Key parts of New Orleans’s legal and religious establishments are “running out the clock” on rape and kidnapping charges pending against the admitted child molester and retired local priest Lawrence Hecker, an attorney for the case’s alleged victim said Thursday.
Richard Trahant delivered his comments after the clergyman, 92, received a sixth trial delay meant to help determine his mental competence.
“They’re … just hoping … that this old man’s gonna die [and] their troubles are gonna be over,” Trahant said outside the state courthouse handling Hecker’s case. “What the system is doing here … is putting this off.”
Earlier, a court-appointed psychiatrist, Sarah Deland, had said during a hearing that she could not issue an opinion on Hecker’s mental competence without him first undergoing an evaluation for dementia – a process that she estimated could take two months.
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