The criminal warrant against the Archdiocese of New Orleans states that Louisiana State Police is investigating possible child sex trafficking linked to widespread sexual abuse committed by priests over several decades.
According to that warrant, obtained by WWL Radio from the Orleans Parish Criminal Clerk of Court's Office on Tuesday, Louisiana State Police is seeking all documents linked to the archdiocese's sexual abuse scandal, including letters; emails; and priest assignments, transfers, and personnel files. The warrant also demands the archdiocese to turn over records of all complaints of sexual abuse made to archdiocesan officials and financial records related to the archdiocese's sexual abuse cases and documents that led to priests being added to the list of priests who have been credibly accused of committing sexual abuse.
According to the search warrant, lead investigator Scott Rodrigue testified under oath that his team found a decades-long pattern of "widespread sexual abuse." Rodrigue said that LSP investigators spoke with a "now-known victim" in June 2022. That known victim, Rodrigue said, "detailed being anally raped at an Archdiocese facility by Ex-Priest Father Lawrence Hecker, who served in 13 different congregations during his career." That interview, Rodrigue said, led to state police launching its investigation into the Archdiocese.
Rodrigue added that archdiocesan officials covered up the abuse and failed to report it to law enforcement. Rodrigue said investigators reached that conclusion after speaking with victims and after reviewing "documents previously sealed by a federal bankruptcy judge."
" . . . (I)t was additionally alleged that high-ranking members of the Archdiocese of New Orleans not only knew about claims of widespread sexual abuse of minors dating back decades, but that the claims were ignored, and in many cases, covered up and not reported to law enforcement," Rodrigue said under oath. "The known-victim detailed reporting his rape to the Head of the Archdiocese Facility shortly after it occurred, but explained no legal action was taken. It was learned that particular clergy member was later also sent to a psychiatric facility due to claims of sexual abuse and subsequently later listed on the 'Credibly Accused List' of two separate Archdiocese, one being Orleans. During a law enforcement interview with that known clergy member, he confessed to sexually abusing a minor which occurred in the 1970s, although through out the years he was the target of other sexual abuse accusations."
Rodrigue noted that when investigators executed the search warrant during their investigation into Hecker, they uncovered documents that previous archbishops "not only knew of the sexual abuse and failed to report all the claims to law enforcement, but spent Archdiocese funding to support the accused."
"For example, one 48-page document obtained during the course of the investigation, detailed a certain named Archbishop, "was aware of rampant sexual abuse through-out the archdiocese,' Rodrigue said under oath, with the warrant document showing emphasis on that quote.
According to the warrant, Rodrigue says investigators gathered statements from multiple victims who reported being "transported to other parishes outside of Louisiana where they were sexually abused." Rodrigue said those victims reported how priests allegedly passed victims around to each other, with priests giving victims "gifts" to give to another priest as a signal that the victim was a target for abuse. Other victims, Rodrigue said, detailed how they were brought to the New Orleans Seminary "where they were told to 'skinny dip' or swim naked in the pool and would be sexually assaulted or abused."
The release of the search warrant comes as the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office works to prosecute Lawrence Hecker, a priest who admitted to a WWL-TV reporter that he molested a teen in the 1970s. A judge recently ruled that Hecker, 92, is mentally incompetent to stand trial on sexual abuse charges.
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