‘We can win’: New Orleans clergy abuse survivor secures settlement

Settlement closes books on case that produced criminal conviction - and allegations of attempted hush money coverup

The estate of a wealthy Catholic deacon who admitted molesting a child and then died earlier this year has now paid his victim after he had previously tried to back out of a $1m agreement to settle a contentious lawsuit between them.

It's believed to be one of the largest individual sexual abuse settlements ever paid in a case involving a cleric who served in the archdiocese of New Orleans during the organization's decades-old sexual molestation crisis, though the crime to which the deacon pleaded guilty occurred before his ordination.