NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Nola.com [New Orleans, LA]
December 3, 2024
By Jillian Kramer
Hecker, 93, had instead been scheduled to stand trial on Tuesday.
Lawrence Hecker, the geriatric former priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy nearly 50 years ago, pleaded guilty as charged Tuesday, abruptly ending a case boondoggled for months by the defendant’s declining health and a judge’s unusual recusal.
A grand jury indicted 93-year-old Hecker last year following an investigation that revealed the clergyman had confessed to molesting multiple juveniles over his decades of service with the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
The charges brought against him, however, stemmed from a single incident. Prosecutors alleged that Hecker choked, then raped a boy sometime between 1975 and 1976.
Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams’ office charged Hecker with first-degree rape, aggravated crime against nature, aggravated kidnapping and theft. He faces life in prison.
Hecker had been scheduled to stand trial beginning on Tuesday before he entered his guilty plea in front of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Nandi Campbell, who set a Dec. 18 sentencing date.
His decision to plead guilty “represents a critical moment for little boys who are now men,” said Williams, who prosecuted the case with Ned McGowan and André Gaudin.
Prosecutors were prepared to call several of Hecker’s accusers to the witness stand to testify. Williams said they had told adults decades ago about the since-disgraced priest, “but they weren’t believed.”
Through Hecker’s plea, “any doubt [about the allegations] has been removed by the predator himself,” Williams said.
Series of delays
For months, prosecutors had been forced to pause their case against Hecker, after his attorneys claimed his mental and physical health had degraded to the point of incompetency.
A battery of tests showed Hecker has mild-to-moderate dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, but a panel of court-appointment psychiatrists eventually declared him competent for trial.
Then, on the day of a scheduled trial in September, Criminal District Court Judge Benedict Willard surprised attorneys when he recused himself from the case, citing a conflict with prosecutors.
Hecker’s case was randomly reassigned to Campbell, who then required Hecker to undergo physical and psychological evaluations ahead of Tuesday’s scheduled trial date. Hecker appeared in court Tuesday morning in a wheelchair, his eyes cast to the ground as he was pushed into the courtroom.
Attorney Robert Hjortsberg, who represented Hecker with co-counsels Eugene Redmann and Matthew McLaren, said Hecker decided to “take responsibility for the crimes that he committed” after he realized what a trial “was going to look like.”
The reality of a trial “really slaps you in the face,” Hjorstberg said.
The prosecution of a priest is rare in the U.S. Only one in seven allegations of abuse by clergy are brought to court, according to one national study, and only 3% of cases result in convictions.
The survivor at the center of the criminal case against Hecker is also among those who have filed abuse claims against the Archdiocese of New Orleans in its long-running bankruptcy case.
The church filed for bankruptcy protection nearly five years ago under the weight of mounting accusations. More than 600 alleged abuse survivors have filed claims against the archdiocese.
Richard Trahant, the rape survivor’s attorney in the bankruptcy case, called Hecker’s plea Tuesday morning a “fantastic moral victory” for his client.
“They covered up child rape, plain and simple,” Trahant said. “That’s why Hecker was able to get away with what he did.”
Settlement talks between the survivors and the church are underway, but a multimillion-dollar gap separates the parties.
Email Jillian Kramer at jillian.kramer@theadvocate.com.