Hosanna Church Ponchatoula, Louisiana Satanic Ritual Case

Agents graphically describe abuse
By Don Ellzey 11/30/07

In an interview with Bernard at the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office Substation on June 10, 2005....She said Bernard described the rituals at the church, although the rituals were not the point of the FBI investigation. Freitas said he volunteered the information. According to Bernard, the rituals took place in what was called “the room,” which was the church’s youth room. He described how six adults would line up shoulder to shoulder and perform sex acts on his daughter or other children, who were passed down the line. The rule was that there would be no penetration or injury.

The rituals had a Satanic theme, including a Pentagram, the use of animals and animal parts such as chicken feet and the use of animal blood. Freitas said that according to Bernard, Patricia Pierson and Robin Lamonica, two defendants in the case, put animal blood on his daughter during one of the rites. She said Bernard claimed Pierson and Lamonica also sexually abused his daughter. He said animal blood was also put on other children, Freitas said....Using a special chemical, a search team found signs of body fluids all over the carpet, she said. Pieces of the carpet with fluid spots were cut out for evidence. http://www.hammondstar.com/articles/2007/12/03/top_stories/9453.txt  


Satanist paedophile ring ‘ritually raped up to 25 children’
By Tom Leonard in Ponchatoula 6/3/05

“In a case that has horrified Americans way beyond the Bible Belt, Louis Lamonica Jnr and eight members the Hosanna Church are accused of being members of a Satanic paedophile ring who ritually raped up to 25 children, as well as performing animal sacrifices.

Police say some of those charged - who include Lamonica's wife and a deputy sheriff - have already admitted devil worship inside the now defunct church on the outskirts of Ponchatoula, the parish's main town.

The discovery of badly rubbed-out pentagrams on the floor and eight boxes of hooded black costumes - allegedly used both in the abuse and in "morality tales" performed to prepare the young victims - bear out some of the claims.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1491327/Satanist-paedophile-ring-ritually-raped-up-to-25-children.html  


The Devil’s Handiwork? A church laid waste by its pastor’s bizarre behavior.
By Sarah Childress – Newsweek June 6 issue

Louis Lamonica walked into the sheriff’s department in tiny Livingston, La., a few weeks ago and asked to speak with a detective. According to police, for almost the next two hours the middle-aged preacher, dressed casually in a green polo shirt and green slacks, proceeded to tell a story so sickening they could scarcely believe what they were hearing. He explained that he was the former pastor of Hosanna Church, a now defunct house of worship in nearby Ponchatoula.

Matter-of-factly and without remorse, Lamonica said that he and other church members had molested children, and taught them to have sex with each other, as well as with a dog. He told the detectives that he drank cat blood, and poured it on the bodies of his young victims, according to Ponchatoula Police Chief David Vitter....

After Lamonica’s confession, authorities arrested eight other members of the Hosanna Church congregation, including Lamonica’s wife, Robbin, and a Tangipahoa Parish sheriff’s deputy. Police say that church members abused as many as two dozen children, one only a year old, beginning in 1999, in rituals that they say may be tied to devil worship. http://www.religionnewsblog.com/11315/the-devils-handiwork  

[Hosanna Church] Witnesses speak of cult-like activities at Hosanna
The Daily Star, USA 5/25/05 Aimee Yee www.hammondstar.com

People dressed in black clothing stood inside pentagrams and performed blood rituals at the Hosanna Church, according to information coming from an investigation by the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office. The nine suspects now in custody are believed to have been involved in the ritualistic practice of molesting and raping children from 1999 to 2003, when the church disbanded. Since the story broke on May 17, details of the abuse believed to have taken place at the church has become more explicit and graphic.

“The sheriff said there were cult-like activities involved,” Covington said. “Some witnesses said the blood rituals took place inside pentagrams there at the church.”

The pentagrams have been cleaned away, likely by the suspects involved, Covington said, who used solvents and are now reporting to police exactly where the five-pointed stars, usually made with alternate points connected by a continuous line and used as a magic symbol, were located.

Victims have said the suspects wore black clothing while the rituals took place.... http://www.religionnewsblog.com/11276/Witnesses-speak-of-cult-like-activities-at-Hosanna 

7 Members of Louisiana Church Charged With Abuse of Children By Ariel Hart 5/20/05 The pastor of a Louisiana church and six of its members, including the pastor’s wife and a sheriff’s deputy, have been arrested in what the police described as a cult-like sex ring that abused children and animals. All seven are being held on charges of aggravated rape, including rape of a child younger than 13, which can be prosecuted as a capital crime in the state, the authorities said. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/national/20louisiana.html

Boy Scouts and Catholic Church were inclined to silence on abuse

Boy Scouts and Catholic Church were inclined to silence on abuse: James Gill
By James Gill, NOLA.com  The Times-Picayune
October 24, 2012

After Catholic priest Gilbert Gauthe was found to be a child molester in 1974, then-Lafayette Bishop Gerard Frey decided a change was in order. So the next year, Gauthe was assigned extra duties. He became chaplain of the diocesan Boy Scouts. Any pedophile would have whooped, and Gauthe took full advantage....


Louisiana always figured prominently in the scandals that engulfed both institutions nationwide. Gauthe was the first to be unmasked in the endless succession of predatory priests who enjoyed years of episcopal protection. After Gauthe pleaded guilty in 1985, and was sentenced to 20 years in the state pen, Rev. Kenneth Doyle, spokesman for the U.S. Catholic Conference in Washington, said: "We don't want to give the impression that it's a rampant problem for the church, because it's not."

Then, New Orleans journalist Jason Berry, who covered the case, wrote a book predicting years of turmoil and multimillion-dollar court judgments against the church....

In 1976, four adult Scout leaders were arrested in New Orleans for running a troop where underprivileged boys were recruited for sexual exploitation. It was the movement's first high-profile sex scandal in America. "Louisiana always figured prominently in the scandals that engulfed both institutions nationwide."

The Scout leaders -- Raymond Woodall, Richard Stanley Halvorsen, Harry Cramer and Lewis Sialle -- were all sentenced to prison in 1977. At the same time parents of Gauthe's victims found out what he was up to, and filed complaints with diocesan officials. Frey, in what we were soon to discover was the standard response of the church throughout the country, merely moved Gauthe to another parish, where he continued his unholy ministry until he was suspended in 1983 after aggrieved parents filed a lawsuit....

He (Gauthe) had no known connection, however, with New Orleans Troop 137, which hit the national headlines while he was preying on the youth of Lafayette. What was known at the time as the "Boy Scout sex case," netted 17 arrests, and Troop 137 was identified at the trial of its leaders as "the nucleus of a nationwide sex and pornography ring, with boys recruited into the troop sent to other states for the pleasure of men there." Troop leaders would recruit underprivileged boys and ply them with gifts so they could be prepared for sleepovers and naked pool parties.

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/10/scouts_and_church_were_incline.html