It was a story that left many gasping in shock – not least the passer-by who stumbled upon man of the cloth Travis Clark putting his altar to ungodly use with two dominatrices.
Now the former Louisiana priest and his two ex-altar servers have been slapped with vandalism charges for the sacrilegious sex act atop the holy furniture.
Clark, 37, and the two women were initially charged with obscenity after a witness allegedly spotted them hard at it inside Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Pearl River last September and called police.
But on Friday the St. Tammany Parish District Attorney’s Office announced that a lesser charge of vandalism would instead be brought against the unholy trinity, according to court records obtained by NOLA.com.
The trio are now accused of “knowingly vandalizing, defacing, or otherwise damaging property and causing damage valued at over $500 and under $50,000” at the church on or between Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 last year.
The two dominatrices — Mindy Dixon, 41, and Melissa Cheng, 28 — were dressed in corsets and high heels for the threesome, which was being filmed, court documents state.
Investigators recovered sex toys and stage lights at the scene, as well as recording devices.
An attorney for Dixon and Cheng told NOLA.com that state prosecutors had “overstepped their bounds” in bringing the new charges.
“It is clear the state went out of its way to contort the facts of this case in order to fit their own narrative,” Attorney Bradley Phillips told the news publication.
“This [is] nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to regulate the morality of private individuals,” he added. “Just because you don’t like something, doesn’t make it criminal. My clients look forward to their day in court as we continue to fight this baseless allegation.”
At the time, Dixon and Cheng told cops they were at the church to film a “roleplay” with the priest. Although police determined that the activity was consensual, they arrested the trio on obscenity charges as they were in view of the public.
Clark was removed from public ministry the day after his arrest, with the scandal even leading to calls for Pope Francis himself to open an investigation into the culture at the Louisiana church that allowed such wrongdoing to happen.
The altar featuring in the “demonic threesome” was burned and a new one consecrated last October.
Clark, Dixon and Cheng are set to be arraigned today. If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of two years in prison and a fine of up to $1,000, according to the DA’s office.