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“Five Years of Filth”: Survivors and their Attorneys Torch New Orleans Archdiocese for Weaponizing Bankruptcy, Our Faith, and Protecting Their Predators

Originally published by Big Easy Magazine (https://bigeasymagazine.com/) Give them a visit, they do the heavy lifting, unapologetically.

It’s been five years since the Archdiocese of New Orleans crawled under the sanctuary of Chapter 11 bankruptcy; five years of delays, deceit, and deliberate cruelty. What was billed as a path toward healing has metastasized into a courtroom circus, orchestrated by cowards in cassocks and rubber-stamped by a judiciary more interested in preserving collars than protecting children.

Victims of clergy sex abuse, many of them now gray-haired and grieving the lives they could have lived, stand united not with candles, but with fury. And after half a decade of silence, stonewalling, and spreadsheet sorcery, they’re done begging.

They want blood, not bread. Truth, not theology. Justice, not Jesuits.

Five Years of Smoke and Mirrors

The Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in May 2020, claiming it was the “compassionate” path forward. But ask the survivors, and you’ll get a much grimmer translation: it was a tactical maneuver to suffocate over 500 lawsuits in a thick fog of legal red tape. Chapter 11 was never about mercy, it was about dodging accountability by hiding behind a rosary and a lawyer.

Judge Meredith Grabill, after half a decade of watching this farce unfold in her own courtroom, now threatens to dismiss the case entirely if a deal isn't reached by June 26. Survivors are begging her to do just that, not as a setback, but as a long-overdue exorcism of bad faith.

A Settlement Insulting to the Bone

The Church’s offer? A pitiful $62.5 million - chump change spread thin among hundreds of victims. It equates to about $125,000 each, an amount that wouldn’t cover a decade of trauma therapy, let alone lost innocence, broken families, or lives derailed.

Survivors are demanding $1 billion. Why? Because that’s what justice costs after generations of systemic rape, gaslighting, and cover-up. That number isn’t about greed; it’s a price tag on silence that the Church has tried to buy on the cheap.

“The Archdiocese raped our childhoods and now wants to buy off our adulthood with pocket change,” said abuse survivor Shaun Dougherty. “We’re not for sale.”

The Clown in the Counting House

Adding insult to psychological injury is the man tasked with managing the Archdiocese’s finances: 72-year-old Lee Eagan, a volunteer with no formal training in law or accounting, who publicly admitted he struggles with memory loss.

Yes, someone with cognitive decline was put in charge of tens of millions of dollars.

He has greenlit nearly $50 million in professional fees, mostly for lawyers defending the Church, while survivors scrape by and wait. This is not stewardship; it’s sacrilege masquerading as finance.

If Christ flipped tables in the temple, what would He do to the accountants?

A Digital Betrayal

As if betrayal from the pulpit and courtroom weren’t enough, survivors were recently betrayed in the digital realm as well. The California-based Berkeley Research Group, hired to advise the bankruptcy process, suffered a ransomware attack. The breach may have exposed the personal data of survivors, including the exact names and records the Church spent decades trying to bury.

Now that sacred trust is in the hands of hackers.

“It feels like being violated all over again,” said one anonymous survivor. “First they raped us. Then they hid it. Now they’ve handed our secrets to criminals. What’s next?”

According to Berkeley research Group, the FBI is investigating, but the survivors are done waiting on badges and bureaucracy. They want heads to roll. And perhaps a new lawsuit against them for having in their possession victim Personal Identifiable Information, that the victims never gave consent for them to have in the first place. 

Depose the Archbishop

At the top of the survivors’ list: Archbishop Gregory Aymond, the man who has tiptoed through this scandal while pretending not to hear the screams of his flock. Survivors are demanding he be forced to testify under oath, and answer; without vestments, without handlers, without spin - what he knew and when he knew it.

His refusal to do so is damning.

“Archbishop Aymond was the shepherd. Either he was asleep, or he fed us to the wolves,” said survivor and activist and advocate Richard Windmann. “In either case, he is unfit to lead.”

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

Judge Grabill, for her part, hasn’t helped. In a move that reeked of bias, she expelled four abuse survivors from the official settlement committee and fined their attorney, Richard Trahant, $400,000, for allegedly violating a confidentiality order. This, despite a DOJ trustee advising against such a penalty.

The message is clear: Protecting the Church matters more than protecting children.

And now, survivors are openly questioning whether the bench is just another extension of the altar.

“This entire process is rigged,” said Leila Morales, a survivor of abuse at age 9. “The Church, the court, the lawyers, it’s a three-headed beast. And the only people who suffer are us.”

Starving the Hungry to Feed the Liars

If you think the rot stops at the chancery, think again.

According to multiple reports, leaders of a church-affiliated food bank were ousted after resisting efforts to redirect $16 million in anti-hunger funds to help cover settlement payments. Aymond denies the claims, but let’s be real: if it looks like Judas and spends like Judas…

The Archdiocese has already proven it will sacrifice anything, morals, money, even the poor, to avoid accountability.

Saints, Sinners, and Spin Control

The New Orleans Saints, yes, the football team, were caught playing defense for the Church in the worst way possible. Emails revealed team executives working hand-in-glove with the Archdiocese’s PR team to manage fallout and control media coverage of the abuse scandal.

Imagine the audacity: using a professional football brand to shield a rape scandal.

What’s worse, no one was held accountable. The NFL remained silent. The public moved on. But the survivors did not forget.

“Football and faith should never have joined hands to silence rape victims,” said an anonymous survivor. “But in New Orleans, corruption wears a crucifix and a jersey.”

Tick. Tock. Judgment Day Is Coming.

The June 26 deadline is more than just a date. It’s a line in the sand. Dismiss the bankruptcy, survivors say, and let the Archdiocese face real justice in open courtrooms,not behind sealed records and million-dollar mediators.

If the bankruptcy continues, so too will the abuse,not of children this time, but of the truth.

Let every bishop, every lawyer, and every cowardly bureaucrat in the Archdiocese hear this loud and clear: survivors are not going away. You silenced them as children. You gaslit them as adults. But now they are speaking with fire.

And when that gavel falls, may it be not a close of court,but the start of reckoning.

Survivor Attorneys File Four New Motions.

Together, the four motions represent an aggressive and calculated escalation in a case already fraught with tension and distrust. For the survivors, the motions are not merely procedural; they are a moral imperative to bring transparency, accountability, and an end to what they call a “weaponized” bankruptcy.

Motion 1: Motion to Dismiss Bankruptcy under 11 U.S.C. § 1112(b)

At the center of the filings is a forceful motion to dismiss the Archdiocese’s bankruptcy under 11 U.S.C. § 1112(b), which permits courts to terminate a Chapter 11 case for cause, including bad faith or gross mismanagement. The survivors argue that the Archdiocese has met every condition for dismissal and then some.

According to the motion, the Archdiocese misled the Vatican regarding the scope of liability and value of claims in order to sidestep mandatory approval for the bankruptcy filing. Once under court protection, survivors claim the Archdiocese orchestrated delay after delay to wait out Louisiana’s look-back window for abuse lawsuits. At the same time, it paid nearly $50 million in fees and expenses, making it one of the most expensive religious bankruptcies in American history.

Oversight of these funds was allegedly handed to a 72-year-old volunteer with no accounting or legal experience who testified to suffering from cognitive decline. The motion also accuses the Archdiocese of filing a knowingly unconfirmable plan, concealing financial records, failing to update property valuations for over four years, and manipulating the estate’s value through self-serving settlements.

Perhaps most explosively, the filing states that the Archdiocese is “the largest known employer of pedophiles in Louisiana’s 300-year history,” and that its leadership continues to operate with secrecy, intimidation, and contempt for survivors and the court process.

If the motion is granted, the case would be dismissed entirely, lifting the automatic stay and allowing hundreds of civil lawsuits to proceed in state court.

Motion 2: Motion to Unseal the Evidentiary Memorandum

The survivors also filed a motion requesting that the court unseal the “Evidentiary Memorandum” that supports their dismissal motion. They argue that the memorandum contains critical evidence,some of it drawn from already-public criminal trials and media investigations,that documents criminal conduct, internal cover-ups, and financial abuses perpetrated by the Archdiocese over multiple decades.

Currently filed under seal, the memorandum is said to rely on documents already entered into public record in the criminal case against former priest Lawrence Hecker, as well as summaries of the Archdiocese’s own business records. According to the motion, none of the information is sensitive except for limited victim-identifying details, which the survivors agree can be redacted.

The motion cites the Fifth Circuit’s 2021 opinion in Binh Hoa Le v. Exeter Fin. Corp., which holds that public access to court records is a constitutional presumption and that judicial secrecy requires a compelling justification.

“There is no moral, legal, or constitutional justification for concealing evidence of criminal misconduct under the guise of bankruptcy protection,” said one of the attorneys involved. If granted, the unsealing would open the door to public scrutiny of internal documents that could further damage the Archdiocese’s credibility and potentially trigger additional civil or criminal liability.

Motion 3: Motion to Set an Evidentiary Hearing

The third motion filed by the survivors is a formal request for an evidentiary hearing on their motion to dismiss, citing 11 U.S.C. § 1112(b)(3), which mandates that such hearings must be held within 30 days of the motion’s filing. The survivors assert that contested facts, including mismanagement, fraud, concealment, and undue influence, must be tested through live testimony and documentary evidence.

They accuse the Archdiocese of already attempting to delay the hearing by refusing to confer on scheduling and discovery issues. The motion makes clear that further delay would not only violate the Bankruptcy Code but also continue the harm to survivors who have waited years for justice.

The evidentiary hearing, if ordered, would mark the first time the Archdiocese and its leadership would be compelled to publicly defend their actions under oath and cross-examination.

Motion 4: Motion to Depose Archbishop Gregory Aymond under Rule 2004

The fourth motion seeks to depose Archbishop Gregory Aymond under Bankruptcy Rule 2004, a powerful discovery provision that allows parties to examine any individual with knowledge of the debtor’s financial or operational affairs. The survivors argue that Aymond, as the sole ecclesiastical and administrative authority of the Archdiocese, is uniquely positioned to explain decisions made before and during the bankruptcy.

The motion details Aymond’s expansive powers under Canon Law and corporate bylaws, including unilateral control over assets, appointments, policy decisions, and legal strategies. It also notes that Aymond has submitted his resignation to the Vatican but has been instructed to remain in office until the bankruptcy concludes.

Citing numerous examples of misconduct, including misrepresentations to the Vatican, post-petition abuse cases, mishandling of estate funds, and interference with outside organizations like Second Harvest Food Bank, the motion calls Aymond’s role “central and non-delegable.”

“Aymond holds all the keys,” the filing states. “He must answer for how they’ve been used.”

If the court grants the motion, Aymond will be required to sit for a deposition under oath, something he and his counsel have resisted for years.

Conclusion

Should the court grant these motions, the Archdiocese could find itself not just expelled from Chapter 11 protection, but thrust back into the glare of public trials, release of the secret files that Federal Judges sealed, full discovery, and direct exposure to liability for decades of abuse and cover-up.

As the court now faces a 30-day window to respond, the pressure mounts not just on the debtor, but on the judiciary itself to decide whether justice in this case is served by continued concealment, or a long-overdue reckoning.

And a very special thanks to the victims, survivors and concerned citizens who showed up and stood up. To the attorneys who circle the wagons around and protect us, and the journalists who have the courage to tell our stories. And of course, last, but not least, to Michael who had our six.

Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, confidential help and advocacy are available through Survivors of Childhood Sex Abuse (SCSA) at 469-275-1439, or by visiting http://www.scsaorg.org.

About

About the author: Dr. Windmann has been an activist and advocate for chilldhood sex abuse victims and survivors for over a decade. He is one of the co-founders of Survivors of Childhood Sex Abuse, and is currently the president of the organization. He is also a prolific speaker and writer on the subject of childhood sex abuse, and appeared in the Netflix documentary "Scouts Honor: The Secret Files Of The Boy Scouts Of America." You can contact him at [email protected].

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