Authorities arrest fugitive priest in abuse case

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—A fugitive priest who fled the U.S. decades ago amid allegations of child sex abuse has been returned to New Mexico to face charges after being arrested in Morocco last year, federal officials said Friday.

Arthur J. Perrault, 80, a former Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and a former Air Force chaplain, has been charged in a federal indictment with seven counts of aggravated sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact between 1991 and 1992 at Kirtland Air Force Base and Santa Fe National Cemetery.

Perrault, a one-time pastor at St. Bernadette parish in Albuquerque, is one of many priests who were sent to New Mexico in the 1960s from around the country for treatment involving pedophilia.

Victims, lawyers and church documents show the priests were later assigned to parishes and schools across New Mexico—especially in small Native American and Hispanic communities.

Perrault was expected to make a court appearance later Friday in Albuquerque. It was unclear if he has a lawyer.

"The FBI and our partners were determined to make sure he faced justice—no matter how long it took and how far we had to go to get him," said James Langenberg, FBI special agent in charge of the Albuquerque office.

Perrault vanished in 1992, just days before an attorney filed two lawsuits alleging Perrault had sexually assaulted seven children at his parish.