith Grabill, realized that the only way a reporter could have learned any of those details was if someone working on the case leaked the information. That would have been a problem since all the documents were classified.
Grabill called for an investigation. While Vargas says he didn’t rat out his source(s), and openly told the investigators “Trahant did not provide any information in the piece,” Grabill said Trahant’s warning to the high school and his email telling Vargas to keep tabs on Hart violated the confidentiality agreement. So she punished him:
Grabill immediately removed from the clergy abuse claimants committee Trahant, two attorneys with whom he frequently collaborates and a number of clients. On Tuesday, she added the $400,000 fine against Trahant, saying the amount was derived from the cost of the leak investigation.
A $400,000 fine for warning a school about an alleged sex predator on their payroll.
Trahant said at the time he was appealing the decision. He also said in a publicly available deposition during the leak investigation that he acted like any mandated reporter: When he learned about wrongdoing, he reported it to relevant parties in order to protect potential victims.
I dont believe I violated the [confidentiality] order by alerting a school about a cleric who had previously engaged in misconduct with a teen, the attorney said.
Im going to do something about it 10 out of 10 times.
The bottom line is that Trahant did exactly what the Church should’ve done a long time ago. He took action when he realized there was a problem. But because his actions violate the letter of the law when it comes to these bankruptcy hearings, he now faced this staggering fine.
The archdiocese practically gloated about all this:
The wisdom of the judges ruling speaks for itself.
The wisdom! You could practically feel the condescension in that statement.
Whatever the legal situation here, Trahant deserved a medal for what he did, not a fine. When the morally correct option stands in direct opposition to the law, you have to respect those who choose the former path. It may be a messed up situation, but everyone was better off because Trahant spoke up.
If the Catholic Church actually gave a damn about any of these victims, it would be first in line offering to pay Trahant’s fine on his behalf. He did them a favor by giving them information that led to the dismissal of a child sex predator.
Just because the law may have been on the Church’s side didn’t mean the Church should bask in victory. Their response showed you little they care about the people they hurt.
That fine has now been upheld
And now, I’m sorry to say, Trahant’s attempt to overturn that decision has failed. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the decision to fine him $400,000.
Trahant tried to argue he wasn’t given due process, that the bankruptcy court lacked jurisdiction over the matter, and that they abused their discretion by punishing him. The Appeals Court, for legal reasons irrelevant here, dismissed all of those arguments, finding that Trahant violated his confidentiality agreement.
Despite all that Trahant still maintains he would do it all over again to protect kids, telling reporters, “I did what I had to do to keep a child predator away from children,”
Trahant could appeal this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, though it’s hard to believe anything will change.
The entire case has just been a huge series of systemic failures. The Catholic Church chose self-protection over accountability and the well-being of minors. The bankruptcy proceedings just became another tool for the Church to bury the truth and punish someone who took the moral high ground.
If there’s anything we can take away from this situation, it’s that we need more people like Richard Trahant. He did what the Church repeatedly fights against: He treated credible allegations as an urgent danger, not just some administrative inconvenience. He warned a school. He indirectly tipped off a journalist. He decided the rules weren’t sufficient and deserved to be broken. That’s the sort of moral clarity and personal courage that the Church likes to think it instills in people but never actually does.
I can’t decide if the courts bear any blame here, because they’re just doing what they’re supposed to do by applying the letter of the law. But the end result still sends a chilling message: When it comes to legal priorities, a policy of secrecy always overrides the idea of child safety. The Church and the courts are sending a symbolic message to future whistleblowers: Speaking up to protect kids could ruin you financially, but silence will always be rewarded.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
Crucify the RCCs tax-exempt status. Since they care nothing for the safety of children, go after the thing they DO care about.
The Catholic Church can always be counted on to do the right thing, . . . once they're out of other options. They will otherwise circle the wagons and protect the priests and other predators. The systematic abuse of children has been the Church's dirty little secret for centuries. Combine a requirement of celibacy with a fundamentally irrational view of human sexuality, and nothing good is going to come of it.