Former New Orleans pastor, 93, sentenced to life in prison for raping boy decades ago

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A judge has sentenced a 93-year-old former Catholic priest to life in prison for raping a boy decades ago.

Lawrence Hecker pleaded guilty to charges including rape and aggravated kidnapping before jury selection began in his trial this month.

Hecker's sentence comes as the Archdiocese of New Orleans grapples with a rash of sexual abuse allegations and allegations that church leaders have long ignored abusive priests, leading to a protracted trial.

A survivor of the beating Hecker pleaded guilty to said Hecker was determined to teach him how to wrestle before school team scrimmage games in the mid-1970s and recalled that the training “started innocently enough,” The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate reported.

“I tried to stand up. I stood up,” said the survivor. “I saw that his left arm was on my neck. I don't remember much after that.”

After the survivor told her parents and church authorities, she was threatened with expulsion and forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, the newspaper reported.

Witnesses were prepared to testify that Hecker had abused them, and he gave emotional statements during his sentencing.

Hecker was ordained a priest for the archdiocese in 1958 and left a trail of red flags, including his confession and an undisputed child molestation complaint against him in the late 1980s, court records show. Hecker left the ministry in 2002.

The trial had been delayed for months amid questions about Hecker's mental capacity.

Another survivor, Aaron Hebert, said Hecker abused him in the late 1960s when he was in eighth grade at a Catholic elementary school outside New Orleans. Hecker groped Hebert and several students in the class while he was demonstrating what a hernia exam involved, Hebert said.

The Associated Press doesn't usually identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted, but Hebert has long gone public with her story.

“In my view, the Archdiocese of New Orleans is morally bankrupt,” Hebert wrote in a letter to a federal judge.

New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond, who has rejected calls from clergy abuse survivors to resign, said in an emailed statement that he hoped Hecker's survivors would find “some closure and a sense of peace in his sentencing.”

“On behalf of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, we offer our sincere and heartfelt apologies to the survivors for the pain Hecker caused them to endure for decades,” Aymond said.

Richard Trahant, an attorney for Hecker's abuse victim, said in an emailed statement that Aymond was supportive of the survivors.

“Aymond's words are empty and false,” said Trahant. “Aymond should be sitting there next to Hecker.”

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Brook is a member of the Associated Press/Reporting America Statehouse News Initiative team. Report for America is a national nonprofit service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on hidden stories. Follow Brook on social media X: @jack_brook96