A Catholic priest who left clergy life for positions within the administrations of two former Louisiana governors was arrested on expenses of raping and kidnapping a younger and susceptible parishioner in New Orleans twenty years in the past.
Mark Francis Ford, 64, was cuffed in Indiana on Thursday for expenses stemming from allegations at a Roman Catholic church in New Orleans the place he used to serve.
An unidentified man, now 31, alleged that Ford started abusing him in 2004, when he was simply 10 years outdated, after assembly the Vincentian priest by means of a program he ran for youngsters with disabilities.
The precise circumstances of the abuse weren’t clear, however the man — who’s beneath his mom’s everlasting tutorship — mentioned it continued till round 2022 or 2023, lengthy after the clergyman had left the priesthood for greener pastures in authorities..
The alleged sufferer suffers from a degenerative spinal wire situation that often has him counting on a wheelchair to get round. He’s additionally on the autism spectrum and is legally decided to be a minor no matter his age, his lawyer Kristi Schubert informed The Guardian.
He had solely lately revealed the abuse accusations.
Schubert mentioned her shopper underwent a number of forensic interviews earlier than police obtained an arrest warrant for Ford.
As a result of the previous priest had relocated out of state, his arrest required collaboration throughout a number of departments which can be nonetheless working in tandem to extradite Ford to New Orleans.
Throughout his staggering 16 years within the Catholic priesthood, Ford particularly labored with indigenous reservations in Arizona and, later, two church buildings in New Orleans, in response to his on-line biography revealed by the American Indian Heart.
Ford began because the Louisiana state authorities’s assistant director of incapacity affairs beneath then-governor Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, in 2006, in response to his LinkedIn. Within the position, he particularly helped individuals with disabilities entry the scarce sources obtainable within the wake of Hurricane Katrina
In 2008, he was appointed to direct Louisiana’s workplace of Indian affairs beneath Blanco’s Republican successor, Bobby Jindal. Just like his position beneath Blanco, Ford was tasked with aiding the state’s indigenous tribes as they recovered from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, in response to his LinkedIn.
Most lately, Ford labored because the director of neighborhood engagement for native/tribal communities on the non-profit Feeding America, in response to his LinkedIn. The Put up reached out to Feeding America for remark.
Ford was charged with first-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping, sexual battery and indecent conduct with a juvenile. He may face life in jail if convicted on the rape cost alone. The others would solely stack on further years to an already-steep sentence.
Over the previous few years, the Catholic church in New Orleans was rocked by a bankrupt-inducing scandal after a sexual abuse probe discovered that the town’s archdiocese might have labored to defend a slew of predators in its ranks.
The New Orleans archdiocese filed for federal chapter safety in 2020, which might restrict its monetary legal responsibility in mounting claims of clergy abuse, primarily concerning youngsters, over a number of many years.
Because the controversy spiraled, the town’s archdiocese agreed to pay a staggering $230 million to settle with abuse survivors. The settlement has but to be authorised by the survivors concerned.
