New Orleans lawyer fined for alerting school to priest’s past sexual misconduct

Richard Trahant was fined $400,000 for violating confidentiality rules around a bankruptcy filing by the local archdiocese

A New Orleans attorney who represents victims of clerical sexual abuse faces a $400,000 fine after alerting a local Catholic high school that a priest who worked there once admitted to fondling and kissing a teen girl he met at another church institution.

The lawyer, Richard Trahant, said he would appeal against the hefty sanction handed to him on Tuesday, which stemmed from a federal judge's ruling that his alert violated confidentiality rules governing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by the local archdiocese.