Ex-Catholic priest exploited family deaths to abuse disabled boy, police allege

The New Orleans archdiocese has agreed to pay at least $230m to collectively settle with abuse survivors whose claims are tied up in the bankruptcy. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

A man working as a Roman Catholic priest in New Orleans positioned himself as a mentor to a young disabled boy grieving two family deaths – and then exploited the proximity to abuse him for years, police allege.

Those details are contained in criminal court records generated by the arrest of Mark Francis Ford in Indiana in September as well as his subsequent transfer to New Orleans’s jail, a process which was completed late on Tuesday.