Lee Eagan said he lacked prior experience, failed to familiarize himself with rules and suffered cognitive decline as case expenses soar to $40m

A US government official is questioning the soaring legal fees paid by the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans after the volunteer managing the organization’s four-and-a-half-year-old bankruptcy admitted under oath to a stunning lack of qualifications for his role. Lee Eagan, a local businessman, testified in early July to having never previously policed the costs of a bankruptcy as well as failing to familiarize himself with the rules for that kind of proceeding.

He also swore – in a separate series of earlier depositions – to grappling with substantial cognitive decline after a severe car crash nearly two years beforehand.

Meanwhile, the nearly $40m in expenses resulting from the bankruptcy so far is already more than five times greater than initially projected.

None of the money spent so far has gone to roughly 500 people who have filed claims in the bankruptcy alleging that they were victimized, mostly as children, in the ongoing clergy molestation and cover-up crisis within the archdiocese. Survivors and their supporters are worried that victims’ prospects of one day being made relatively whole by the church may dim if expenses aren’t reined in.