A former Catholic priest in Louisiana has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to drugging and molesting 17 men he had met in New Orleans' French Quarter, according to prosecutors.
Stephen Sauer, 61, admitted to targeting men who appeared to be "intoxicated, lost or in need of assistance," according to a news release from the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office. He would then offer to help the men, but instead drugged them and drove the unconscious victims to his home in Metairie, roughly 7 miles west of the district, prosecutors said.
Sauer pleaded guilty to 13 counts of sexual battery, nine counts of third-degree rape, 17 counts of video voyeurism, as well as 16 misdemeanor charges of drug possession, court records show. On Friday, District Judge Shayna Beevers Morvant sentenced Sauer to a total of 25 years in prison and ordered him to be registered as a sex offender for the rest of his life, the DA's office said.
Many of the victims were visiting New Orleans from out of state and were "separated from friends or simply lost" when they were approached by Sauer, according to the news release. Sauer took photographs of his victims' identification cards, which allowed detectives to identify some of the victims, the news release said.
In some cases, Sauer put narcotics in his victims' drinks while they were at a bar or used an eyedropper to drug them with "sleep-inducing substances" after they had already passed out, such as zolpidem, according to the news release.
Sauer would then drive victims to his home, where he used a smartphone to take pictures of and record the unconscious men, prosecutors said. He molested some of the men and pleasured himself before driving his victims back to their hotels or other locations the following morning, according to the release.
An investigation led by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office found Sauer shared or traded the images with other people online or via email, prosecutors said. The investigation was launched in June 2021 after Sauer sent a computer hard drive to a New York repair company, where a data recovery technician found hundreds of the images and notified law enforcement, the release said.
According to the release, detectives believe that more than 50 of Sauer's victims remain unidentified, as the crimes took place over a two-year period from 2019 to 2021.
CNN has reached out to Sauer's attorney, Mike Ciaccio, for comment.
"We at the province learned through media reports that Mr. Sauer pled guilty to charges involving adult men. We encourage any person who has been harmed to notify law enforcement," Therese Fink Meyerhoff with the Jesuits USA Central and Southern Province told CNN, while confirming that Sauer used to be a priest.
The DA's office said Sauer's previous occupation as a Catholic priest was not relevant to the case itself.