New Orleans Catholic abuse survivors call bankruptcy amounts 'a farce'

Survivors challenging allocations must pay $1,000 fee

The December 8 bankruptcy settlement resolved a years-long case the archdiocese opened in federal court in 2020. Under the agreement, the archdiocese and its insurers committed $305 million to a settlement trust to compensate survivors of abuse by clergy linked to the archdiocese. The trust is now in the process of mailing allocation letters to survivors whose claims have been evaluated.

At the heart of the distribution is a points-based system disclosed in settlement documents that survivors say disgusted them virtually from the outset. The system assigns values to different categories of abuse, with rape equating to 75 points, oral or digital abuse equating to 56 points, and grooming behavior equating to 5 points. The Guardian and reporting partner WWL Louisiana calculated each allocated point at $6,414.26, based on the approved maximum $641,425.64 payout for a 100-point claim.

For Aaron Hebert, who was abused by Lawrence Hecker — a late, convicted child rapist and longtime archdiocesan priest — the formula yielded 56 points, or an estimated distribution of $359,198. Richard Coon, who has testified to being molested by three men with links to the archdiocese and who endured both rape and oral sexual abuse by multiple clergy predators, was allocated 98 points. He said it was “shocking” that he did not receive the maximum.

A third claimant, Brian Manix, declined to disclose his allocation publicly but confirmed he was not awarded maximum points. “I was raped. I was made to give oral sex, and I was groomed,” Manix said on Thursday. “I need somebody to tell me … what’s missing.”

The allocation letters sent this week contain only the final point total, the estimated dollar distribution, and an acknowledgment that the bankruptcy process may have required claimants to “revisit deeply personal and difficult experience,” according to copies reviewed by the Guardian. The letters do not break down how the evaluator arrived at the figures. Claims evaluator Richard Arsenault, a personal injury attorney, did not respond to a Thursday request for comment.

The point allocations are starkly lower than outcomes some abuse survivors have secured outside the bankruptcy process. In June 2025, a Louisiana jury awarded $2.4 million to an unrelated Louisiana religious sexual abuse claimant after the state legislature temporarily eliminated filing deadlines for such cases. The Guardian reported that a handful of clergy abuse survivors in the New Orleans area have since reached out-of-court settlements with Catholic institutions not affected by the bankruptcy that are roughly comparable to that jury award.

Sources familiar with the process told the Guardian and WWL Louisiana that more than 800 abuse claims received point allocations through the New Orleans process. Among them, more than 100 received scores of zero — typically because the alleged abuser or entity was not affiliated with the archdiocese. Roughly $56 million from the settlement is being held back to account for successful appeals, with any remaining money to be redistributed to survivors based on their point allocations.

The settlement process has been marked by delays and disputes between the trust and the archdiocese. In open court, the archdiocese and others had promised payments by the end of spring 2026. Settlement trustee Don Massey filed motions to compel the church to turn over records needed to make payment determinations. “Any promises made by the debtor (the archdiocese and its affiliates) were not made by the settlement trust,” Massey said when asked about the delayed payments. “The settlement trust was not consulted by the debtor prior to making this uninformed promise.”

Survivors have 30 days to request reconsideration of their point allocations. But under a protocol established in December and approved by the vast majority of claimants, those who challenge their scores must pay $1,000 out of pocket. Attorney Richard Trahant, who is part of a legal team representing Coon, Hebert, Manix, and roughly 80 other abuse claimants, called the fee “obnoxious” and said his clients would appeal. “The $1,000 fee for reconsideration of the point total is obnoxious,” Trahant said. “And we will figure out how to address that in the coming days.”

The New Orleans archdiocese is one of more than 40 Catholic institutions that have turned to federal bankruptcy court amid the financial fallout of the worldwide clergy abuse scandal, according to the Guardian. Nearly 30 of those groups have reached settlements. Survivors say the bankruptcy venue has given those institutions a disproportionate advantage.

“This whole thing’s a farce,” Hebert said on Thursday. Coon added: “There’s a lot of survivors that are hurting right now.” Coon, Hebert, and Manix all said the factors combined to convince them that bankruptcy court was the wrong venue to be fairly compensated — despite assertions by the archdiocese that it was the venue providing the most equitable solution. As Coon put it: “The bankruptcy was all about protecting the church.”