If you were an altar server, a student or a kid in the parish under Father Mark Broussard, we believe you.

Bowling. McDonald's after Mass. The young priest who had time for the altar boys. That is the man a lot of Lake Charles remembers, and a jury in Calcasieu Parish heard all about him in 2016 before it said guilty, eleven to one, on every count. He is at Angola now, for life. The Diocese that assigned him is not. It is still at 1201 Ryan Street, still answering lawsuits over him, and Louisiana has put a date on those: June 14, 2027. That is why this page exists.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

The diocese that assigned him has its own page: Diocese of Lake Charles

This applies to you no matter what

He told you it was natural. Both men whose cases went to the jury said he told them the same thing, and the jury didn't buy it. Neither should you, not about yourself.
You were under 18. In Louisiana that is the one question that matters right now, which is why we ask it on the fourth screen. Under 18 then, and the claim is open today, as long as it is filed by June 14, 2027. And if some lawyer told you years ago that it was too late, that lawyer was right about the law as it stood before 2021 and wrong about the law as it stands now. Ask again.
You never told anyone. Or you told a parent, or a priest, and it went nowhere. The Diocese's own chancellor testified in 2016 that its file on him opens on February 28, 1988. Whatever you did or didn't say, you would not have been the first.
It wasn't one of the two cases the jury heard. Four men testified at that trial. One of them was told the criminal clock had run on his. The civil door is a different door, and it is open.
You live in Houston now, or Beaumont, or Orange, wherever Laura and Delta sent you. The claim follows the parish, not your address. Asking for a brother or a husband who can't do this himself? Reach out anyway.

Father Mark Broussard: what the public record says, and when

None of what follows is ours. It is the 14th Judicial District Court in Calcasieu Parish, the Louisiana Third Circuit, the Calcasieu Parish District Attorney, the Diocese of Lake Charles's own list and the testimony of its own chancellor, and the reporters who sat through the trial, and every line links to where it came from. One thing is different about this page from most we run. Broussard was convicted, by a jury, on five counts, and the conviction was affirmed on appeal. Where we say convicted, a court said it first. Where we say alleges, a civil complaint or a witness said it and nobody has found it yet, and we tell you which is which.

February 28, 1988, and that September

The Diocese's own chancellor, George Stearns, read this into the record at the 2016 trial, under oath, from the personnel file, so start here. February 28, 1988 is the first complaint the file holds. A young man had come in to say that back in 1981, at the LSU-Eunice student center, Broussard assaulted him; he was 14 then, and Broussard by 1988 was a parochial vicar at Our Lady Queen of Heaven. Broussard's response, per the file: he alone was to blame. Off he went, March 1988, to the Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. Stearns testified to a second admission too, that Broussard had fondled a 12-year-old in the Queen of Heaven rectory that same year, 1988, and that the Diocese paid settlements to both. And then, September 6, 1988. Chaplain of Lake Charles Memorial Hospital, in residence at St. Henry. Look at the verdict form and you'll see that date again: it's the day the second victim's offense dates begin. American Press, February 4, 2016 (trial testimony of chancellor George Stearns).

December 2011 to August 9, 2012

By the time a 34-year-old man walked into the Diocese in December 2011 and told them what had happened to him at St. Henry between 1986 and 1989, Broussard had been out of the priesthood for years, resigned January 14, 1994, living in Duson, over in Lafayette Parish. The Diocese says it reported it to the District Attorney and the Sheriff at once. Calcasieu deputies arrested Broussard on March 22, 2012, on two counts of aggravated rape and 52 counts of sexual battery, and said they had found papers in his diocesan personnel file in which he indicated sexual contact with at least four other boys. The indictment came down August 9, 2012. KATC, March 23, 2012.

February 5, 2016

The verdict. Guilty, said a 14th Judicial District Court jury in Lake Charles, and Mark Anthony Broussard, 60 by then, heard it five times over: two counts of aggravated rape, one of molestation of a juvenile, one of oral sexual battery, one of aggravated oral sexual battery. Both victims had been altar servers. Neither was 12 yet when it started. One boy's offense dates on the verdict run July 1, 1986 to September 6, 1988; the other's pick up that same September day and run to July 1, 1991. Judge David Ritchie didn't wait for sentencing to take him into custody. Cynthia Killingsworth and Jacob Johnson prosecuted it, and the detective who built it was Katherine LeBlanc of the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office. Calcasieu Parish District Attorney, February 5, 2016.

March 11, 2016

Two life sentences, plus more. The paper's account has the detail the verdict form doesn't. The first man was an 8-year-old altar boy at St. Henry; he named the changing room, the confessional, a car, the rectory. The second was 10, at Our Lady Queen of Heaven, and said it went on three to four times a week for three to four years. Two more men testified that he had abused them too, one past the criminal deadline, one in a different parish. Both convicted victims said he told them it was natural. A poll of the jurors: 11 to 1 on every count. American Press, March 11, 2016.

June 13, 2017

The Third Circuit affirmed everything. The opinion's own words: between July 1, 1986 and September 6, 1988 he 'had anal sexual intercourse with one of the altar boys in the church,' J.A., 'between eleven and twelve years old'; between September 6, 1988 and July 1, 1991 he abused a second altar boy, L.N., 'between ten and thirteen years old.' Sentence, as the court recites it: two life terms at hard labor for the aggravated rapes, 15 years for molestation, 15 for oral sexual battery, 25 for aggravated oral sexual battery, all consecutive. Four assignments of error, all rejected. State v. Broussard, No. 16-974, 224 So.3d 23. That is the record, and it is final. State v. Broussard, La. App. 3 Cir. 16-974 (June 13, 2017), via FindLaw.

April 11, 2019, updated April 24, 2024

This is the day Bishop Glen John Provost put out the Diocese's list of clergy credibly accused of sexual misconduct with a minor, and Broussard is on it. His entry, in the Diocese's own words, is short. Born 1956. Ordained 1986 for Lake Charles. Parochial vicar at Our Lady Queen of Heaven, in residence at St. Henry, chaplain at Memorial Hospital, pastor at St. Eugene in Grand Chenier. The accusation line reads 'Sexual Misconduct with minors,' and the misconduct locations are three: Our Lady Help of Christians in Jennings, Our Lady Queen of Heaven, St. Henry. Dates, 'ca. 1980-1991.' Victims, 'More than one.' Removed from ministry 1994, laicized 2013, incarcerated 2016, and then the one the Diocese fills in as 'allegations received,' 1994 and 2009. Hold that last line up against the entry above this one. 1994, says the list. 1988, said the chancellor, under oath. Diocese of Lake Charles, List of Clergy Credibly Accused (PDF, updated April 24, 2024).

July 19, 2019

The Advocate went through the records. 1988, it reported, is 'the year Broussard has said repeatedly that he admitted his abuses to diocesan officials,' six years before the list's date. In a 1998 transcript he told the chancellor he had gone to Father Henry Mancuso, who had recruited him to the priesthood, and been asked, 'Do you really want to go talk?' He said he told Bishop Speyrer anyway and was put 'under the seal of confession.' Mancuso then arranged the hospital chaplaincy. 'Allegations later surfaced that Broussard abused children in both of those assignments,' the hospital and Grand Chenier. The Diocese's answer, a week later: the list reflects the earliest written allegation on file, and 'we maintain that the list is both accurate and thorough.' The Advocate, July 19, 2019.

January 18, 2026

The Advocate counted ten lawsuits in the 14th Judicial District Court since 2021 over Lake Charles-area clergy. One names Broussard and Our Lady Queen of Heaven. That complaint alleges he groomed a 6-year-old with comic books in 1987 and abused him in his office a year later; the Third Circuit let the negligent-infliction claim against the Diocese go forward, and in December 2025 the Louisiana Supreme Court declined to hear the Diocese's writ. The Diocese's lawyer had filed exceptions to stop the suits; so far, the paper wrote, 14th JDC judges had denied them all. Broussard, it noted, 'has been incarcerated since 2016.' The Diocese said it cannot comment on pending litigation. The Advocate / nola.com, January 18, 2026, via BishopAccountability.

We checked this on September 13, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from January 18, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who answers for what Father Broussard did

Not him, in any way that pays for anything. He is 70, at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, serving two life terms without parole, and he has no assets a lawyer would chase. The defendant that matters is the Society of the Roman Catholic Church of the Diocese of Lake Charles, the corporation at 1201 Ryan Street that ordained him in 1986, assigned him to Our Lady Queen of Heaven, took his file, sent him to New Mexico, brought him back and made him a hospital chaplain in residence at St. Henry. Every one of the current suits names it. The theory in each is the ordinary one: put a man in charge of children and you have to watch him, and when someone tells you, you have to act. The complaints allege the Diocese didn't. That is pleaded, not found.

What makes this name different is how much of the knowledge question is already in the Diocese's own hand, said in open court by its own people. A written complaint received February 28, 1988. Treatment in March 1988. An admission about a 12-year-old in the rectory. Settlements paid. And then a chaplaincy and a rectory room at St. Henry starting September 6, 1988, the very day the second conviction count begins. Whether that is negligence is a jury's question, and no civil jury has answered it yet. We are only pointing at dates that were read into a criminal record.

One more thing decides which door you knock on: the year, and where. Before 1986 he was not a Lake Charles priest yet, and the 1981 Eunice complaint in his file happened in the Diocese of Lafayette's territory. Claims from those years may run to a different defendant. Say the year and the place honestly on the first two screens and a lawyer will tell you where it lands.

Your deadline: the Louisiana rule for childhood sexual abuse claims, and the date inside it

What it means for his years. If you were under 18 when it happened, anywhere between 1986 and 1994 under Father Broussard, the claim is open today and it has to be filed by June 14, 2027. Not talked about by then. Filed, in court. That is not our date; it is the Legislature's. If you were 18 or older at the time, the revival does not reach you. You are on La. C.C. art. 3496.2, three years from a trigger a lawyer works out from your dates, and we will not promise that route from a web page. A lawyer decides it.

Where the date comes from. In 2021 Louisiana rewrote La. R.S. 9:2800.9 to say a civil claim for sexual abuse of a minor no longer prescribes, and, the rarer thing, it brought back claims that had already run out, for a set stretch. That revival nearly died. The Louisiana Supreme Court threw it out first, on March 22, 2024. Then it took the case back up, and on rehearing, June 12, 2024, it changed its mind and let the law stand; the case is Bienvenu v. Defendant 1, No. 2023-CC-01194, if a lawyer wants it. The end of the window isn't in that opinion. It's in Act 481 of 2024, Senate Bill 246, which the Legislature had already passed and which says, plainly, that a revived claim may be filed 'on or before June 14, 2027.' Here is what is honest to add. The Diocese is fighting the law case by case as a taking of its property: a federal judge in Lake Charles ruled against it in February 2025 and sent the question to the Fifth Circuit, where it sits; a 14th JDC judge ruled against it in November 2025; another ruled for it on March 31, 2026, then stepped aside over undisclosed ties to the parish being sued. A claim filed inside the window is inside it whatever the appeals do.

Two more things a lawyer will raise on the call, so you are not surprised. First, the same statute says an action against a person convicted of a crime against a child does not prescribe at all; that is about suing him, and he has nothing, but it is in the law. Second, anyone 21 or older who files has to attach certificates of merit, one from the lawyer and one from a licensed mental-health practitioner, and the Diocese cannot even be named until a judge has read them in chambers. It is a step, not a wall. Twenty minutes on the phone is usually enough to know where you stand.

Your situation still qualifies even if

It wasn't Broussard. Another priest, a sister, a teacher, a deacon. The claim is against the Diocese either way; of the seven clergy named in the current Lake Charles suits, only two were ever on its list.
It never got as far as what the verdict form says. A hand, a lap in the confessional, a massage that went wrong. The fourth man at the trial described exactly that, and the detective put it in the record.
You told the Diocese once, and took something for counseling, or signed a paper. Bring it. A lawyer has to see it before saying a word.
You stayed in the Church. Went back to Queen of Heaven or St. Henry. Sent your own kids there.
It was Eunice, or somewhere else before 1986, before he was ordained. Say so. Those years may route to a different defendant, and we would rather sort that on the call than pretend.
Your parents loved him. He came to dinner. He taught kids to drive. That is in the trial record too.

Where he was

Diocese of Lake Charles, ordained 1986, resigned January 14, 1994, per the Diocese's list and the trial record: Our Lady Queen of Heaven, Lake Charles, parochial vicar, 1986 to 1988 · Lake Charles Memorial Hospital, chaplain from September 6, 1988 · St. Henry, Lake Charles, in residence from September 6, 1988, transferred 1992 · St. Eugene, Grand Chenier, Cameron Parish, pastor, 1992 to 1994 (a Cameron Parish molestation charge was dropped after his Calcasieu sentence, The Advocate reported) · Our Lady Help of Christians, Jennings, which the Diocese's list names as a location of misconduct without a year. Before ordination: the LSU-Eunice student center, 1981, per the chancellor's testimony, in the Diocese of Lafayette's territory. The Diocese's own page on this site covers every parish and school it ran, and the other names in the current suits: diocese-of-lake-charles-survivors. If it was somewhere else with him, tell us anyway.

Questions people are asking

Will anyone find out I came forward?

Not from us. Your answers go to one person at ME2. In court, the men who testified against him are J.A. and L.N. in the appellate opinion, and the man suing over 1987 is unnamed in the paper. Louisiana's statute goes further than most: a claimant 21 or older files first without even naming the defendant, and a judge reads the certificates of merit in chambers before anyone is served. A lawyer walks you through it. Nothing is filed unless you say so.

Was Father Mark Broussard convicted?

Yes, and it wasn't close. A Calcasieu Parish jury in the 14th Judicial District Court came back on February 5, 2016 with guilty on all five: two counts of aggravated rape, plus molestation of a juvenile, oral sexual battery and aggravated oral sexual battery, eleven jurors to one on each count. On March 11, 2016 he got two life terms, with 15, 15 and 25 years stacked on top, all consecutive. The Third Circuit affirmed on June 13, 2017. Keep one thing separate in your head, though: the civil suits over him are a different proceeding, and in those the Diocese has admitted nothing.

Statute of limitations. Is there one for child sexual abuse in Louisiana, or not?

For someone who was a minor at the time? Not anymore, not since Louisiana abolished it in 2021, and the Supreme Court, after some wobbling, signed off on June 12, 2024. The catch is the whole point for his years: a claim that had already expired came back only until June 14, 2027, and that is Act 481 of 2024 talking, not us. So the honest answer for a Broussard claim is the date, not 'no limit.' Anyone 18 or older at the time is on a three-year rule instead, La. C.C. art. 3496.2, and a lawyer has to read the dates.

Is Mark Broussard still alive?

As far as the record goes, yes. The Advocate had him at Angola in 2019 and, this past January, 2026, still serving his sentences. Born 1956, which makes him 70 or thereabouts. None of that changes your claim, which runs against the Diocese, not him.

Would I be the first to sue the Diocese over him?

No, there have been others. Before he was even tried, in February 2013, a federal suit went in at New Orleans alleging the Diocese kept him on despite what it knew and failed to supervise him; three years later, at the criminal trial, the Diocese's own chancellor testified it had paid settlements to earlier complainants. Right now a 14th JDC suit over 1987 and 1988 at Queen of Heaven is moving. None of those is yours. They tell you the door has been opened before.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed Louisiana attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.