Ex-priest testifies on abuse charges
Admitted sex abuser’s deposition this week
Former Guam priest Louis Brouillard, the only accused clergy member who has admitted to sexually abusing children in Guam, is scheduled to provide additional sworn evidence during his deposition in Pine City, Minn., from Tuesday to Friday.
Brouillard, 96, is represented by Thomas Wieser of the law firm Meier, Kennedy and Quinn based in St. Paul, according to Archdiocese of Agana attorney John Terlaje.
Among Wieser’s specialties are defense of sexual abuse claims, and church and religious laws, his law firm’s website says.
Brouillard is accused in more than half of the 140 clergy sex abuse lawsuits filed in local and federal court.
In phone interviews and a signed affidavit last year, Brouillard admitted to sexually abusing more than
20 boys on Guam and offered his apologies to the boys he may have harmed.
He said in his written affidavit that Guam church officials at the time, including Bishop Apollinaris Baumgartner, knew of his activities and asked him to pray. He was ordained as a priest on Guam in 1948.
Despite Guam church officials reportedly knowing about Brouillard’s abuses on island, Brouillard continued to serve as a priest in Minnesota from 1981 to 1985, when he was removed from active ministry. In
1987, he retired in Pine City, where he still lives.
In 2013, the Diocese of Duluth released a list of priests with credible allegations of child sexual abuse while serving in the diocese, and Brouillard’s name was on that list. Three of the recent lawsuits accuse Brouillard, in the early 1980s, of flying boys from Guam to Minnesota, where he continued to sexually abuse them.
A number of other attorneys also will attend the deposition. Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes said Terlaje and Seattle-based co-counsel Michael Patterson also will be present.
Attorney David Lujan, the counsel for all plaintiffs who have sued Brouillard in federal court, is scheduled to attend the deposition, as are attorneys for those who sued Brouillard in the Superior Court of Guam. Brouillard left Guam for Minnesota in 1981.
Hawaii-based attorney Randall Rosenberg said their team will be sending an attorney to attend Brouillard’s deposition. Rosenberg is working with Guam attorney Anthony Perez and other U.S. mainland-based lawyers to represent clergy sex abuse plaintiffs.
An attorney from Seattle-based firm Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala, which is working with Guam attorney Kevin Fowler representing clergy abuse survivors, will also be at the deposition.
The parties in the clergy abuse cases are pursuing mediation to try to settle the lawsuits.