The estate of a wealthy Catholic deacon who admitted molesting a child and then died earlier this year has now paid his victim after he had previously tried to back out of a $1m agreement to settle a contentious lawsuit between them.
It’s believed to be one of the largest individual sexual abuse settlements ever paid in a case involving a cleric who served in the archdiocese of New Orleans during the organization’s decades-old sexual molestation crisis, though the crime to which the deacon pleaded guilty occurred before his ordination.
The settlement closes the books on a dramatic case that not only produced a criminal conviction of a clergyman – but it also produced allegations of an attempted, hush money-facilitated coverup.
Virgil Maxey “VM” Wheeler III, former deacon of Metairie, Louisiana, was accused of rape after allegedly taking showers with and performing oral sex on a 12-year-old boy between about 2001 and 2002. He was arrested in March 2021, pleaded guilty in December of last year to the lesser charge of indecent behavior with a juvenile, and was sentenced to probation as well as sex offender registration.
In July 2021, shortly after Wheeler’s arrest, the victim filed a civil lawsuit under a pseudonym alleging that Wheeler had raped him. After Wheeler pleaded guilty in December, he verbally agreed to pay the victim more than $1m.
But Wheeler – who was ordained in 2018 – reneged on the deal after he learned he would have to register as a sex offender.
Meanwhile, after Wheeler’s death earlier this year, his estate moved to leave large sums of money he had earned as a high-priced corporate attorney to New Orleans’s Catholic Community Foundation, Ochsner Health System, Tulane University Law School and SMU Law School.
Ochsner and the Tulane law school said they would renounce the gifts after the Guardian uncovered Wheeler’s intentions and asked the institutions about them, in effect keeping the funds in the estate as the victim sought to salvage the settlement.
SMU said it wasn’t aware of the will. The Catholic Community Foundation did not immediately comment.
In an interview Tuesday, the victim’s attorney, Richard Trahant, confirmed his client had secured a settlement.
He said he couldn’t discuss the settlement’s precise terms because his side agreed to keep the amount paid by Wheeler’s estate confidential. When asked whether the settlement agreement accepted by his client was less than the one Wheeler had sought to rescind from him last year, Trahant would only say: “This dispute has been amicably resolved.”
Recently, the victim agreed to let WWL-TV and the Guardian publicly report his identity. He is Mac McCall, 34, the son of prominent politician John Young, the former president of Jefferson parish.
His mother, Mary Lou McCall, is also known in the New Orleans area for having hosted a Catholic public access…
2023-09-27 08:00:05
Post from www.theguardian.com
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