NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Guardian [London, England]
August 4, 2024
By David Hammer of WWL Louisiana
Greg Livaudais alleges abuse by Lawrence Hecker in 1974 – and wonders why the retired priest, 92, isn’t already in jail
As the retired Roman Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker awaits trial on rape and kidnapping charges in New Orleans, one of his many alleged victims wonders why Hecker isn’t facing more arrests in jurisdictions across south Louisiana. For years, Greg Livaudais, 66, has seen news coverage of the church abuse scandal – and it has stirred up painful memories of sexual abuse he allegedly suffered at Hecker’s hands in February 1974, when Livaudais was 16.
Those triggers started in 2002, when national news about a widespread cover-up in the Boston archdiocese prompted Livaudais to file a complaint against Hecker with the archdiocese of New Orleans in April of that year, when he was 44.
“He was recruited by [Father] Hecker to help with a retreat for the Boy Scouts. He also visited him in Luling. He was fondled in bed three or four times. He was also given alcohol,” read notes of that phone call in archdiocesan files, which were produced during a deposition of Hecker in 2020.
What Livaudais didn’t know was he made that call the same month the church forced Hecker to retire, amid a deluge of molestation accusations. When he saw that being reported years later, Livaudais learned that was also when the church started paying Hecker’s living expenses and retirement benefits – which continued for the next 18 years.
“Letting him live out his life in a nice apartment … or a retirement home or whatever, while I go through what I go through,” he said. “It’s a shame to say, but where’s his suffering for it?”
Livaudais spoke out to church officials again in 2018, when the New Orleans archbishop, Gregory Aymond, announced his archdiocese would release a list of clergymen it considered credibly accused of child sexual abuse.
“I wanted Hecker to know that I remember: you hurt me,” Livaudais said.
He was relieved to see Hecker was included on that list. But later, Livaudais learned from reporting by the Guardian and WWL Louisiana that church officials had received complaints about Hecker as early as 1975 – and at the highest levels starting in 1988. But the church repeatedly responded by moving him to other parishes, fretting about the complainants going public and sending him on sabbaticals, even after he confessed and was diagnosed with pedophilia.
“I never lost faith in God or my religious beliefs,” he said. “I did lose faith in how the archdiocese was running the business of the church.”
In 2021, after seeing more news stories about the breadth of the allegations against Hecker, Livaudais turned directly to law enforcement, filing separate criminal complaints against Hecker in Baton Rouge as well as the parishes – or counties – of St Charles and West Feliciana.
Livaudais said he was a 15-year-old Eagle scout in 1973 when Hecker began grooming him, with handball matches and nude swimming at the New Orleans athletic club, encouraging letters and gifts. Livaudais has kept some stamped correspondence from the time that appears to back up his claims.
He has a postcard Hecker sent him from the 1973 national scout jamboree. He also has a handwritten letter from a girl inviting him to a dance in March 1974, telling him that Hecker was offering to pick him up to get him to the dance.
The girl asked in the letter why she hadn’t heard from Livaudais for weeks and if anything was wrong. She sent it to him just a few weeks after Hecker had taken Livaudais on a weekend trip to a scouting retreat. Livaudais alleged that’s when Hecker molested him.
He had just turned 16. He said Hecker took him from the church in the St Charles community of Luling, where Hecker was pastor, to a Girl Scout retreat in the West Feliciana town of St Francisville to help him for the weekend. Livaudais alleged Hecker molested him during each night of the trip, first at the rectory in Luling on Friday, then at a cabin at the scouting camp in St Francisville on Saturday, then at the Alamo hotel in Baton Rouge on Sunday.
The criminal complaints he filed in each jurisdiction went nowhere, according to emails Livaudais kept and follow-up interviews with police agencies and prosecutors. The Baton Rouge police department and sheriff’s offices in St Charles and West Feliciana parishes all said they were stymied by the deadlines to file complaints for sexual assaults, short of aggravated and forcible rape, which do not have a statute of limitations.
The archdiocese first reported Hecker to the New Orleans police department regarding another victim in 2002.
In response to questions about whether it reported Livaudais’s complaints, a church spokesperson said: “The archdiocese respects and supports Mr Livaudais’s decision to directly report and work with law enforcement in the investigation and prosecution of his abuse as a minor in the early 1970s. We encourage adults who were abused as minors to come forward to us and to make reports directly to law enforcement agencies with our pledge of continued cooperation.”
In the summer of 2023, Livaudais saw reports by WWL Louisiana and the Guardian about Hecker’s 1999 confession to church officials that he had engaged in “overtly sexual acts” with at least three underage boys and had improper relationships with at least seven boys in the 1960s and 70s. Last August, Hecker admitted to the abuse in a televised interview with the two media outlets.
Weeks from that interview, Hecker was indicted on rape and kidnapping charges, based on a different complaint from a man who alleged Hecker strangled him unconscious and raped him in a New Orleans church in about 1975. Unlike with molestation, there are no deadlines to file aggravated rape and kidnapping charges.
After seeing those charges filed in New Orleans, Livaudais said he looked up the definition of kidnapping. He now believes he, too, was kidnapped by Hecker.
“I made a point [that] I want to go home, I don’t want to be here,” he said, referring back to the trip to the scouting camp in St Francisville and the stop at the hotel in Baton Rouge. “He held me against my will. He made me stay.”
So Livaudais went back to a Baton Rouge police detective who had told him in 2021 that he wished he could have arrested Hecker. He said he received no response about the possibility of kidnapping charges.
A Baton Rouge police spokesperson told WWL Louisiana that the detective did look into filing kidnapping charges. But the detective determined that because Livaudais’s parents allowed him to go with Hecker on the retreat, it did not qualify as kidnapping, the spokesperson said.
The station also reached out to the sheriff in West Feliciana Parish, Brian Spillman.
“Based on the information we received in 2021, we did not consider a charge of kidnapping,” the sheriff said in an email. “I will forward this to our district attorney’s office and ask them to respond to the inquiry.”
The DA, Sam D’Aquilla, then responded: “We address[ed] this case before and all matters have been resolved.”
That’s why the case pending against Hecker in New Orleans matters so much to Livaudais. Hecker is 92, and his condition has been deteriorating in a long-term care facility. His defense attorneys argue he is not competent to support his own defense, and his trial has been repeatedly delayed as forensic psychologists report he’s suffering from short-term memory loss. Another hearing on his competency is scheduled for 8 August.
Livaudais said he hoped Hecker is convicted of rape and gets the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment – even if, given his age, he may have “two [or] three years left” alive.
“I know I sound like a vengeful person right now, huh?” Livaudais said. “Get in my shoes.”