A screen shot of a November 4, 1999 statement given by Msgr. Lawrence A. Hecker to Msgr. Ray P. Hebert, Executive Director of the Department of the Clergy of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, about Hecker's abuse of boys.

Losing Faith: Preying from the Pulpit

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WWL-TV [New Orleans LA]

December 11, 2024

By David Hammer

[Photo above: A screen shot of a November 4, 1999 statement given by Msgr. Lawrence A. Hecker to Msgr. Ray P. Hebert, Executive Director of the Department of the Clergy of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, about Hecker’s abuse of boys. Below is a YouTube transcript of the audio of this video report. We have begun correcting this machine transcript and will update our posted copy of the transcript as we do so.]

Good evening. I’m WWL chief investigative reporter David Hammer. For decades, one of the oldest and most powerful Catholic institutions in the country shielded one of the most notorious pedophiles, Monsignor Lawrence Hecker. Instead of choosing accountability, the Archdiocese of New Orleans chose silence.

But that silence was shattered in August of 2023, when Hecker openly admitted to me and our partners at the Guardian that he sexually molested underage boys. Over the next hour, you’ll hear stories of betrayal, cover ups, and the fight for justice. This is Losing Faith: Preying from the Pulpit.

In 2023 Aaron Hebert talked for the first time about what happened to him in 1968, when he was just 13. He says Lawrence Hecker, a Catholic priest who ran the archdiocese Boy Scout program, ordered him and other middle school boys to line up in the priest dressing room at Saint Joseph church in Gretna.

“And he proceeded to have us drop our pants and our underwear, and it decided to grope our genitals under the guise of giving us a hernia examination.” Hebert says he’s racked by guilt for not reporting it at the time: “Because if I only would have told somebody back when I was in eighth grade, I could have maybe saved my friends from the pain and suffering they went through with Father Hecker.”

Our partner Ramon Vargas, a reporter and editor at the British newspaper The Guardian, recently obtained the archdiocese of New Orleans secret personnel file on Hecker. That file includes a statement Hecker gave to church leaders in 1999 admitting to overtly sexual acts with at least three underage boys in the 1970s.

“You know, obviously, you’re facing quite a bit of trouble for you to come and say, ‘Well, here’s everything I remember that I did,’”

“But then they didn’t do anything about it.”

“No, I mean, he continued, he retired pretty much on his own terms in 2002; he wasn’t outed as an abuser until 2018.”

So, Vargas and I went to Hecker’s apartment to confront him with the documents, and for the first time in public, he admitted to sexually abusing children.

A second screen shot of a November 4, 1999 statement given by Msgr. Lawrence A. Hecker to Msgr. Ray P. Hebert, Executive Director of the Department of the Clergy of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, about Hecker's abuse of boys.
A second screen shot of a November 4, 1999 statement given by Msgr. Lawrence A. Hecker to Msgr. Ray P. Hebert, Executive Director of the Department of the Clergy of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, about Hecker’s abuse of boys.

in here. It’s not just allegations anymore. Here, you’re saying that you did this, that you had uh

simultaneous masturbation with, uh, someone who was under 16. You say about wrestling and touching,

evidently, yes. Do you remember these people that you describe here?

You have, the names are redacted, but you say that there were overtly sexual acts with this person.

Uh, but that person was 100% willing and he was 15 to 17 years old, lived in Saint Francis of Assisi parish.

Hecker acknowledged that one boy’s parents reported him to Archbishop Philip Hannon back in 1988.

So that was long before you retired. Why don’t, why didn’t they do anything then?

Evidently Archbishop Hannan trusted. I mean, that what I said

was true that I would not be in any such circumstances. Do you believe that the Catholic Church is

doing everything it can to protect its parishioners?

Oh, right now. Yeah, sure. But what about back then? I mean, 1999 wasn’t that long ago,

but we didn’t know then what we know. Now, actually adults having sex with underage kids was

a felony in the 19 sixties and seventies just like it was in 1999 and just as it is now.

But Orleans Parish district attorney, Jason Williams says he didn’t get hecker personnel file from the archdiocese

until June 2023 after he petitioned the court to unseal Hecker file

after hecker 1999 admission, the archdiocese sent him to get psychiatric treatment in Pennsylvania,

psychiatrists, psychologists, whatever they said that it was

that I was cleared, you know, for ministry. So they went by that.

Well, I saw that report, they said that you were diagnosed with pedophilia. They explicitly recommended that he not work with, with Children

or adults who could be considered vulnerable. And yet court documents show the church reassigned Hecker in 2000

to Saint Charles Borromeo, a grammar school in Destrehan. All I know is

that he said I could be whose face is safe for me to go back to

active ministry. And so that’s what I did. Hecker says it’s been at least 30 years since he touched a

child other than what he called a holy hug in his 1999 LA

and he wants the public to know that he’s changed. Not one chance in a million that anything like this would ever happen again?

That obviously I’m truly repentant. Do you feel that you’ve changed or you

just have kept yourself out of those situations?

I’ve cut myself out because I’ve changed. Do you believe that you should face any criminal punishment?

I really can’t answer that. I just don’t know

an answer to that question would be here soon enough. Coming up after the break, the wheels of justice finally start to turn against Monsignor Hecker

reporting partner, Ramon Vargas and I confronted Monsignor Lawrence Hecker on camera in August 2023

forcing him to admit how he used to have sex with Children. But that was just the beginning. The state police and FBI were investigating

and just two weeks later, they took action. A typed confession from retired priest

Lawrence Hecker says a boy’s parents reported him to the archbishop back in 1988 for having sex with their son.

In 1999. Hecker admitted to the archdiocese that he engaged in overtly sexual acts

with at least three underage boys in the sixties and seventies, he was allowed to stay in ministry and kept escaping punishment

until now. Hecker was indicted in September 2023 on aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping,

aggravated crime against nature and theft for allegedly incapacitating a teenage boy

and having sex with him in the summer of 1975 in the church attached to his Catholic high school.

We are withholding the name of the alleged victim but spoke to his civil attorney, Richard

Treant simply put hecker choked him out. Uh and sodomized him while he was unconscious.

Treant said his client and the boy’s mother reported it immediately to the school but nothing was done.

Now after years of trauma, Trahan’s client is relieved that Hecker is finally being charged to my client.

It, it means everything he’s endured this for years. Uh He got to the point where he felt like no matter how many times

I tell the story of the worst day of my life, nothing is going to be done about it.

We interviewed the 91 year old hacker after our partners at the Guardian newspaper got a hold of his 1999 confession.

He denied ever having non consensual sex with a child. Have you choked a child until he, he was unconscious and then raped him?

No, you deny that you ever raped anybody against their will.

Hecker admitted having sex with underage boys who could not legally give their consent.

He said he felt he was free to do that at the time. But at the time, an adult man having sex with an underage boy was a crime.

It was called aggravated Crime against Nature. And prosecutors had six years to bring charges,

but there was and still is no deadline to file rape charges. I’m joined now by my reporting partner

Ramon Antonio Vargas of the Guardian newspaper and Ramon, that was a big moment when we got Lawrence Hecker on camera

confessing to his crimes. Essentially. How did that end up happening?

Kind of defining moment I think was, was being able to obtain uh his written confession, um which had been a secret that uh

the church had had long uh held and um to the point where they even omitted it in a uh 2002 letter that they sent to the new

police department in which they uh described one of his claims. Um

and omitted the fact that he had admitted to that claim as well as six others. Um at least in,

in that note. And I think what made the difference was having that document, taking it to his house,

which uh I recall was your idea uh taking it to his house knocking on it, confronting him with it, having him say like this is all true.

Um Yes, I did, I did do these things. Yes, these are my words. Um You know, locked him in to a way that I, you know,

I don’t think anybody had done up to that point. Were you surprised that he responded the way he did

when we went to his house? He, you know, he had kind of shown an inability to just say,

I don’t wanna talk about this. Like, please leave me alone, right? You usually the trick was like, if you got him on the phone,

if you got him in person, he would say something, right? And the the biggest I think thing that was glaring

was that he could never say no like that’s wrong. I’m I’m innocent. I shouldn’t be on there that always jumped out to me is that he never denied

being a child molester, right? He could never do it. He would, he would always give you some weird answer.

Um And so I knew that like once he was given that document that

um that we would probably get something pretty compelling in return. What did you make of his response about the sexual revolution

at the time? Like I say it was a sexual revolution and

people were saying, oh look, uh we were bound all these years, all these centuries,

you know, now we’re free and I fell for that. It is pretty classic minimizing that you see. Um especially when, when people like,

you know, when offenders like him can’t say that they didn’t do it. Usually it’s like, OK, yes I did do it, but

this is why it’s not a, you know, not that big of a deal, obviously that we pointed this out repeatedly in our reports, right? It was as much a crime then

to do to molest Children in the way that he had admitted doing, um, as it is now, right.

There was never that was ever changed and there was no question of age or anything like that, like these were Children

and he committed crimes then, and if he had done now, when people understand that much better, it would be as much of a crime.

And so that’s what I’ve said about that. The only thing that changed though was the statute of limitations which allowed him to be protected against civil litigation.

Yeah, I think that that is what the, the effect of it is that a lot of that stuff he couldn’t be prosecuted,

prosecuted for. But I think that eventually, like reporting and keeping so much attention to Laurence Tucker and just saying,

fighting the, the effort to, to uncover like the, the larger record obviously brought forth someone that said, hold on.

Like I have a crime that, um, you know, that is still prosecutable because there is

no statute of limitations on child rape, right? This isn’t fondling, this isn’t, um, you know, harassment like this is this child rape in that confession.

There is a, an admission to I took, took a child to Mississippi across

state lines and I molested him. Right. That’s in, that’s in the confession

that has no statute of limitations. That is something that he confessed to and someone somewhere and the federal government

decided to not do anything about that. As the trial was supposed to begin in January 2024.

There were all these delays because of his health and because of claims of dementia, I’m sure there’s a lot of rapists and murderers in this building who would

love to get out of jail free card because of a urinary tract infection. That’s not quite how the law works. He’s obviously malingering,

uh, because he certainly was competent in David’s interviews and now that he’s

been charged with a crime all of a sudden now he, he can’t tell his left from his right. So if he can withstand,

uh, uh questions from, um, from investigative journalists and from civil lawyers, not that he can handle, uh, questions from,

um, from prosecutors, but we had this interview with him where he stood for 18 minutes in the blazing sun in August

and answered all our questions and showed that ability to see the difference. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s been almost a year of, of delays. Um, is that,

you know, we know that he, he does have dementia, we know that that can impact his short term

memory and without much disturbing his long term memory, right? Like we, we, we’ve reported on that repeatedly.

Um, and but his cons, his condition is getting worse, right? Like it’s not getting better. So every delay is just

making, making it harder for him to be able to assist his attorneys. What was your take on the way that the delays happened and

the handling of the case by Benedict? WW the judge, my best guess. And this is an informed guess is that, that is just

that, that behavior was not of a judge that looked like they wanted to deal with the case and get it through,

right? Like it’s just, and, and when you see how it ended up and, and someone else’s courtroom and, uh, got the case in September and it’s December

and they’re about to move forward. Um, that to me is what, what stands out and the fact that Judge Benedict Willard recused himself with

very little to no explanation on the day of trial. Right? I, and, and that was, that was a decision that could have been made a month earlier.

Um, and if you were gonna make it, that’s a decision that could have made at the outset. Um, and obviously, it, it,

it just looked like it was trying to give it the best chance of, of not moving forward and then of just not dealing with it.

So we had Hecker confession, but there was a lot more to this story coming up after the break.

We hear what the church knew about Hecker case and what they did to cover it up for decades.

Pedophile priest Lawrence Hecker had gone on camera with us and answered our questions for 18 minutes.

But soon we uncovered a lot more of what Hecker said on camera in a leaked video deposition.

Eight hours of confessions, excuses and even self incrimination

in this weed court testimony. Yeah, I invoke my fifth amendment rights.

Retired priest Lawrence Hecker refused to answer questions about sexually abusing Children under oath.

You take, you take the fifth 117 times,

the fifth. Hecker declined to incriminate himself once every four minutes during an 8.5 hour deposition,

even when he had already incriminated himself. And you would agree that some of this sexual molestation occurred

on out of town trips out of the State of Louisiana, correct out of Louisiana.

Uh Yes, I would but I, I know

I invoke my fifth amendment, right? All the fifth amendments in the world couldn’t stop Hecker from admitting he molested multiple

Children or from disclosing the top archdiocese officials helped cover it up for decades.

The church has fought for four years to keep this testimony secret. But we and our reporting partner at the Guardian Ramon Antonio

Vargas got an exclusive copy. Here’s hecker reading from a tight confession he

gave in November 1999 to a top church official with whatever there is. There were

overtly sexual acts, but he was 100% willing. There was a certain amount of genital touching.

I remember his visiting me and ruling 74 or 75. He just flew over to say hello.

But we did have a sexual encounter after making that confession records show Hecker

was officially diagnosed by psychiatrists as a pedophile as the year 2000 dawned.

Then Archbishop Francis Schulte and two close aides met with Hecker about it having

gone to the mental hospital as it were in Pennsylvania And I was back verdict.

If you like the word, the verdict was uh take another sabbatical

about a week later and just a week before Hecker sabbatical was to begin. Schulte held a special mass at Saint Louis Cathedral,

a mass celebrating Hecker promotion by Pope John Paul the second several months earlier to the exalted title of Monsignor.

Archbishop Schulte told me he said, if I had known

of this, I would not have sent in for your promotion.

Still a top Schulte aide wrote, they were ready to have Hecker back on the pulpit. As long as the public stayed in the dark.

Monsignor Hebert wrote to Father Reed. And I quote, our only concern is that someone in his past might decide to go public.

In the meantime, we hope to have him back into ministry in the near future.

I see that. Yes. In the summer of 2000, Schulte put Hecker right back in ministry.

Here’s hecker reading the archbishop’s letter. Welcome back from your sabbatical program.

I hope this time away from the archdiocese was very beneficial to you. I am pleased to

sign you in residence at Saint Charles Borough, Mayo, Parish, Destrehan, Louisiana

and Saint Charles Borough Mayo is a grammar school with lots of young boys. Correct.

It has a school. Yes. And isn’t it true that nobody restricted you from any access

or restricted you in any way? When you went to Saint Charles Bar Mayo Parish,

I restricted myself. Hecker retired in 2002. That year.

A special church review board advised the new archbishop Alfred Hughes to lay a size hecker officially removing him from the priesthood.

Instead, Hughes simply asked hecker and other accused priests not to perform priestly ministry in public.

A church spokesman referred questions to Hughes who’s retired. He did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Theology is once a priest, always a priest and uh

some of these guys were just, we still just sitting around with nothing to do

and to make them more useful. Aren’t they lucky not to be in jail?

I don’t think that was even thought about at the time. As an auxiliary bishop under archbishop Schulte, current Archbishop Gregory.

Amon was copied on a letter welcoming Hecker back to work after his 2000 sabbatical.

But the archdiocese said in a statement that Amon quote was not involved in an administrative role during the time in question.

Court records show, Amon got more details as archbishop in 2011 in a series of memos from his victim’s assistance coordinator,

Sister Carmelita Centanni says Larry was known

among the boys as a cent’s memo to Amon describes hecker taking showers with boys and touching

their genitals along with another adult at Notre Dame Seminary. Sister Carmelita writes on June 19th, 1996

Larry Hecker told Monsignor Ray Hebert, he wanted to put the past behind him.

He nevertheless continued perpetrating through 1997.

And you did, did you not fifth amendment

even while invoking his fifth amendment rights? 100 and 17 times hecker was also testifying under oath to

molesting kids and about how archdiocese officials had helped cover it up

with shame. I report a time in my life from the beginning of 1968

until about 1980. It was a time of great change in the world and in the church

and I succumb to its zeitgeist. It was a time when I neglected spiritual

delusion, confession and most daily prayer with whatever there is. There were overtly sexual acts, but

he was 100% willing. He lived in Saint Francis of Assisi parish and ascended Saint John prep school.

Is that the acts occurred when he was about 15 to 17 years old and there was a certain amount of genital touching during the time I was in Gretna.

I remember mutual masturbation. I remember his visiting me in Luling 74 or 75.

He just flew over to say hello but we did have a sexual encounter. He came

a few times to visit me at the directory wearing what was the style at the time? Sh

Jim Shorts when the sexuality began, he there were probably two or three encounters. I don’t recall exactly

when Hecker finished reading Richard Trahan, an attorney for several of heck’s alleged victims immediately peppered him with questions.

That statement was a confession. Correct? You take the piss on that, take the fifth

and you would agree with me that that statement is filled with felony

child abuse crimes. Definitely fifth amendment.

Now hecker invokes his fifth amendment rights against self incrimination. But back in the 19 eighties, when the archdiocese received a complaint about him,

he had no such concerns. When he came out. Years later, he told his parents that

he he and I had sex together. They reported to Archbishop Hannon and he spoke with me

about it in the early 1988. In a statement, the archdiocese said

it has no record of any 1988 complaint in his sworn testimony.

Hecker says he met with Hannon then went on a paid sabbatical to Fordham University in New York City.

And here’s a letter Hannan wrote to New York’s Vicar General Patrick Sheridan about heck’s sabbatical there.

And of course, if you read that letter, Archbishop Hannan says nothing to Father Sheridan about the recent claim of

sexual abuse of a minor that had been made against you correct. There’s nothing in here.

It wasn’t a big deal in those days now, maybe it wasn’t a big deal to hecker in the church leadership.

But they soon found out it was a very big deal for the Louisiana State Police and the FBI.

So far, the Louisiana State Police and the New Orleans district attorney had focused their criminal investigation on one pedophile priest,

but more than 500 child molestation survivors had filed claims in the church’s bankruptcy accusing more than 300 priests of abuse.

Now, state and federal agents wanted to know what church leaders knew when they knew it

and what they did to stop it. We were the only station there when state police and the FBI arrived

at the archdiocese of New Orleans to serve a criminal search warrant. They served the warrant and left about 45 minutes later without comment,

they were led by state police investigator Scott Rodri. He was the head of the investigation that led to

the arrest of retired priest Lawrence Hecker in September 2023. Hecker was in custody at the time

awaiting trial on aggravated rape and kidnapping charges. A warrant filed in the hecker case earlier that year turned up

documents suggesting church officials might have tried to cover up hecker crimes.

This letter the as he sent to police in 2002, only mentioned one complaint against hecker and that happened out of state.

But this document, the church had kept hidden, showed hecker had already admitted to being a

serial child molester in writing in 1999. And it showed the late archbishop Phillip Hannan had confronted him about it.

As far back as 1988 Rodrigue swears under oath that his team has already found a pattern of

widespread sexual abuse of minors. Going back decades. Rodrigue said the abuse was

covered up and not reported to law enforcement. The sworn affidavit says police have already

collected evidence showing quote previous archbishops, the highest ranking official in the archdiocese not only knew of the

sexual abuse and failed to report all the claims to law enforcement but spent archdiocese funding to support the accused.

Police say they learned that while investigating hecker for allegedly choking a high school student

unconscious and raping him in 1975 the boy reported the alleged crime immediately to the school principal,

retired priest Paul. The warrant says police questioned Kamari about it

and he too admitted to child molestation. The warrant says Children were often molested in the pool at Notre Dame Seminary

and priests often gave gifts to Children as secret signals to share victims.

The search warrant concludes with this, that the police have probable cause to believe

church leaders violated the state’s child sex trafficking laws and we’re back and we’re talking with my reporting partner, Ramon Vargas.

Why do you think the hecker case specifically led to this larger criminal investigation of the church and the cover up.

I think that for a long time, the church’s position when it came to Lawrence Hecker, we reported him right until this day. Right. I’m sure that when this is over, when this airs, I

you’ll have a conversation and they’ll be like we reported back in 2002, like go see the police and go see. But like when you see the form that, that report took, which is something

that they fought against ever becoming public. When you see that the the that became it was Lawrence Hecker with six other priests who were accused of things.

And it was, it was an allegation that in out of seven. So they, they pick one allegation out of seven to say, oh by the way,

this is something he’s accused of and completely omit that he has admitted to doing this in several other cases.

I think it becomes pretty clear that like that shows how he was passed on from one archbishop to another,

passed on to another, passed on to another. And that’s just one that’s just one person out

of hundreds who have been accused of similar conduct, right to some, to some extent, the search warrant.

And our series of Blockbuster reports made the community take notice of the crisis. Like never before

we began to hear from more abuse survivors, including more of hecker victims who were tired of remaining silent.

Each time the archdiocese of New Orleans tried to keep its records on child sexual abuse a secret.

It struck a chord for Greg wi and I appreciate what you and Ramon

are doing tremendously. A lot of people appreciate. I know a lot of people follow you.

Keep it up. But recently our stories exposing the church’s sealed files on Father Lawrence Hecker

have meant even more to live. I wanted Hecker to know

that. I,

I remember you hurt me. He remembers the early 19 seventies

wit was an eagle scout. Hecker was the head of scouting for the archdiocese of New Orleans.

And he remembers hecker grooming him. We played handball, built up a good sweat and all like that. And afterwards,

uh he suggested we go swim in their pool. I didn’t have any swimsuit and he says you don’t need any,

uh, it’s a salt water pool and you can only swim nude in it. He remembers Hecker sending him this postcard from the 1973 National scout.

Jamboree remembers Hecker giving him gifts. He played one of those claw machines, you know,

and he got this ceramic ashtray in the shape of a hand, shooting the middle finger,

you know, and he gave it to me as a gift, you know, I mean, who gives a 15 year old kid

an ash tray of a hand shoot in the middle finger, you know, weird. And he remembers that gift in a whole new light now that the

Louisiana State Police has launched a child sex trafficking investigation of the archdiocese.

The police allege in a search warrant that abuser priests often gave kids gifts as a signal to other abusers.

Tell me about what kind of ran through your mind when you saw that.

That’s me. That’s what he did to me. Vide says the abuse began on a weekend scouting retreat a couple weeks after he turned 16,

he says it started at Hecker Church in wooing. My father had dropped me off at the rectory. On that Friday night,

I had my own little sleeping room. He came in that night abuse me

the next night at a scout camp in Saint Francisville. He said it happened again

and again when I was sleeping, he came in a me vide remembers the sense of terror returning during their long drive home.

Hecker decided to stop for the night at the Alamo Hotel in Baton Rouge. I made a point. I wanna go home. I don’t want to be here.

He held me against my will, ok? He made me stay. He also kept this letter sent by a girl.

A few weeks later inviting him to a fifties dance. She wrote that Padre Hecker would pick him up.

He didn’t respond and then he kept retreating from friends and family and from the church he loved,

I’d go to church. Ok? I never lost faith in God or, or my, my uh my, my religious beliefs, you know, uh I

did lose faith in in how the the archdiocese was running the business of the church. In April 2002 lit,

filed his complaint with the church lit, didn’t know it at the time. But three years earlier,

Hecker had given a statement to church officials admitting he had sex or inappropriate

relations with at least seven underage boys in the 19 sixties and seventies.

The same month lit complained. Hecker was allowed to quietly retire with the church,

paying his living expenses and retirement benefits for the next 18 years letting him live out his life,

you know, in, in a, a nice apartment uptown or, or retirement home or whatever. Well, I, I go through what I go through,

I mean, where’s his? It’s a shame to say but where’s his suffering for it? In 2021 ride

filed criminal complaints in the three places where he claims hecker abused him

in Saint Charles Parish, West Fianna Parish and Baton Rouge. Well, weeks went by,

I didn’t hear anything and I emailed them back and they all wrote back to me and says, no, no D A is not gonna pursue.

But then last year Orleans parish district attorney, Jason Williams filed rape and kidnapping charges against Hecker.

In a different case, the New Orleans D A alleges Hecker held another boy against his will and raped him

again. Guide recognized himself in the story. So I looked at what kidnapping was.

That’s me. So I wrote back to uh the Baton Rouge uh

police and I said, I wanna, I want to file charges for kidnapping and contributing to the delinquency of juvenile.

And he wrote back and says, yeah, I, I remember you, sorry, we couldn’t pursue your case. Have a great day.

That’s it. That’s why the victim in New Orleans isn’t the only one with a personal stake in bringing Hecker to trial.

I’m looking, he’s found guilty. Yeah. Then he’s found guilty and he gets, and he gets the maximum sentence.

I know. So what he’s got, what 123 years left of life compared to my 50

I’ll take it. And that weaves one final step on the road to justice after the break,

the rape trial of Lawrence Hecker.

He’s rape trial was delayed half a dozen times by Judge Benedict Willard,

but he stepped down in September 2024. The case was reassigned to judge

Nandi Campbell and it moved quickly to trial. We were there, December 3rd waiting to enter the courtroom with about 100 potential jurors.

When judge Campbell came out and announced big news that nobody saw coming.

We can tell you now in an Orleans parish courtroom that retired priest Lawrence Hecker has pleaded guilty as charged to every single count there,

he’s set to be sentenced on the 18th trial was set to begin this morning. We have our reporters there live including

chief investigative reporter David Hammer again, a lot going down at the courtroom there at Tulane and Broad David Hammer just spoke to Hecker defense attorney Bobby Horberg

to get to that right now. Your client just pled guilty to all counts. Can you explain what the decision was?

Um, you know, it was just a matter of him deciding that he wanted to take responsibility for the crimes that he committed.

He, he admitted guilt this morning. I think it was just a matter of, you know, we were on the finish line.

This was, this was, you know, the day before the trial. And I think he came to the realization of what that was going to look like.

Um, and he made the decision to, to enter guilty plea. Now he said to me on camera in August that he had never

had sex with anybody against their will. That’s exactly what he’s charged with here. And now he’s admitting that,

well, David, you know, there’s a huge difference between what you say on camera and, and what you say in a courtroom under oath.

Uh And so, uh, today, what he said is that he’s pleading guilty, uh, he’s taken responsibility for his actions and, you know,

everyone will have an opportunity to, to, to move forward in, in, in any way they can. Did he specifically admit that he choked

this person and caused him to go unconscious and then had sex with him.

He plead guilty to all the crimes that he was charged with. The victim’s attorney, Richard Trahan was as surprised as anyone that Hecker folded. Larry Hecker is going to pay the piper

and I hope he suffers miserably. I have no forgiveness in my heart. I’ve, I’ve seen too much of what this this man has done. Treant

said the guilty plea is bittersweet for his crime who first reported what happened to the church in 1975

and couldn’t get police to investigate until 2022. My client is extremely disappointed

that he wasn’t able to be in the courtroom to hear hecker admit what he did to him. But he cheered district attorney, Jason Williams for pressing the case.

There is no better result the district attorney could have gotten there just isn’t. And Williams said the result is for all of hecker victims.

The judge took great pains to make sure that uh Lawrence Hecker understood everything that was happening. He clearly did,

as I’ve said on these steps, a number of times he pled guilty to every single count.

He understands that when we come back on the 18th, the judge is going to sentence him to life sentence.

And I believe this investigation and this prosecution represents a critical moment

for some little boys who are now investigating. The case was not easy.

First for Louisiana State police investigator Scott Rodrigue and then for D A Williams

who overcame the archdiocese efforts to keep its files on hecker a secret. Can you talk about the headwinds you faced

to bring this case forward? Uh going back to when you were fighting to try to get the documents and everything,

you know, it was, I, I had to go over, um, to their hearings. Um, and, and listen in and I had to, had a moment where, uh I talked to the judge

uh, at sidebar about, uh what would be necessary for us to get our hands on the evidence of these rapes.

Um And it, it should not be uh this difficult to investigate and prosecute

an admitted rapist. Uh And it was um you know, iii I thank God for this,

that this ends the criminal legal battle for these survivors

uh because a lot of them weren’t believed. Um and to, to live your life uh and have been victimized and survive through this.

This is shattered families. Uh There’s families that aren’t talking to each other uh because people uh are, are, are stuck in the middle of their faith.

Uh And this brutal crime and that was certainly the case for Greg Ride.

I haven’t lost my faith in God and, and I, I still nurture my children’s faith in God like that. It’s just uh

the business end that the cover up the people running this and doing that. I am. I am so so upset and disappointed in

and ashamed of. We already shared rides story how in 1974 hecker took him from a wooing church

to a scouting retreat in Saint Francisville to a motel in Baton Rouge and molested him in all three places.

You know, it was the 50th anniversary of when he, you know, molest me over three nights, you know, held me against my will,

which I’ve claimed was kidnapping, which was disputed by the Baton Rouge and uh Saint Francisville sheriffs.

But now with hecker pleading guilty to kidnapping and raping another boy in New Orleans in 1975 L

has finally found a measure of justice. I’m just so happy that it’s, it’s

this victim came forward and the D A picked it up and it’s coming to fruition and

hopefully there will be some closure in the, in the victim’s life. He and other survivors won’t get to testify against Hecker.

But court records show what the victim in the New Orleans case was prepared to testify.

Now 65 the victim says he was 17 when Hecker went to him in the weight room at Saint Teresa of Little Flower Church and offered to give him some pointers.

So he would be ready for wrestling, tryouts, the length of detail that my client was going to explain to a jury

and what hecker did to him, the violence of it. Uh You know, the, the overt

sexual, I mean, it, it, it was a choke out rape and that’s about as bluntly as,

as I can put it the victim said he told his mother what happened and his parents met with his high school principal,

Paul Calamari. The court record says, quote, Kamari told Blank’s parents that Blank needed to see a psychiatrist due

to his anger issues and fantasy stories or he would be expelled. Paul

Calamari later became a priest. He’s still alive and admitted to police that he too was a child molester.

I think calamari has some explaining to do. Uh I think Greg Amon has some explaining to do.

I think Alfred Hughes has some explaining to do. Uh They covered this up. Let let let’s not sugar coat it.

You know, these men who wear pointy hats and carry staffs and wear robes and wear fancy jewelry and gold chalice.

They covered up child rape, pure and simple, which is the reason

Larry Hecker was allowed to get away with what he got away with other survivors. Also filed statements with the district attorney for this case.

One described taking a walk with hecker in some woods outside New Orleans when the priest put him in a wrestling hold began trying to rape him.

And then when another child approached, hecker pretended like nothing happened and walked away.

D A Jason Williams explains why that case stayed quiet for so long, Lawrence Hecker married him and his fiance because

his bride’s family was that close to Lawrence. Hecker understand the complexities

of this thing. And, and you know, part of me really wanted uh this jury

and the public to hear what Lawrence Hecker did to these boys. Another victim, Jackie Berthelot

is now a Gretna city councilman. He told the FBI he was in fourth grade when

Hecker had him and other altar boys go skinny dipping in the pool. At Notre Dame Seminary

there, they were passed around among the seminarians for fondling and sex.

Berthelot said, Hecker gave him a box with a feather in it to give to another priest. He later learned it had been a signal that he was a target to be abused.

In 2021 Berthelot testified before a state legislative committee about

the pain Hecker had inflicted a little. Did I know that I was being reeled in by a pedophile who

uh I think when so a lot of this comes to light will be seen as one of the worst pedophiles that maybe this country has ever seen.

It’s a life sentence. It’s a life sentence uh that I feel that I’ll serve and it doesn’t erase

how we’re gonna still carry that baggage into the future, you know. Um

But it’s a step toward, you know, justice. Uh I don’t, I don’t know if it’s a step towards healing.

Probably I’ll have to see what happens how I feel with the, one of the survivors who was supposed to testify at trial is Aaron Hebert,

the very first hecker victim to share his story openly in public. He sat down with us after hecker surprise guilty plea.

So, Aaron, first of all, you know, we’ve been on this journey with you for

several years now and hecker pleads guilty to all counts.

What’s your reaction? My reaction is one of elation, you know, uh

uh it’s been a journey like you said, it’s been long overdue. What did you think about Jason Williams comments in the press conference.

Jason Williams is my hero. I wrote letters to all the district attorneys

that hecker moved from parish to parish to parish asking these district attorneys

would they please take a look at if there’s any allegations of, you know, a childhood abuse with hecker

D A Williams was the only district attorney that took the bull by the horns and said, we will move forward and go forward.

What does that tell you? Do you think that D A Williams just

had more fortitude or what explains why he moved forward? And the others wouldn’t? I think it shows you how deep the tentacles

of the Catholic church really goes to in both the judicial system and the criminal system within Louisiana,

especially Southeast Louisiana, the atrocities they were bringing upon our Children back in the eighties,

seventies, eighties and nineties and did nothing about it. They just move them from parish to parish

to me that is more outrageous and outrageous than hecker has ever done.

And the records show that at the very least Archbishop Aymond was notified about the extent of hecker abuse

in 2011 in a series of emails and he continued to pay his retirement and his living expenses until

2020 when the bankruptcy judge forbade it. Yes. Well, believe it or not. Uh

Mon threw hecker a 60 year party for 60 year as a priest

and everything to reach his milestone. They had a big celebration for that. Now, to me, that’s a slap in the face to all victims and survivors.

Now you were gonna testify at trial. Yes. Can you tell me some of the things that you were planning to

say on the witness stand? Uh Basically my story, you know, and everything

uh where it has taken me and to kind of let the people know what’s going on around

the archdiocese of New Orleans, there’s a story that needs to be told. Uh However, so many parishioners rather put their heads in the sand

and be ostriches and not when they hear the dirty side of the archdiocese of New Orleans.

Do you feel like it was the mounting voices that forced this to come to a head?

I believe so. I believe so. Um when I first started with this years ago,

I felt like I was a lone man on the top of the mountain saying hello, hello. You know, beware, beware, there’s hecker, there’s heck

and it wasn’t into channel four yourselves and several other media uh outlets decided to take the story and run forward to it

because we, the people, the parishioners of New Orleans, the Great New Orleans area,

we need to know what’s going on with the Catholic church. We need to have that transparency. Certainly, when Hecker went on camera with us, it made national news because it was

so punishment. Did that give you a, a feeling that maybe the tide was turning.

Yeah. In a way. Yes. Uh I’ve learned a long time ago that patience is a virtue.

All good things come to those who wait and it’s just a matter of time, let it go through its process.

And this the heck it was a process. I accept that, but it had finally had an ending.

Lawrence Hecker will die in prison or at least in a medical facility under armed guard

and he will forever be a convicted child rapist. But while his case is over, there’s much more to come about.

The larger clergy abuse cover up in New Orleans, more than 500 abuse survivors are seeking hundreds of millions

of dollars from the church through the archdiocese bankruptcy case. And they claim they were molested as kids in the New

Orleans area by more than 300 Catholic priests and deacons. Some have told us they only felt empowered to come forward

after they saw our reporting and they’re amazed to see law enforcement convicting abusers and closing in on church

leaders for failing to report crimes against Children over and over again for decades,

for all of us at Wwl Louisiana. I’m chief investigative reporter, David Hammer.

Good night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmhhWsqRAbU