NEW ORLEANS — Seven months after his arrest on rape and kidnapping charges, 92-year-old Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker appeared in court Thursday in an orange prison jumpsuit, was rolled in a wheelchair to a back room and was evaluated by a doctor to see if he's competent to stand trial.
Since being charged with aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated crime against nature and theft, Hecker has taken ill and was transferred from Orleans Parish jail to a long-term care facility, under armed guard. Hecker’s defense attorneys argue he’s too sick to be tried and filed a motion last month to have him evaluated for his mental competency.
But Hecker stood for 18 minutes in the stifling heat last August and admitted to WWL Louisiana and the Guardian that he had “willing” sex with several underage boys in the 1960s and 70s. In that same interview, Hecker denied doing what he was arrested for two weeks later – choking a boy unconscious in a church office in 1975 and raping him.
Richard Trahant represents Hecker's alleged victim and says they are skeptical.
“He looks roughly the same as he did four years ago when I had him under oath for two days straight,” Trahant said.
Doctors still hadn't evaluated Hecker when he arrived in court today. But Tulane forensic psychiatrist Dr. Sarah Deland was in the courthouse for another case, and Judge Ben Willard had her brought in to evaluate Hecker.
“I commend Judge Willard for saying, ‘Look, a doctor who needs to interview Hecker is here in the courthouse. Let's get her down here.’ I think that was a good approach,” Trahant said. “Otherwise, we might be waiting another couple of months to get the doctors to interview or examine him.”
Deland was with Hecker in a closed area attached to Willard’s courtroom for about 30 minutes before the attorneys emerged in open court and set a hearing for April 18.
“He was evaluated by the doctors,” Hecker’s attorney, Bobby Hjortsberg, said. “They're going to formulate a report and give an opinion.”
He said he expects Deland to decide on Hecker’s competency and to testify about her findings at the April 18 hearing.
Trahant said his client reported Hecker's alleged attack immediately to Father Paul Calamari, the principal at St. John Vianney Prep in 1975. Calamari is still alive, and Trahant said he hopes Calamari, himself credibly accused of child molestation, is charged with misprision of a felony for failing to report a crime.
Calamari’s attorney, Evan Howell, declined to comment.
District Attorney Jason Williams has said his office would consider filing criminal charges against anyone who participated in covering up child sexual abuse. Sealed church files on Hecker, obtained by the Guardian and WWL last year, are replete with church officials who failed to report his sexual abuse of children, even after he admitted to it.
In addition to Trahant’s allegation that the 1975 rape was reported to church officials, church files show another former student’s parents reported Hecker had sex with their son and then-Archbishop Philip Hannan confronted Hecker about it in 1988. Hecker told WWL that Hannan was convinced Hecker wouldn’t do it again and didn’t punish him.
In 1999, Hecker admitted in writing to a church official that he had sexually charged relationships with at least seven underage boys and engaged in “overt sexual acts” with three of them. He was also evaluated by a church psychiatric facility and diagnosed as a pedophile who could not be rehabilitated. But the church let him remain in ministry for three more years and assigned him to St. Charles Boromeo church with a grammar school attached.
Hecker was allowed to retire in 2002 with full benefits, which the archdiocese kept paying until a federal bankruptcy court ordered it to stop in 2020. The church reported one of Hecker’s alleged crimes in 2002, but didn’t publicly acknowledge that Hecker was a credibly accused child molester until 2018 and didn’t turn over Hecker’s file to law enforcement until last summer.
“Unfortunately, as we all know by now, child rape just wasn't reported by the Archdiocese of New Orleans to the police,” Trahant said.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.