Investigators digging around church property (Ponchatoula sex cult)

[Maddy McCall]

Investigators Digging Around Church Property
9th Member Of Alleged Ponchatoula Cult Arrested

POSTED: 8:42 am CDT May 24, 2005
UPDATED: 12:29 pm CDT May 24, 2005

HAMMOND, La. -- Investigators were using digging equipment and cadaver dogs to search the grounds of the Hosanna Church compound in Ponchatoula Tuesday, according to WDSU NewsChannel 6 reporter Ed Reams. They would not say what they were looking for.

Meanwhile, police have arrested the last person named so far in warrants accusing them of being part of a cult that advocated sex with children and animals, but a dozen or more additional people could be involved.

FBI agents and East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff's deputies arrested Patricia "Trish" Pierson, 54, when she arrived at the Baton Rouge Municipal Airport on a flight from Tulsa, Okla., Monday at 6 p.m.

snip/

The nine arrested are believed to be the central figures in the alleged cult. Other arrests could come later. Covington said detectives are interested in 12 to 15 people allegedly connected to the case.

A tentative press conference is scheduled for Wednesday, when Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards will speak on the new developments in the case. More information will be given Tuesday afternoon if a press conference is scheduled, Covington said.

Slideshow of suspects:

http://www.theneworleanschannel.com/news/4524017/detail.html#


Nicole Bernard, 36, "the whistleblower," called authorities in April from Columbus, Ohio, to say she fled Louisiana in fear for her child. Bernard was arrested May 19. Her ex-husband is also under arrest.


Louis Lamonica, 45, "the pastor," for reasons that aren't yet clear, walked into the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office and confessed to abusing children and animals at Hosanna Church, telling investigators he could give the names of others. He was arrested May 16.


Christopher Labat, 24, "the deputy," is accused of aggravated (child) rape and crime against nature. He was a church member who lived on the compound. He was arrested May 17.


Trish Pierson, 54, was arrested as a fugitive May 23 and transferred to Tangipahoa Parish, where she was booked on charges of sexual battery and principal to aggravated rape.


Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula, where the alleged abuse took place.


More at article: http://www.theneworleanschannel.com/news/4524017/detail.html

Now CNN is reporting on this story:

snip/

The former pastor told deputies he had been having sex with children for many years and "also educated the children as to how to perform sexual acts with each other and with animals," Carpenter said.

Carpenter said the pastor unwittingly implicated himself while talking to investigators. He was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated rape of a child under age 13 and one count of crimes against humanity for alleged sexual acts involving animals, the detective said.

Among those the pastor allegedly implicated were his 45-year-old wife -- also charged with aggravated rape of a juvenile under age 13, Carpenter said.

Law enforcement authorities conducting the investigation include sheriff's deputies from Tangipahoa Parish, Livingston Parish, officers of the Ponchatoula Police Department and the FBI.

On Friday, a police search of two homes resulted in confiscation of three vehicles, computers and other items that authorities said may be connected to the case. The FBI took custody of the vehicles. Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards said some of the crimes are believed to have been committed in the vehicles.

snip/

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/22/louisiana.church/

[Inland]

1. How do these people FIND each other?

Do they just have the usual sunday afternoon potluck and somebody brings up, say, the desire to have sex with children, pass the potatos?

[Maraya1969]

11. First you have to become an extreme right winged Republican

and then join a fundamentalist Christian church. What what I have been reading lately that's where they all are. (Not ALL of them are - but that is were you will find them)

See the post "Stop Republican Pedophilia"

[Catherine Vincent]

2. All in the name of the lord.

Pray for the victims.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. well actually:

Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards said Friday that members of a Ponchatoula church cult accused of sexually abusing children and animals told detectives they carried out the practices for years as part of a devil-worshipping ritual involving cat blood.

"This is hard to talk about and harder to believe, but some of the suspects have told us their intention in all of this was devil worshipping," Edwards said.
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/052105/new_cult001.shtml

[MindPilot]

12. OK, I REALLY don't get it now

They were members of a Christian church practicing devil-worship?

:wtf:

[Minstrel Boy]

14. It makes a pretty good cover

and gives the perps access to children.

The crimes are different, but Bush is another who hides behind one religion while effectively practicing another.

[Megahurtz]

18. You got that right.

n/t

[murielkane]

16. And who but a Christian would believe in Satanism?

Atheists sure wouldn't. Buddhists or Hindus wouldn't. It takes someone who is part of a dualistic religion that believes in the Old Enemy to get the notion that worshipping that Enemy might be the path to power.

[Finder]

17. The Devil is a Christian construct...

so that is not a surprise.

[Demeter]

29. Since the Devil Is a Christian Invention

it stands to reason.

[xultar]

3. Theocracy! You gotta love it. This is Sick and Sad. But they wanna run

the country.

[Maddy McCall]

22. Definitely sick and sad.

I'm interested to see how the sheriff is going to handle the press conference tomorrow.

[Az_lefty]

4. Cadaver dogs?

there's a very good chance this horrible story is going to get a lot worse.

[Sequoia]

6. I sure hope not.

Lock them up forever.

[dhinojosa]

7. (Self-Delete)

[Lars39]

8. .

[LifeDuringWartime]

9. seriously

somebody doesnt understand the gravity of the situation

[dhinojosa]

10. Yeah you are right,,,,Shit, I didn't even put the story together...

Dumb on my part.... I just saw his name and lost it.

I will self-delete.

[Lars39]

13. ~

:thumbsup:

[eleny]

15. Several days ago I sent this story to several left radio hosts

But I haven't heard any of them mention it. Maybe I missed it if they did.

This is a really twisted situation. Hosanna Church - yeah right. Feh!

[0007]

19. I wonder what these folks did on Halloween?

[wakeme2008]

20. Probably protest it as EVIL and Devil Worship....

And bad for kids.... :grr:

[Megahurtz]

21. AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

:crazy::evilgrin::freak::freak::freak::evilgrin::crazy:

[jwirr]

23. Could Child Porn be the answer as to why this was happening?

[frictionlessO]

24. I wonder why they arrested the whistleblower??? n/t

[Maddy McCall]

25. Because she was involved. I think it's a woman scorned situation.

From what I gather, she got pissed at someone in the group, and went to Ohio, and then called Tangi Sheriff's Dept, and ratted on someone in the group, and then told them that the evidence was in her storage building in Ponchatoula. That's where the cops found videos and photographs of the molestation.

[frictionlessO]

30. Thanks Maddy, and the "pastor" indicted himself... not only evil but

stupid these people are...

Its a wonder they weren't figured out long ago...

[Maddy McCall]

33. It's amazing that they did this in the middle of this town

and NOBODY caught on. Ponchatoula is a small, gossipy town. I can't imagine no one knowing about it.

[Judi Lynn]

26. Cult suspect booked; FBI digs at church

Cult suspect booked; FBI digs at church


By DEBRA LEMOINE
[e-mail]
Florida parishes bureau

PONCHATOULA -- Tangipahoa Parish sheriff's deputies worked to bring two alleged cult members to jail in Amite on Tuesday while the Federal Bureau of Investigation dug up the grounds at the Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula looking for more evidence.
The extradition of the two suspects and the excavation are part of a seven-week investigation into the alleged occult practices of the church that includes sex with children and animals. Nine people have been arrested so far.

Deputies were scheduled to fly to Ohio today to bring the woman who first alerted the Sheriff's Office about the abuse at Hosanna to Amite in order to book her into the parish jail on a count of aggravated rape, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards said.

Nicole Bernard of Columbus, Ohio, waived extradition Tuesday in Ohio's Franklin County Common Pleas Court. She was arrested Friday.

Bernard told deputies she moved to Ohio a several months ago out of fear for her safety.
(snip/...)

http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/052505/new_cult001.shtml

[Maddy McCall]

31. I think the press conference is today. I'll add a link if I can find...

the info.

[ninkasi]

27. To me, this just points out how sick these people are

I am a mother, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother. Every fiber of my being has been programmed, through genetics, or upbringing, or whatever, to protect children at all costs. They can be my children, or yours, or the children of strangers. They can be any race, any religion, either sex, it matters not.

I am programmed to protect children with my life if need be. My question is this...if I, who am not a church goer, not one of the faithful, just a woman of no particular importance to the world, am willing do die to protect a child, because thousands of years of imprinting tell me to do so...how can these people be the ones who are supposed to be the moral base of our country?

They call themselves Christian, even though they worship a devil I don't acknowledge; they abuse children, and animals, the weak and the helpless. And these people are Bush's base? The moral majority? The ones who try to cram their agenda down our throats?

Something is very wrong, and very sick, going on in this country. I can only pray, or wish, that in 2006, we can take back as much power as we can, to stop this highway to hell the wing nuts have put us on. Can you imagine the press if this were a group of liberals? I get sicker and sicker every day, with things that this cabal is getting away with.

Granted, one can't connect this church with Bush,but with a man like Bush in charge, it sure makes it easier to abuse in the name of religion, and get away with it. If the religion is fundamentalist Christian.

[EST]

28. The events of the last few years certainly tends to lead one to

dump them all in the same basket, doesn't it?
Many years of study and amateur perusal hasn't shed a lot of light on this for me, either. There seems to be (in day to day language) a bit of machinery in the brain/mind of a fairly large portion of the populace which embellishes the mental processes. When wildly overactive it can produce the symptoms we describe with various labels which are all simply a piece of the description of a symptom. (A little circular but I'm getting to the point.) Afflicted people, while undergoing the throes of an acute attack, will actually experience hearing voices not witnessed by others, seeing private visions ranging from vague forms, objects or color displays on up to full sight/sound/tactile three dimensional extravaganzas.

The mechanism, or the defect generally bestirs a feeling of a mystical or magical experience often replete with both sides of the imaginary conversation. If the apparent anomaly is small, it seems generally benign, often combining with the "mothering instincts" of either sex to produce a kind of uncritical, fond appreciation of the foibles of others, especially children, or adults with obvious child-like qualities.

If the defect is large, it has the capacity for some particularly horrendous manifestations. One common characteristic is the ability to hold two or more competing ideas, at once, which to a control subject appear to be totally at odds with each other, for instance, the abhorrence of violent or passionate behavior including the societal problems of murder and drug misuse, while advocating the use of the same violent behavior and killing in the effort to punish or rehabilitate errant fellows or to solve society's problems.
Another interesting characteristic is apparent confidence in these methods of behavior modification in spite of their repeated failure.

I don't wish to bring down the wrath of my fellow DUers because of my observations, so, if any of this is particularly offensive, feel free to print this post out, burn it, and whip the ashes with a stick.

My notions-
These aberrations give rise to virtually all the serious ills of society.
I think it is the actual father of religious experiences, especially the deep hell fire and damnation excrescences making up the religious right.
The killing of one's children in order to "save" them ( being done in all seriousness and "righteousness" and with "God's" direction and approval) is a particularly chilling example, bad enough when it's a young mother and all the worse when it's the leaders of a large and powerful nation, determined to rehabilitate the neighbors.
I don't wish to cast the religious as insane or worse, since a lot of what appears to be religion, at first glance, actually turns out to be protective coloration, fear, laziness, greed, bet hedging, or hide-my-head hope.

I have accumulated enough material on these subjects for several books and am winnowing the lot for logic.
One example that gives much cause for pondering is the case of a young man from California who had sustained a serious head injury while bicycling.
Upon healing, the young man was subject to grand mal type seizures and fainting, leading to a lot of injury and pain. Another residual effect of the injury was an inordinately strong feeling of the presence of God, being "called" by God, and often "being" God. He was apparently very bright and conversational, although often teased and even beaten up because of his differences and his insistence on sharing them. Even with the repeated bouts of injury due to falling, other accidents, and being beaten up, he wanted no part of any therapy that had a chance of healing him because of the majestic, mysterious experience. He was very clear that he would not risk losing that magical world, even though he would reluctantly admit that he knew it was all mirage. I expect many of us would make the same choice.

[Maddy McCall]

32. Great post.