A young man who received inappropriate text messages from his Catholic high school chaplain that ultimately helped send the priest to prison in Louisiana for child molestation says he was “nauseous” watching the clergyman appear at a parole hearing Thursday and try to downplay the nature of the communications as “friendly”.
“There was honestly a moment I thought I was going to vomit,” Rex Perrette told Guardian reporting partner WWL Louisiana during an interview after watching the hearing virtually, his first public comments ever about his role in the case that landed Patrick Wattigny behind bars. “It also [is] a disgustful feeling.”
Perrette recounted how he was 16 and attending Pope John Paul II Catholic high school in Slidell, Louisiana, near New Orleans, when the campus chaplain Wattigny began texting him privately in about the fall of 2019. Wattigny, who was denied an early release from prison on Thursday, would compliment his curly hair, muscular physique and devotion to lifting weights while also expressing a paternal affection for him, Perrette recalled.
But Perrette also said Wattigny “at least 20 times” asked when he would turn 18 and reach adulthood, questions that he now regards as having “sexual implications”. He said Wattigny would also try to make him feel bad if he took a long time replying, accusing Perrette of being mad at him.
Perrette’s mother, Wendy, discovered the exchanges in February 2020 when she caught Rex texting someone late one night, insisted on seeing who it was and realized it was Wattigny.
Wendy Perrette, who was the mayor of Bogalusa, Louisiana, at the time, then complained to Wattigny’s superiors at the archdiocese of New Orleans. New Orleans’ archbishop, Gregory Aymond, at first tried handling the matter by securing a promise from Wattigny to stop texting Rex Perrette. Yet Wattigny told parole officials on Thursday that he “gave in” and resumed texting Perrette amid the stress of the ensuing Covid-19 pandemic.
As Wattigny put it, Aymond sent him to a 30-day retreat that involved psychological testing. He then went to a behavioral health clinic in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in September 2020 for a psychological evaluation. The evaluation involved taking a lie detector test, which prompted Wattigny to confess to molesting one of his students, who was not Perrette.
“The polygraph was something I knew I … couldn’t outrun, and so I decided it was better for me to come clean and tell what I had done,” Wattigny said on Thursday.
The archdiocese suspended Wattigny from ministry in October 2020. He was subsequently reported to authorities, who charged him with molesting two children – neither of which was Perrette. The texts to Perrette, meanwhile, did not yield criminal charges because they had not been accompanied by any physical harm.
Wattigny pleaded guilty in July 2023 to one count of molestation of a juvenile who was under his supervision about a decade earlier. On the second charge, dating back to the 1990s, Wattigny entered an Alford plea, in which he maintained his innocence yet conceded that overwhelming evidence against him would probably get him convicted at trial.
A judge gave Wattigny, 57, five years in prison while requiring him to register as a sex offender and spend time on probation after his release. On Thursday, after serving less than two years, he requested to be freed early, saying he had completed sex offender treatment and was eager to care for his elderly parents.
Yet parole officials denied Wattigny after he seemingly equivocated when asked about the tone of his texts to Perrette.
Wattigny claimed the texts to Perrette were “just … friendly”, albeit in violation of church policies against privately messaging people who are younger than 18. “Was the text messaging of a sexual nature? No, it was not,” Wattigny said.
But parole board member Carolyn Stapleton asked why Aymond had forced him to undergo psychological evaluation if the texts were merely friendly. Wattigny stammered, asking himself: “How do I answer the question properly?” He finally acknowledged that he harbored a sexual attraction for Perrette.
“Was I sexually attracted to this person [who] I was texting?” Wattigny remarked as he stumbled over his words. “Yes, I was – I had felt this attraction to him.”
Perrette said that was the first time he had ever heard Wattigny admit he was texting him out of lust – and it angered him.
“It [is] just a rage that I can’t describe,” said Perrette, who is now 21 and seeking to attend veterinary school after graduating from Louisiana State University. “Hearing that was a little overwhelming.”
The abuse survivor at the center of Wattigny’s Alford plea, Tim Gioe, more recently championed an effort for Louisiana to outlaw grooming, or behavior attempting to gain children’s trust with the intent to sexually abuse them. Gioe was supported by his wife, Sarah, whose father is the Louisiana state senator Pat Connick.
Connick in April presented a bill to Louisiana’s legislature aiming to criminalize grooming, one form of which is inappropriate texts to minors. Lawmakers passed the bill without opposition in early June, and Louisiana’s governor, Jeff Landry, signed the legislation into law on Tuesday.
“I think it’s amazing,” Perrette said about the bill that Gioe and his family had helmed. “And I’m so happy that I get to live in a state that made a decision like that to try [to] protect our youth.”
• In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453 or visit their website for more resources and to report child abuse or DM for help. For adult survivors of child abuse, help is available at ascasupport.org. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International
