New Orleans priest pleads guilty to 1970s kidnapping, rape of teenager

CNA Staff, Dec 4, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

A priest in New Orleans pleaded guilty this week to kidnapping and raping a teenage boy in the 1970s, heading off a long-delayed trial that launched with an indictment last year. 

In September of last year, 93-year-old Father Lawrence Hecker was indicted on charges of aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, an aggravated crime against nature, and theft. 

The sex abuse crimes are alleged to have occurred between Jan. 1, 1975, and Dec. 31, 1976, according to the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office. 

His trial was repeatedly delayed this year amid Hecker’s ill health and uncertainty over his mental competency to stand trial. Orleans Parish First Assistant District Attorney Ned McGowan had promised to “roll him in on a gurney” to try him.

On Tuesday, meanwhile, the priest filed a guilty plea with the court, with his lawyer saying the priest “decid[ed] that he wanted to take responsibility for the crimes that he committed.”

“I think it was just a matter of, we were on the finish line, this was the day before the trial, I think he came to the realization of what that was going to look like, and he made the decision to enter the guilty plea,” Hecker’s attorney, Bobby Hjortsberg, said outside of Orleans Criminal Court on Tuesday. 

Asked why the trial had been delayed for so long, Hjortsberg told reporters that Hecker is “an old, old man” who is “deteriorating.” 

The trial “has been a long, difficult process for everybody involved, especially obviously the victims,” Hjortsberg noted. 

Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams told reporters that when Hecker returns for sentencing, “the judge is going to sentence him to a life sentence.”

“I believe this investigation and this prosecution represents a critical moment for some little boys who are now men — some of them who are now grandfathers — who have lived with this horrific abuse for years,” Williams said. 

The Archdiocese of New Orleans lists Hecker as among the priests who “are alive and have been accused of sexually abusing a minor, which led to their removal from ministry.”

The archdiocesan website says it received allegations against Hecker in 1996 and removed him from ministry in 2002. The archdiocese says the “time frame” of Hecker’s abuse spans the late 1960s and the early 1970s. The priest had in 1999 reportedly confessed to abusing multiple teenage boys during those years.

In a statement on Wednesday, the archdiocese said: “It is our hope and prayer that the court proceedings bring healing and peace to the survivor and all survivors of sexual abuse.” 

“We continue to hold all survivors in prayer,” the statement added. 

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/260833/new-orleans-priest-pleads-guilty-to-1970s-kidnapping-rape-of-teenager