NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A judge sentenced a 93-year-old former Catholic priest Wednesday to spend the rest of his life behind bars for raping a teenage boy decades ago.
Lawrence Hecker had pleaded guilty to charges including first-degree rape and aggravated kidnapping moments before jury selection was scheduled to begin in his trial this month.
Hecker’s sentence comes as the Archdiocese of New Orleans deals with fallout from a wave of sexual abuse lawsuits and allegations that church leaders had long ignored predatory priests, leading to a long-running bankruptcy proceeding.
The survivor of the assault to which Hecker pleaded guilty said that Hecker had offered to instruct him in wrestling moves ahead of tryouts in the mid-1970s for a school team and that he recalled the training “started innocently enough,” The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported. Then Hecker raped him.
“I tried to get up. I pulled up,” the survivor said. “I realized his left arm was over my neck. I don’t remember much after that.”