Former pastor confessed to ritualized sexual abuse of children

WAFB Channel 9 - Louisiana
August 26, 2008

Prosecutors play taped confessions in former pastor's trial

by Doug Mouton


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.
Detective Bonita Sager of the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office took the first confession and was there a few hours later for the second. At the time of Lamonica's confessions, he was not under investigation by police. In his confession, Louis Lamonica says he voluntarily came to police for two reasons: "the guilt of all of this" and "because Robin is still doing stuff. She's still in that cult. I know she is and I believe she is molesting them." Robin is Lamonica's wife.
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."
Lamonica said that roughly eight adults took part. In opening statements, his attorney says Lamonica was manipulated and coerced into his confessions. However, in his second confession, Lamonica says, "Nobody brain washed nobody." Monday afternoon, prosecutors called a handwriting expert and introduced 260 pages of explicit sexual writings, basically Lamonica's handwritten confession. Jurors finished their day by reading those writings.

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