An appellate court has upheld former Hosanna Church pastor Louis D. Lamonica’s aggravated rape convictions and life sentence for his role in a sex-abuse scandal at the now-defunct Ponchatoula church.

The state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal rejected Lamonica’s lone argument that his expert witness should have been allowed to testify at trial about false confessions and the influence of high-control groups or cults.

Lamonica is the second of the seven members of the now-defunct Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula to be convicted of rape for their roles in an alleged child sex ring involving three children.

Investigators have alleged that some of the acts were part of occult rituals.

After the trial of Louis Lamonica, Richard Ofshe said he could have offered the jury insight into the nature of cults to help them understand what was happening at Hosanna. He said he could have told them there is no such thing as satanic cults that abuse children.

If the initial statements of the children and suspects indicate the abuse occurred as part of a satanic cult — something that has never happened — then the truth of everything alleged in that statement is questionable, Ofshe said.

Paul Fontenot is among the seven members of the now-defunct Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula indicted in 2005 on charges of molesting three children as part of occult rituals.

Two other church members already have been convicted of aggravated rape as a result of the investigation

Lamonica is the second of seven members of the now-defunct Ponchatoula church to be tried and convicted of committing child abuse that sometimes took place along with satanic rituals at the church.

Assistant District Attorney Don Wall and Perrilloux said they did not know which one of the five remaining church members they would bring to trial next.

Louis Lamonica, 49, of Hammond, is on trial in the 21st Judicial District Court on four counts of aggravated rape of his sons when they were age 11 or younger. Seven church members were indicted in 2005 on charges of molesting children. Lamonica is the second among them to go on trial.

Lamonica’s attorney, Michael Thiel, maintained in questioning his client Friday that Lamonica falsely confessed to child rape because he was being controlled by a woman who claimed to be a prophet of God.

Former pastor Louis Lamonica voluntarily walked into the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office and told deputies he molested several children over several years and he told of “dedications to Satan” inside the Ponchatoula church.

The pastor’s attorney says a church member manipulated Lamonica into false confession.

A state judge has formally handed down three life sentences for the first member of a now defunct Ponchatoula church to be convicted of sexually abusing children in connection with a case that came to light in 2004.

The first of seven members of a now-defunct church accused of raping children as part of a devil-worshipping ritual was found guilty of molesting his 2-year-old daughter and a boy.