• By DEBRA LEMOINE
• Florida Parishes bureau
• Published: Sep 29, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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HAMMOND — Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, the nation was gripped by news stories about children allegedly being abused in satanic cult rites.

The idea of children being abused in such rites was so prevalent that the federal government commissioned a five-year study to analyze cases of ritualistic abuse, such as the one alleged at the now-defunct Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula in recent years.

In 1994, the five-year report to the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, the federal commission, found that a quarter of the 1,079 prosecutors, law enforcement agencies and social workers who responded to a survey had handled a ritualistic or religious-based abuse case.

The report, conducted by professors at the University of California at Davis, also says the case information that came from these agencies shows little concrete evidence to support the ritualistic abuse claims in these cases.

Independent of that study, Debbie Nathan, an investigative journalist and co-author of “Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern Witch Hunt,” found something surprising: She examined more than 100 ritual abuse state cases prosecuted from 1982 to 1989. 

By the late 1990s, most of these cases fell apart, and most of the people accused of such crimes had been acquitted at trial or had their convictions overturned on appeal, Nathan said. Asked about the Hosanna Church satanic cult case in Louisiana, Nathan said she is “shocked” that prosecutors are still taking satanic ritual abuse cases seriously.

Louis Lamonica, the 49-year-old former pastor of the Ponchatoula church, was convicted Sept. 5 in 21st Judicial District Court of aggravated rape of his two sons. Some of the abuse took place during alleged satanic rituals at the church, according to testimony.

Lamonica will be sentenced Oct. 21 and faces a mandatory life sentence without parole. 

He is one of two men convicted in the case and one of seven people indicted in the case.

There was no physical evidence presented at trial that the boys had been sexually abused. And there was no physical evidence, such as the existence of pentagrams on the floor or buried remains of sacrificed animals.

The boys, now ages 18 and 22, recanted from the witness stand their earlier allegations of abuse against their father. But Lamonica had confessed — and he recanted his confession on the witness stand as well.

District Attorney Scott Perrilloux said the Hosanna cases have never been about cults, satanic or otherwise.

“This case, from our perspective, had nothing to do with a church or cult or any sort of high pressure situation,” he said. “This case is about child abuse and molestation.”