New Orleans priest accused of child rape now under scrutiny for financial crimes

Audit details potential irregularities in which nearly $400,000 of church congregants' funds were allegedly misused

A Catholic priest who led one of New Orleans' best-known inner-city churches until being accused of sexually molesting a child has been reported to federal authorities for possible financial crimes after an audit found he spent nearly $400,000 of his congregants' money in questionable ways.

John Asare-Dankwah ran the St Peter Claver church in New Orleans' historic Treme neighborhood from 2014 until early 2021, when a lawsuit alleging that he raped a boy on an out-of-state overnight trip years earlier prompted church officials to indefinitely suspend him from his role.