Nienstedt testified under oath in a civil court in 2014 about his knowledge of priests accused of child sexual abuse. He said in an April 2, 2014 deposition that he had not known until March 2014 that a Rev. Kenneth LaVan, a priest accused in the 1980s of sexual assault of at least one teenage girl and "sexually exploiting" several women, was still in ministry in violation of church policy. Documents released in August 2014 as part of a lawsuit against the archdiocese showed that the archbishop received several updates on LaVan and approved his continuing work at Twin Cities parishes, as recently as August 15, 2013. The documents also indicate that Nienstedt had spent time socially with LaVan, as recently as June 2013.