Taped confessions argued
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AMITE — Louis D. Lamonica told detectives in two taped statements played in court Monday that he voluntarily confessed to raping his sons because he felt guilty and he wanted to get the boys away from their mother and a satanic child-sex cult.
The defense, however, claims the former Hosanna Church pastor was psychologically coerced by church members to confess to crimes the defense says never happened.
Lamonica, 49, of Hammond, is on trial in state 21st Judicial District Court on four counts of aggravated rape of his sons when they were ages 11 or younger. Lamonica is the second of seven members of the now-defunct Ponchatoula church indicted in 2005 to stand trial in the child sex scandal.
Lamonica kicked off the string of arrests after he walked into the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office on May 16, 2005, and made the two confessions.
On Monday, Assistant District Attorney Don Wall focused on the two taped statements Lamonica made the day of his arrest and his 260-page journal, a copy of which was provided to the jury.
“My boys got to get out of that house because Robbin (Lamonica) is still doing stuff,” Louis Lamonica told detectives in the second confession. “She’s still in that cult,” he said of his then-estranged wife.
Louis Lamonica asked deputies several times for immunity in exchange for names of other suspected child abusers.
Defense attorney Michael Thiel directed his questions to Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Detective Bonita Sanger, emphasizing those portions of Lamonica’s confessions that correlated with the defense assertion that Lamonica was coerced into making false confessions and was told by other church members he would have immunity from prosecution if he talked to law enforcement.
Sanger testified she received two phone calls before Lamonica arrived at the Sheriff’s Office in May 2005.
One was from Nicole Bernard, the mother of an infant girl Lamonica was later arrested for abusing, asking about immunity for Lamonica.
Bernard had previously taken her daughter to state authorities when she suspected the girl was raped. Robbin Lamonica had done the same with her sons. According to testimony in the other trial, Bernard pressured Robbin Lamonica to get information from her sons about the abuse of her daughter. The case involving the girl was severed from the case involving the two boys.
The second call Sanger received was from an unidentified man who told her he had information on a case she was working on.
When asked if such calls are unusual, Sanger testified: “It’s quite different. I was surprised.”
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