Prosecutors play taped confessions in former pastor’s trial
AMITE, LA (WWL) – Jurors heard graphic and disturbing testimony Monday in the child sex trial involving the former pastor of a Ponchatoula church. Prosecutors played audio tapes of two confessions from former Hosanna Church Pastor Louis Lamonica.
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. Lamonica’s confessions give detailed accounts of how he molested two boys, both family members. He tells how it began and how it continued over the course of years. He also told of having sexual relations with several other children inside the Hosanna Church.
[…]He says in 2000, the Hosanna Church switched from Christianity to Satanism, although he says, the general congregation didn’t know it. He spoke of killing animals and drinking the blood during ceremonies and of sex with children, saying, “It was orgies. You put one (meaning a child) in the middle and it was your turn to be with this one. Everybody got a turn. It was like, nobody missed out, including the women.”
The attorney for a former pastor accused of raping his sons says a church member manipulated Louis Lamonica into false confession.
Michael Thiel told jurors on Friday that Lamonica never abused any child. He says Lamonica and nine other members of the Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula were manipulated and controlled by another member.
AMITE, La. (AP) _ A one-time pastor at a now-defunct Ponchatoula church faces trial Tuesday in an alleged 2005 child sex-abuse case, eight months after another church member was convicted of rape.
Louis Lamonica is charged with four counts of aggravated rape for allegedly abusing his two young sons when they were 11 years old or younger. Conviction carries an automatic life prison sentence.
Lamonica and Austin “Trey” Bernard III are among seven former members of the Hosanna Church indicted in 2005 for allegedly having sex with Lamonica’s sons and Bernard’s daughter over several years.