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More than 20 men who say they were sexually abused as children and teens by local Roman Catholic clergy crowded the courtroom of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill Thursday to mark the fifth anniversary of the Archdiocese of New Orleans bankruptcy case.
They came from as far away as Tennessee and Pennsylvania for a routine hearing in the case, where Grabill set a June deadline for the current mediation process that’s underway.
The abuse survivors were not allowed to speak or tell their stories in the courtroom. But afterward, on the courthouse steps, they shared frustrations over a case that has been costly, contentious and they say has prevented them from having their day in court.
They also recounted details of their decades-old abuse and in one instance leveled a new accusation against church leadership.
“It has been five years, and we are no closer today toward justice than we were then,” said Brian Manix, 58, who was raped as a 10-year-old altar boy by the late Deacon George Brignac. “They say they are working out a plan to compensate us and know what is best. No one knows what is best for us. No one knows our trauma.”
The hearing and subsequent courthouse remarks come at a critical juncture in the case. Archbishop Gregory Aymond placed the local church under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on May 1, 2020, as claims and lawsuits alleging child rape and molestation by local priests, deacons and other church affiliates were beginning to mount.
New Orleans Archdiocese Administration offices on Walmsley Ave. in New Orleans, La. Friday, Nov. 2, 2018.
At the time, about three dozen lawsuits had been filed against the church. In the years since, some 600 claims alleging past abuse have been filed in the bankruptcy case.
Last fall, the church offered to pay survivors $62.5 million, along with an undetermined amount from insurance companies, while attorneys representing survivors sought a settlement of more than $900 million from the church and insurers. Since then, the two sides have made some progress closing the gap between them, a mediator recently told the court, but they remain far apart.
On Monday, Grabill took her strongest step yet to try to force a resolution, ordering the archdiocese to “show cause” for why the case should not be dismissed. At Thursday’s hearing, she said that if significant progress toward a settlement is not made by a June 26 hearing on the matter, she will dismiss the case.
‘We are the face’
While some of the abuse survivors said Thursday that they came to the hearing in a show of solidarity, Tim Trahan, 64, used the spotlight to level a new accusation against Aymond personally.
In front of TV cameras, attorneys and fellow survivors, Trahan said that when he was a 14-year-old student at St. Jean Vianney Prep in the mid-1970s, Aymond, then an administrator at the school, took Trahan and two other boys to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for the weekend.
“When we got there, the first thing on the menu was alcohol,” said Trahan, who did not accuse Aymond of touching him or sexually abusing him. “I got so drunk and then, he gave me a pill and I passed out.”
Trahan does not know what the pill was and did not suggest it was a narcotic.
Aymond has never been publicly accused of physical or sexual abuse.
In a statement Thursday, Aymond responded to the allegation, saying, “Reasonable minds can disagree on past events. At no time in my life have I ever given anyone illegal drugs.”
Brian Manix, Tim Trahan, and Richard Coon, survivors of clergy sex abuse, talk outside the Hale Boggs Federal Building in New Orleans on Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Staff photo by Brett Duke, The Times-Picayune)
Trahan has previously said that he was sexually abused as an older teen by two other priests in the diocese at the time, the late Fr. Luis Martinez and Fr. Robert Cooper. He said he has not shared the story involving Aymond until now because he did not feel it was the right time.
“We are the face of sexual abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of New Orleans,” he said. “People need to see our faces because we are human beings who suffered and still suffer.”
Not giving up
Thursday’s hearing came on the heels of a motion filed Wednesday by 10 attorneys who, together, represent as many as 250 of the 600 abuse survivors who have filed claims in the case.
That effort, led by attorneys Soren Gisleson and Richard Trahant, who represents Coon, Trahan and some of the other survivors in the courtroom Thursday, also seeks to dismiss the case.
In a 50-page court filing, the attorneys argue the case should be thrown out for any one of nearly two dozen reasons, including that: Aymond misinformed the Vatican about the cost of the bankruptcy and value of the claims; appointed an unqualified volunteer to manage the case; spent nearly $50 million in legal fees without due diligence, stalled meaningful efforts to resolve the case; and disrespected and bullied survivors.
In a statement after the hearing, the archdiocese said that dismissal “is not in the best interest of all survivors. We commit to continue to work under court supervision to bring this case to a resolution that is beneficial to all and provides for the continued safety of minors.”
The documents also ask Grabill for permission to question Aymond under oath, something church bankruptcy experts say is unlikely to happen.
Manix said an opportunity to depose the archbishop, at the very least, is what survivors deserve.
“I want to see the church shut down. I want to see the perp walk,” he said. “We are not going to stop. We are going to give up.”