NEW ORLEANS — After seven competency hearings, there's still no clear determination on pedophile priest Lawrence Hecker's competency to assist in his legal defense, but on Thursday his trial on rape and kidnapping charges was finally set for September 24.
The 92-year-old priest is accused of strangling a high school student unconscious and raping him in the St. Theresa the Little Flower of the Child Jesus Catholic church in 1975. He admitted on camera to WWL Louisiana and the Guardian last year that he had sex with several underage boys in the 1960s and 70s, while he was a pastor and running scouting programs for the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
But Hecker denied to WWL and the Guardian that he choked out and raped the alleged victim in this case. His identity has not been publicly disclosed, but he said through his attorney that he immediately reported what Hecker did to his principal at St. John Vianney Prep at the time, but nothing was done. That principal, priest Paul Calamari, later admitted to Louisiana State Police that he also had molested children.
Judge Benedict Willard said from the bench Thursday that a report by Hecker's treating physician, Dr. Michael Russo, said Hecker “has come across Alzheimer’s, dementia.” Dr. Sarah Deland, a court-appointed psychiatrist, was busy testifying in other cases in a different courtroom Thursday morning and did not make it to testify about her separate report on Hecker's mental state.
Deland's report is for the court's Sanity Commission, which tends to carry more weight. Both the prosecutors and Hecker's defense attorneys spent the morning waiting for Deland to finish her work in the other court. After the hearing adjourned, Deland showed up in Willard's court and told the judge: "Next time you're first."
DA Jason Williams says he’s seen Deland's report, and he believes it means Hecker is competent. And he said the new dementia diagnosis from Russo is irrelevant to what's known as the "Bennett criteria" for determining if a defendant understands the charges against him and can assist in his own defense.
"That has nothing to do with whether or not he can assist his counsel with moving forward, whether or not he knows who the judge is, who the state is," Williams said. "He said it before: He said the prosecutor's job is to try to put him in jail. And he said his defense attorneys, their job to try to get him free. And he knows the judge is a referee. So he knows. He knows what's going on."
Williams said he plans to try the case himself in September. But without a final determination on his competency to assist in his own defense, Judge Willard said, "If he's competent we'll have trial on September 24."
If not, that Sept. 24 date could be converted into another update on Hecker's status.
"This is as close as we've gotten to holding him accountable when I'm going to do my dead level best to make sure that we can," Williams said.
Williams blamed the defense for causing delays in the case, but Hecker's attorneys, Eugene Redmann and Matthew McLaren, said they haven't stood in the way of a final ruling and a trial. They said they want a decision on their client's competency as soon as possible, so he won't have to remain in custody, under armed guard at a long-term care facility.
Williams, meanwhile, has been hailed by survivors of child sexual abuse for pursuing the case against Hecker and fighting to get the church's secret files on Hecker. WWL Louisiana and the Guardian recently told the story of Greg Livaudais, who also accused Hecker of kidnapping and sexually abusing him during a trip to a scouting retreat in 1974 but couldn't get DAs in other parishes to press charges.
It's too late under Louisiana law to file child molestation charges from the 1980s and earlier, but there is no statute of limitations on aggravated rape or kidnapping. In Livaudais' case, he claimed Hecker held him against his will in West Feliciana and East Baton Rouge parishes, but the DAs there did not feel they could bring kidnapping charges.
Aaron Hebert, who filed a civil lawsuit alleging Hecker fondled his genitals when he was a child in 1968, came to court Thursday and shook Williams' hand as the DA left the courthouse.
"I thanked him for at least taking this case on, because no other DA would take this case on in the parishes that Hecker represented with the archdiocese," Hebert said.
In his interview with WWL and the Guardian in August of 2023, Hecker spoke at length about why he thought he was free to do what he’d done because of the “sexual revolution” and acknowledged that he now knew it was wrong and was “truly repentant.” Williams has repeatedly said Hecker's interview with us is proof that he's competent to stand trial.
Here is the full 18-minute interview of Hecker admitting sexual abuse of teens to WWL:
*Read more of the story below the video
In that same interview, Hecker quickly and emphatically denied ever having “unwilling” sex with anyone. Confronted with his written statement from 1999, he said he remembered the boys with whom he admitted engaging in “overtly sexual acts.”
Hecker was indicted and arrested in September, just two weeks after that interview. He walked unassisted to a vehicle that took him to jail. But in mid-January, he was rushed to intensive care, and in court hearings since then his defense attorneys said he had experienced mental decline, disorientation and a number of physical ailments. He was later transferred to a long-term care facility while held in custody in lieu of the $800,000 bail.
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