Victims group demands Jeff Landry investigate Louisiana clergy sex abuse: report

By Hanna Krueger
Times-Picayune
October 6, 2018

https://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2018/10/victims_group_calling_on_louis.html

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, is calling on Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry to open a statewide investigation into church sex abuse, according to Fox 8 television. SNAP President Tim Lennon urged Landry in a news conference Friday (Oct. 5) to be aggressive, and disclosed that he had been sexually abused at age 12 by a priest. 

"The injury, the harm I deal with every day -- depression, self-esteem, social anxiety -- I fight every day, and working with SNAP is a way for me to fight back," Lennon said. "So when we talk about statute of limitations and reasonable expectation of the predators after 30 years to be free is wrong, because survivors of sexual abuse are never free. It's a life-long injury."

Landry said he shared victims' "passionate cry to bring child predators to justice" but that Louisiana law does not let him open a statewide investigation. That echoes his office's statement in September, when it said the attorney general does not have the authority to launch a broad, multi-parish investigation into Roman Catholic Church sex abuse allegations. A handful of attorneys general in other states are pursuing such inquiries.