By Erika Hernandez
Dec 19, 2024, 17:55 PM EST
A 93-year-old former Catholic priest from New Orleans was sentenced Wednesday by a judge to spend the rest of his life behind bars for raping a teenager decades ago.
Lawrence Hecker had pleaded guilty to charges including first-degree rape and aggravated kidnapping moments before jury selection in his trial was scheduled to begin this month.
Hecker’s sentencing comes as Archdiocese of New Orleans faces fallout from wave of sexual abuse lawsuits and accusations that church leaders had long ignored predator priests, leading to a lengthy bankruptcy process.
The survivor of the assault to which Hecker pleaded guilty said the former priest had offered to instruct him in wrestling moves before tryouts in the mid-1970s for a school team.
He recalled that the training “started innocently enough,” but then Hecker raped him, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.
“I tried to get up, but I stopped. I realized that his left arm was on my neck. “I don’t remember much after that,” he said.
After the survivor told his parents and church authorities, he was threatened with deportation and forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluationthe newspaper reported.
Witnesses had been prepared to testify that Hecker had also abused them and provided impact statements during his sentencing.
Hecker was ordained an archdiocesan priest in 1958 and left a trail of red flags, including his own admission and an undisputed complaint of child abuse filed against him in the late 1980s, court records indicate. The man left the ministry in 2002.
Court proceedings had been delayed for months amid questions about Hecker’s mental competency.
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