New Orleans’ Jesuit high school agrees to pay seven figures to settle child molestation claim

The Jesuit high school in New Orleans. Photograph: Google Maps View image in fullscreen The Jesuit high school in New Orleans. Photograph: Google Maps New Orleans’ Jesuit high school agrees to pay seven figures to settle child molestation claim Settlement over alleged child molestation by school janitors is latest in troubling string of allegations spanning decades One of the most prominent Catholic high schools in New Orleans has agreed to pay a seven-figure monetary sum to settle a lawsuit claiming child molestation by janitors at the institution decades earlier. The plaintiff struck the agreement with Jesuit high school ahead of a trial scheduled to start in the Louisiana city’s civil district courthouse on 15 June, roughly six years after he sued under a pseudonym. The plaintiff’s attorney, Richard Trahant , said on Friday that he couldn’t discuss the specific amount associated with the settlement. Yet he would not issue a denial when asked if the settlement was worth seven figures – or if it was higher than a notable $2.4m verdict awarded to an unrelated Louisiana religious sexual abuse claimant in the summer of 2025. After priest’s conviction for sexual assault, a Louisiana chapel he built removes his name Read more Attorneys for Jesuit high school and the religious order did not immediately respond to those same questions. The Guardian learned of the settlement when it contacted the chambers of the judge presiding over the case – Omar Mason – and asked if the 15 June trial date was still on. A Mason staffer said the trial was off after attorneys working on the case reached out to say it had been settled out of court. Furthermore, a letter filed into the case record on Thursday announced the matter had been settled. That agreement materialized as another client of Trahant who sued the Jesuit high school alleging childhood sexual abuse by one of the janitors named in the newly settled lawsuit prepares for a 21 September trial date. Both lawsuits allege child sexual abuse in the 1970s – and they stem from the same long-developing Catholic clergy molestation scandal that drove New Orleans’ archdiocese to file for bankruptcy protection in 2020. But the cases pursued by both of Trahant’s clients are legally unrelated to the archdiocese’s bankruptcy, which that organization and its insurers have moved to resolve in large part by agreeing to pay $305m to abuse survivors. Shocking depositions Amid both the newly settled lawsuit and the pending one, Trahant as well as his associates Soren Gisleson and John Denenea secured shocking testimony from a past Jesuit high school president – along with the incumbent one – according to transcripts filed into the public record that the Guardian reviewed. The Rev Anthony McGinn, a Jesuit high alum who was the school’s president from 1992 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2017, confirmed during a sworn deposition in January that nine of his colleagues – mostly clergymen – were considered credibly accused of child sexual