NEW ORLEANS– New Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro has announced the indictment of former New Orleans Roman Catholic church deacon George Brignac for the rape of a preteen boy nearly 40 years ago.
Brignac was charged with one count of aggravated rape in the indictment handed up by an Orleans Parish grand jury.
If convicted he will face mandatory life in prison.
Brignac, 84, was arrested Sept. 21 by New Orleans police investigating allegations that the former church official had sexually abused a young altar boy he began supervising in 1978, when the boy was 7.
The victim, who came forward to police as an adult in August 2018, said he was sexually abused inside Brignac’s home, car and classroom at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish for the next several years through the age of 12.
Brignac taught mathematics and was the co-director of the altar boy program at the church and affiliated school.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans removed Brignac from the ministry in 1988 after his third arrest on allegations of child molestation, though prosecutors eventually refused those charges.
Brignac was found not guilty of similar charges after a bench trial in Jefferson Parish in 1978, involving boys he allegedly victimized at St. Matthew the Apostle parish.
Brignac still was reading Scripture as a lay minister during masses at St. Mary Magdalen Church in Metairie as recently as 2018, before the archdiocese again stripped him of the role.
