Therese Fink Meyerhoff, a spokeswoman for the Jesuits’ Central and Southern Province, confirmed that Sauer served in the province and said: “We 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.”
Sauer’s LinkedIn account also says he worked as an assistant professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, a Jesuit school, from 2006 to 2008.
Records on the university’s website show that Sauer, who taught theology there, earned his bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University in 1983; his master’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1991; his bachelor’s of sacred theology degree at Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome, in 1997; his licentiate in sacred theology at the Institut Catholique de Paris in 1999; and his doctorate of sacred theology from The Catholic University of America in 2007.
According to Sauer’s LinkedIn account, he was a faculty member at the Jesuit University of San Francisco from 2013 to 2016; however, his name did not appear in search results on the school’s website.
WDSU6 reported in 2021 that Sauer served as executive director of Arc of Greater New Orleans, a nonprofit organization that serves children with intellectual disabilities, but after his December arrest that year, Sauer was no longer employed by the organization.
Authorities began investigating Sauer in June 2021 after he sent a computer hard drive to be repaired by a company in New York.
An employee at the company discovered hundreds of images on the hard drive showing that sexual assaults had appeared to have taken place.
Authorities in New York referred the case to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office after determining the origin of the photos.
Many of the victims were able to be identified by the detectives because Sauer photographed their driver’s licenses and other forms of identification.
When detectives searched Sauer’s home, prescription pill bottles that had the name of a sex offender in Missouri were found.
Zolpidem, which is known as a “date rape” drug, was found as well, the district attorney’s office said.
(Story continues below)
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Joseph Bukuras is a journalist at the Catholic News Agency. Joe has prior experience working in state and federal government, in non-profits, and Catholic education. He has contributed to an array of publications and his reporting has been cited by leading news sources, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the Catholic University of America. He is based out of the Boston area.