First plaintiff in sex-abuse scandal killed in Louisiana
March 14, 2025
» Continue to this story on The Guardian
CWN Editor's Note: Scott Anthony Gastal, whose testimony in a sex-abuse lawsuit marked the first step toward the eruption of the clerical sex-abuse scandal in the US, has died of injuries after a severe beating.
In the 1980s, Gastal testified that he had been raped, when he was 11 years old, by Gilbert Gauthe, who was then a priest of the Lafayette diocese. His family refused to accept a confidential settlement from the diocese—as several other Gauthe victims had done—and won a $1 million award. His case began the unraveling of how Church officials had covered up abuse.
Gastal said that trauma caused by the rape was responsible for a enduring troubles, in a life marked by psychological difficulties, irregular employment, and crime. He was 50 when he died. Police have charged his alleged assailant with 2nd-degree murder.
Gauthe, who once admitted to molesting as many as 300 boys, eventually served 10 years of a 20-year sentence. He then moved to Texas, where he entered a guilty plea to a new abuse charge. He now lives in Texas.
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