Prosecutors combine former priest's charges to ease burden on victims
Last Modified: Tuesday, August 14, 2012 8:29 PM
By Johnathan Manning / American Press
Former priest Mark Broussard’s 224 charges of child abuse were combined to ease the burden on the victims, prosecutors said Monday.
Last Thursday, a grand jury indicted Broussard on 10 charges related to child sex abuse — two counts of aggravated rape, three counts of molestation of a juvenile, two counts of aggravated oral sexual battery, two counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of sexual battery.
“While it only looks like 10 counts it encompasses many, many times that he offended,” prosecutor Cynthia Killingsworth said.
“We’re going to do everything we can to minimize the trauma to the victims.”
Broussard, 56, is accused of sexually abusing three boys between 1986 and 1991 while he was a priest at Our Lady Queen of Heaven and at St. Henry Catholic Church. He is being held on a $3.42 million bond at Calcasieu Correctional Center.
“They were children, they do not know exact dates, they know incidents and they can talk about different incidents,” Killingsworth said.
The prosecutor said Broussard’s abuse went as far as intercouse.
Killingsworth said that because the two rape indictments carry life sentences if Broussard is convicted “I don’t know that it really does anybody any good,” to charge him with the same crime 10 times.
There are also three alleged victims that have chosen not to pursue charges, authorities have said in the past.
“That happens in many, many cases of this type that we prosecute,” District Attorney John DeRosier said. “That’s not at all unusual.”
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