NEW ORLEANS — For the fifth time since March, Orleans Parish Criminal Court tried to hold a hearing on Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker’s competency to stand trial on rape and kidnapping charges.
The confessed pedophile arrived at the doors of the courtroom in a wheelchair wearing his orange prison jumpsuit, only to be told that the hearing was over and had been delayed again to July 11. Psychiatrists evaluated him April 4 and found he was not competent to stand trial at the time because of short-term memory loss, but stated he could be re-evaluated in two months.
As the attorneys, doctors, State Police and FBI investigators left the courtroom, Hecker's attorney, Eugene Redmann stopped to tell Hecker the hearing was delayed again.
"We need to come back on July 11," Redmann said.
"What's today?" Hecker asked.
"June 13," Redmann replied.
"Oh boy," Hecker said.
Hecker's nurse stopped Redmann in the hallway, telling him, "His condition is really deteriorating and (being repeatedly transported from a long-term care facility on the West Bank to court) is a strain for him."
Redmann, who was in court alone after lead defense attorney Bobby Hjortsberg withdrew from the case, said nothing much has changed since the last hearing, May 23.
Prosecutors had expected forensic psychiatrist Dr. Sarah Deland to evaluate Hecker again Thursday after she requested his medical records at that May 23 hearing. But Deland said she and her team need more time to review more than 7,000 medical records they just received Wednesday.
Redmann and lead prosecutor Ned McGowan both confirmed to Judge Ben Willard that they did not get the documents from the hospital until Wednesday. Deland told Willard she needed a couple of weeks to review the documents and the next available hearing date after that is July 11.
McGowan's boss, District Attorney Jason Williams, has repeatedly said Hecker is "malingering," playing up his ailments to avoid standing trial. The DA's office has subpoenaed video of an 18-minute interview by WWL Louisiana Investigator David Hammer and Guardian reporter Ramon Antonio Vargas, who got the exclusive interview in August 2023 when Hecker confessed to sexually abusing or harassing at least seven underage boys in the 1960s and 70s.
Meanwhile, frustration is mounting for Hecker's victims, some of whom he admitted to molesting and others he hasn't acknowledged or denied abusing. One of those is the unnamed alleged victim in the current rape and kidnapping case, who told State Police investigators Hecker strangled him and raped him while he was unconscious in a church office in 1975.
The man is now in his 60s and reported the attack immediately to the principal at his Catholic high school. That principal, retired priest Paul Calamari, later told police that he, himself, was also a child molester, and the boy's complaint went nowhere.
The man's attorney, Richard Trahant, was in court again to observe Hecker's competency hearing, and again left with no answer about whether his client's alleged attacker will stand trial.
"It's incredibly frustrating -- frustrating for the victim, frustrating for all of Hecker's victim-survivors who want to see justice," Trahant said. "But Hecker is not wine. He isn't getting better with age."
Another of Trahant's clients, Aaron Hebert, alleges Hecker fondled his genitals when he was a teen in the late 1960s. Hebert has been an outspoken advocate for survivors and says he's focused on the bigger picture: The State Police and FBI investigation of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, on suspicion of a larger coverup and running a child sex-trafficking operation.
"He's getting his due, what he deserves right now," Hebert said. "If he dies, he dies. There's nothing I can do about that. But my animosity falls more with the archbishops that aided and abetted and harbored and protected all these pedophiles all these years."
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