BATON ROUGE - At least 29 new lawsuits have been filed in the 19th Judicial District Court since the original deadline for the "lookback window" passed for victims of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church.  

The deadline, originally set for June 2024, has now been pushed back to June 14, 2027.

In March of 2024, Supreme Court Justices ruled in a 4-3 decision that legislators had violated the state constitution when they removed the statute of limitations for sexual abuse claims and provided victims a temporary window to file lawsuits. In May 2024, the court stated that it would review the decision, and in June, it reversed itself.

Most of the newly filed lawsuits identify clergy members who appeared on the Diocese of Baton Rouge's list of credibly accused individuals, released in 2019. 

Included in these newest lawsuits filed since June of 2024 are:
- John Joseph Berube, St. Theresa of Avila Catholic Church  (Deceased)
- Carmelo Camenzuli, St. Joseph Catholic Church in Pierre Part (Deceased)
- Rodrigue Hemond, Immaculate Conception Church in Scotlandville & St. Thomas More (Deceased)
- Myles Kearney, St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Prairieville (Priestly faculties removed in 2002)
- Clyde Landry, St. Theresa Catholic Church in Gonzales & St. George Catholic Church in Baton Rouge (Deceased)
- Daniel Lemoine, Immaculate Conception Church in Denham Springs (Priestly faculties removed in 1999)
- Jesse R. Ortego, Holy Rosary Church in St. Amant (Left diocese in 1981)
- Christopher Joseph Springer, St. Pius X Catholic Church in Baton Rouge & St. Gerard Majella Church in Baton Rouge (Laicized in 1990)

The lawsuits also name 12 additional clergy members who were not on the original 2019 list. In the court records, victims as young as five describe the abuse they suffered. The dates of abuse range from 1963 to 1993.

"It takes decades for them to process the trauma they've gone through as children that were sexually abused," Reagan Charleston Thomas, an attorney with the Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis and Overholtz Law Firm, representing a victim in a case. "I'm not surprised by clergymen who do not appear on credibly accused lists, that could be for a variety of reasons, but in no way do I base my assertion of a survivor's story on who is or is not on a credibly accused list."

More than one-third of these new cases have already been settled privately, which allows both the diocese and the victim to avoid a jury trial. No details were provided in the court documents regarding the settlements.

The Lamothe Law Firm is also representing several victims from several different churches.

"Fortunately, in Louisiana, the plaintiff's testimony alone is enough to prove a case, and that's usually the case in sexual assault cases to begin with because they happen behind closed doors," Attorney Julien Lamothe said. "There's one publicly known jury award that we recently secured back in June 2024. The jury awarded $2.4 million in that case. We hope that that kind of serves as a bellwether in most of these cases."

WBRZ reached out to the Diocese of Baton Rouge. A spokesperson said the diocese did not comment on pending litigation.