Admitted child rapist and retired pastor Lawrence Hecker dies at age 93 | Abuse of priests from New Orleans

Confessed child rapist and retired Roman Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker has died a little more than a week after he began serving a life sentence, officials said.

Hecker, 93, had pleaded guilty on Dec. 3 to charges that he kidnapped and raped a teenager in a New Orleans church in 1975. He had received a mandatory sentence of life in prison on Dec. 18 and was days later been transferred to a state of Louisiana. prison known as Elayn Hunt, said his attorney, Robert Hjortsberg.

Hjortsberg said Hecker had been on his way to Louisiana’s maximum security state prison, nicknamed Angola, but ultimately did not make it there.

Hjortsberg, his co-counsel Eugene Redmann and New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams confirmed Friday that they had been informed that Hecker had died, although it remained unclear what day his death occurred.

While details on a cause and manner of death were not immediately available, Redmann said Hecker’s health had deteriorated.

Hecker became one of the faces of the New Orleans Catholic Church’s decades-old priest abuse scandal – and had been shielded from justice by his religious superiors for most of his life.

The child-rape survivor who successfully pursued criminal charges against Hecker reported being a student at New Orleans’ St John Vianney high school — named after a patron saint of Catholic parish priests — when the priest befriended him.

The survivor used to train in a weight room made from a room in the bell tower of a neighboring church known to locals as the Little Flower, which has since closed along with St John Vianney, a school which catered primarily for boys who were interested in participating. the Catholic priesthood.

One day, Hecker appeared in the weight room and talked to the boy about his dream of joining a St John sports team. Hecker suddenly put the boy — then 16 years old — in a wrestling-style headlock, knocked him unconscious and raped him, according to court documents.

The survivor later told his mother and school principal about his rape at the hands of Hecker. But, he said, the principal, Paul Calamari, never alerted the police and instead threatened to expel him if he did not undergo psychological treatment for what the headmaster characterized as “anger issues and fantasy stories”.

Hecker initially denied these specific claims. But in 1999, he admitted in writing to Catholic Church bureaucrats in New Orleans that he had molested or sexually harassed several other children he had met through his work as a priest.

The church nevertheless allowed Hecker to return to work for a few years before allowing him to retire with full employment benefits. The church then waited until 2018 to finally notify the public that Hecker, Calamari and dozens of their fellow priests had faced significant allegations of child sexual abuse — all of which, combined, prompted the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans to file for bankruptcy in less than two years. later.

After the church revealed that Hecker was a predator, the former St John Vianney student teamed up with a civil attorney, Richard Trahant, to file a formal complaint with law enforcement about the survivor’s rape. The case progressed slowly until the summer of 2023, when the Guardian and then New Orleans’ CBS affiliate WWL Louisiana began publishing a series of reports about Hecker’s 1999 confession — as well as actions the church had taken to cover up that revelation for more than two decades .

The outlets managed to publish these reports despite the fact that the church bankruptcy hid most archdiocese cases behind a court-mandated seal of secrecy.

Finally, in September 2023, Louisiana State Police and the office of New Orleans District Attorney Williams obtained a grand jury indictment charging Hecker with child rape, kidnapping and other crimes in connection with the 1975 attack at St. John Vianney.

The case was delayed more than a year because of questions about whether Hecker, as a nonagenarian who had struggled with dementia, had the necessary competency to legally stand trial. He was ultimately deemed competent, paving the way for a trial set to begin on December 3.

However, Hecker staved off trial by pleading guilty as charged and receiving a mandatory life sentence 15 days later. It marked the first time, at least in recent times, that a Catholic priest in the city of New Orleans – whose archdiocese has hundreds of thousands of parishioners – had been convicted of child rape, one of Louisiana’s most severely punished crimes.

The sentencing left the judge presiding over the case, Nandi Campbell, in tears of sympathy for Hecker’s victims.

One, Aaron Hebert, who had been prepared to testify in support of the former St John Vianney student, had the trial proceed, calling Hecker “Satan in priest’s clothing”, someone who stole his childhood from him. Another survivor called Hecker “an animal” and thanked God that his day of justice had finally come.

The former St John Vianney student testified that his being raped by Hecker had condemned him to a lifetime of disjointed personal relationships – including with his wife and children. “I have no friends,” he said as Hecker cried and wiped his eyes. “I pushed everyone away.”

The survivor has since expressed a desire for some of Hecker’s aides to eventually be prosecuted. It remained to be seen whether that was possible, although a broader investigation spurred by the case against Hecker remains active and ongoing.

Law enforcement affidavits sworn in April as part of the broader investigation specifically state that authorities have probable cause to suspect the archdiocese was operating a child sex business responsible for the “widespread … abuse of minors dating back decades “, which was “covered up” and not reported” to the authorities. But no one other than Hecker had been charged at the time of his death.

After news of Hecker’s death circulated Friday, Williams said, “We had no time to waste.”