Gilbert Gauthe, the former Acadiana priest who shook the Catholic Church with its first modern sex abuse scandal, is back out of prison. Gilbert Gauthe, the former Acadiana priest who shook the Catholic Church with its first modern sex abuse scandal, is back out of prison. The Daily World reports that the 64 year-old Gauthe was released last week from Galveston County jail after serving two years for violating the Texas sex offender registration law.
Gauthe previously served a 10 year sentence in Louisiana prison, after pleading guilty in 1985 to 11 counts of aggravated crime and against nature and other crimes. Gauthe was a priest in Henry, in Vermilion Parish and in New Iberia between 1974 and 1983, during which time he was accused of molesting hundreds of children. He was arrested in Texas in 1996 -- the year after he got out of prison -- and accused of fondling a 3-year-old boy. He received probation after pleading guilty in 1997 to injury to a child.