The Hosanna Church Scandal

0:21 In early two thousand and five, the town of Pontchitula, Louisiana, was traumatized when a local church was exposed conducting Satanic worship crimes against children and animals sacrifices. At the center of the scandal was the church pastor, Louis Lamonica, whose horrific crimes took center stage throughout the nation after confessing to cult like rituals involving as many as twenty four young victims. Welcome to Exposed Scandalous Files of the Elite, the Hosannah Church cult scandal. Hey everyone, and welcome back to Exposed Scandalous Files of the Elite. I am your host, Jim Chapman, And before we get into today's episode, I got some shout outs that I want to make for some global celebrity Patreon members, and we're going to start out with Miss Jessica Tinsley Anderson. And let me tell y'all a little bit about Miss Jessica. Miss Jessica supports every single thing I do,

1:53 everything all of the other podcasts that I host and co host of course with Woody Everton, Real Life for a Crime Daily with Woody Everton, Local Leaders, my podcast that I host about local family owned businesses in Livingston Parish, Louisiana and surrounding area. She supports them all. She is an awesome human being, and I'll tell you what, she played an absolutely key role in the episode I'm going to bring you next week that you are absolutely not gonna believe. All I'm gonna tell you up front is it's going to be an N studio interview regarding something we have already covered on Exposed, and that person will be here giving their first hand account of their experience. It's all gonna tell you upfront, but I will say that Miss Jessica tens Land Orson played a key role in getting me in touch with that person, So shut out Jessica. Also, I want to shout out Miss franccene Fitting, who is a global celebrity on our Patreon page. Again, Miss Francceine supports every single thing I do. Much love Miss Francine. I appreciate you so much.

3:15 You are awesome. So those are our two global celebrities for this week. And look, if you haven't looked into it yet, please look into the Patreon. Just a quick reminder, we have three tiers or first is a local Celebrity Tier. You're gonna get commercial free early releases for just ten dollars a month. That's two dollars and fifty cents an episode, and you'll really be supporting what we do. For just a little bit more than that, fifteen dollars a month, you can be a national celebrity. You get those commercial free early releases, but you also get bonus episodes, and we have one coming to you this week this upcoming week, probably midweek, we'll drop that one on the Patreon and you end up paying about three dollars and twenty five cents an episode for all of that. And our third tier is our Global Celebrity Tier, and you get a ton of stuff with this tier.

4:13 You get not only the commercial free early releases, but you also get the bonus episodes. You get the shoutouts like you just heard, and if you'd like, I'll also give you a personal phone call and personally thank you for becoming a global celebrity. You get a custom welcome package, and you get exclusive videos that you won't get on any other tier. One of those will be that interview we have coming up next week. So for all my global celebrities, I'm gonna shoot you an email because I'm sending out that welcome package and I'm going to need to get some sizes from you, some shirt sizes, so let me give you a clue of what may be heading your way.

5:01 Thank you so much to all of you. If you can't be a Patreon member, totally get it, totally understand. The best way you can support us at that point is just to share the podcast on your social media. Leave us a review. That is huge, that is very important. So leave us a review wherever you listen. And I can't tell you how much that helps. For all the Patreon peeps that we have, we love you so much. Thank you for supporting us. Now let's get into today's episode. Before we dive in, I want to say, and I guess they would call this a trigger warning. This episode will disturb listeners in some cases. If you can't handle that type of content, you may not want to listen to this one. But it happened, it's real life, and I'm going to tell you all about it today. This particular case took place in Ponchatula, Louisiana, and kind of described to you Pontchatoula, Louisiana, It's actually only about a half hour or so from where I'm recording right now.

6:08 It's a very small town, a very tight knit community. There's actually a famous strawberry festival that occurs every year in Ponchaitula, and what was going on there will absolutely shock you. So we'll start out in early two thousand and five, just a few months before Hurricane Katrina hit and just devastated New Orleans and Pontchitula and many other South Louisiana communities, and a woman in Ohio contacted an Ohio Sheriff's office. Her name was Nicole Bernard, and Miss Bernard claimed she fled to Ohio with her child from Pontchitoula, Louisiana after her child told a counselor that they had been abused at a church. Now, for a few weeks, Miss Bernard would keep calling back. She would just spontaneously hang up. She would call, give him a little bit of information and say she had to go and hang up. She would not reveal names or even talk about specific incidents. The detective she was dealing with finally warmed up to her or she warmed up to him enough to reveal some names and one of those names was Louis Lamonica Junior. Now, this apparently got back to Louis Lamonica Junior, who was the reverend at that church, the Hosannah Church

7:42 in Ponshatula, And the very next day after she revealed his name, he walks into the sheriff's office at Livingston Parish, Louisiana, and he had quite a story to tell. So I'm gonna give you a little bit of here history on this guy. Now, his dad was also a pastor. As a matter of fact, he was a beloved pastor in the town of Pontchitula at the Hosanna Church and the church at the time that his dad ran it, and this was the decades leading up to the early nineteen eighties. It was a large church. It actually had a congregation of a one thousand members, which is a lot for a small town like Pontchitula. So his dad passes away, and Louis Lamonica Junior, who was previously pretty disinterested in being a church pastor, he decides to take over that flock. Over time, in what you would call maybe a slow leak, people start leaving the church for neighboring churches and congregations. Well, that left an extremely small church, to say the least. There was only fifteen to twenty adults still who claimed that church as their what they called their spiritual home. And later on people who did leave that church for neighboring congregations, they said that the reason that they left was Lewis Lamonica Junior was very erratic and very strange and they just

9:20 didn't feel comfortable. And churches rely a lot on visitors. They want visitors to join their church, so it didn't help in that respect either, because those people thought he was strange, and indeed he was way more than strange, which we'll get into now. By the end of it, the small church have become well known in the area as a group of really weird people, and community members looked at it as sort of a cult. They had no idea how accurate they really were, so eventually, as that congregation shrunk to fifty twenty members, they decided not to allow any new members into the church. So Leuis Lamonica, as I told you, he walks into the Livingston Parish Sheriff's office the day after Nicole Bernard named him as the abuser of her child when she was speaking with the Ohio Sheriff's Department and he tells his story and Stan Carpenter, who was the detective supervisor at that time in Livingston Parish, he said that Lewis Lamonica didn't come to turn himself in. He just came in to talk with the Sheriff's office in Livingston Parish, and Lamonica matter of factly told him of having sex with at least two boys from the time they were four until they were twelve or thirteen, as well as having

10:56 sex with a dog. Stan Carpenter also said that mister Lamonica did not act as though he was confessing to those crimes. He was just trying to be quote unquote helpful, and of course the Livingston pair of Sheriff's office did not let him just walk away. But during this discussion, this confession, if you will, he also implicated eight other members of that church, and one was a deputy sheriff. He mentioned some cult like rituals involving the rape of as many as twenty four young victims, ranging from infants to teens, and those took place between nineteen ninety nine and two thousand and three. Those he accused of that time ranged from his wife to almost every other member in that church cult, including the children of his own. So police do their own investigating, and during this investigating they find some very disturbing information pentagrams on the church floor. They discovered the accuracy of having sex with dogs and sacrificing of cats. The prosecutor in that case was actually quoted as saying he had been a prosecutor in rape cases and child molestation cases, but had never had a group accused of doing anything like that. So, of course, after all these confessions, La Monica gets arrested and eight other people get arrested from that

12:33 church. They were described as kind of central members of the ring, and all but one are held without bond. Even that tipster from Ohio, Nicole Bernard, was arrested on rape charges along with her ex husband Trey Bernard. Now, during some of these interviews that they had with La Monica, he made some insane claims. He claimed that he had drank cat that's blood impoured it on the bodies of young victims, some of whom were his own children. And when the local police talked to other members of that church if they had arrested, they confirmed that. So of course they do their investigation.

13:18 Eventually this goes to court and Lamonica takes the stand and when it comes time to confess in front of a jury that he had done all these things as he admitted in his confessions and they had the tapes, his whole story changed. He said to the jury that he falsely confessed to the child rape because he thought it would be the only way to get his wife and children back. Obviously that's bullshit. And during that trial, he had been put on trial for four counts of aggravated rape of his sons when they were eleven or younger. He was also the second among eight church members indicted on charges of molesting children to go on trial, so this involved a lot of people in that church. Also, during the trial, church members revealed some wild incidents, including once shaving the head of Lamonica and calling him a pharaoh. Wait, fuck, this is all fucked up. So we're going to go over the facts of this case. I'm reading these straight from the court documents, and the facts discuss la Monica and Lamonica was the father of two sons, mL, who was born in nineteen eighty six and sl who was born in nineteen ninety. At this time it is two thousand and six. At the

14:56 time of the offenses, Lewis Lamonica was the pastor of Hosannah Church and that was in Tangibajoe Parish which is Ponchatoula. The defendant's wife and his sons were all members of the church. In the late nineteen nineties, Lois Mowbray became associate pastor of Hosannah Church and in two thousand and one she became co pastor of the church. Now, by two thousand and three, Lewis Lamonica's involvement in the church, including his involvement as a preacher, declined considerably. Lois, along with her husband, a guy by the name of Jesse Mowbray, and Lewis Lamonica's wife, began handling the finances of that church, and according to Lamonica, Lois began to take over as the person running the church.

15:56 In two thousand and two, Lewis Lamonica and his wife they began having marital problems. In March of two thousand and three, they separate and Lewis Lamonica actually begins living at the church and for the next two years he actually lived there. Now, in two thousand and two, doctor Milton Anderson, who was a psychiatrist. He starts treating Lewis Lamonica's two boys on a regular basis for medication management and just kind of like general supportive therapy. The boys, they're, you know, the mom and dad are separated and they're getting therapy for this. Both of the boys were diagnosed with ADHD anxiety Intourette's syndrome.

16:47 Now, in March of two thousand and five, Lamonica's estranged wife contacts doctor Anderson and told him it was urgent that he sees those two boys. Over the core of the next two sessions, the two boys revealed to doctor Anderson that for years they had been forced to have sex with adults and a very young girl and each other. One of the boys even had a stack of pictures he had drawn that are very graphic illustrating the abuse that he and his brother had suffered. According to both boys, they were threatened by a church member to disclose to doctor Anderson all of the sexual incidents that they were involved and as a result of these sessions, doctor Anderson contacts Child Protective Services CPS.

17:41 Now an FBI special agent by the name of Thomas Tedder, who was working the case when Lewis Lamonica and Trey Bernard, as well as some other church members began living at the church, he discovers that they're no longer church services even being conducted, and the building had really just completely ceased functioning as a church. So in late two thousand and five, doctor Adrian at Zemas, who is a pediatric forensic medical specialist, she sees the two boys for therapy and also performs a full physical examination on each boy, and she testifies at the trial that both boys told her they were forced to perform sexual acts on their own father and others. Both boys said they had oral and anal sex with their own father at home and at the church. So in April of two thousand and five, Jennifer Thomas, a forensic interviewer with Child Advocacy Center, she interviews the boys in Hammond, Louisiana, which is right outside of Ponchatula. It's just a larger city, college town. And at that trial she indicates that one of the boys was eighteen years old when he was interviewed and as such his interview could not be used in court. The videotaped

19:18 interview of the other boy, who was almost fifteen at that time, was played for the jury. In that interview, the boy listed at least a half a dozen adult church members, including his father, who took part in that sexual abuse. Now. According to that boy, the sexual incidents occurred at his house, Trey Bernard's house, and at the church. He also said that he had sex with a dog and a very young girl. And when I say very young, y'all, I mean infant disgusting. The boy also went over his drawings of various sexual acts, including certain people, including himself, Lewis Lamonica, and his brother. And the boy indicated that some of his drawings depicted actual events, while other drawings were products of his imagination and based on what he and his father would talk about. According to that boy, of the fifty five drawings he had, approximately twenty two of them depicted actual events involving sex. In July and August of two thousand and five, that boy had several therapy sessions with a doctor Allison McCain, who was

20:52 a clinical psychologist. Doctor McCain testified at the trial that she found the boy to have a lot of de pray Russian, some anxiety and guilt, and feelings of worthlessness. The boy also told doctor McCain that he tried to cope with his feelings with the distraction and repression. He told doctor McCain that he had been using these coping mechanisms for years to try not to think about the molestation. He also indicated that after his parents separated, the molestation stopped. Now as we told you. In May of two thousand and five, the defendant walks into the Livingston Parish Sheriff's office and he asked to speak to a detective Benita Sagar, and in a taped interview with Sager, he confesses to raping his sons. He also stated that at his home in Springfield, which is in Livingston Parish, very short drive to that church, he performed oral sex on his son one when he was four to five years Oh this sick sob. He also began having sex with both of his sons when they were five or six, he confessed. He also indicated that sexual activity involving several people occurred at Hoseana Church and based on that information Detective Sager he contacts a

22:27 tinge of Behoe Parish Sheriff's Office and a detective, Reginald Bryan, meets with Detective Sager in Livingston Parish and Detective Sager interviews Lamonica for a second time on that same day, and in this second interview, Lamonica provides detailed accounts of various sexual encounters of the church. He actually describes orgies at the church involving his sons and teenage members of the church all having sex with several adult members of the church, including Lamonica. Lamonica stated that most of the time he had sex with his sons at home, but that he had sex with them as a church as well. So police search la Monica's house and they find a notebook and this notebook contains writings by Lemonica. They were handwritten and the page's detailed repeated incidents of orderly and anally raping his sons. Lamonica wrote about having sex with his dog, forcing his sons to have sex with each other, and raping one of his sons from the age of three all the way up to the age of twelve. Lamonica wrote that he used money, toys, threats, and physical abuse to control and rape his sons. Now, in late two thousand and five, a doctor Angela Mayfield, who was owner of New Beginnings Behavioral health Care and Hammond. She begins counseling one of the

24:03 boys, and one of the boys tells doctor Mayfield that his father, mother, and other people at the church sexually molested him. So Lewis Lamonica and his wife were in jail at that time when he was being treated the son, one of the sons by doctor Mayfield, and the other son lived with his grandmother, who was Lewis Lamonica's mother. Doctor Mayfield testified at the trial that within two months of moving in with his grandmother, the boy changed his account of being sexually abused. He told doctor Mayfield that he made up all of the allegations of abuse and that someone at the church had forced him to say that he was abused and molested, and doctor Mayfield testified that in late two thousand and five or early two thousand and six he said he made it all up, but that despite Rackinni that she continued to treat him until two thousand and seven because he still had a lot of other problems. Doctor Mayfield also testified that after the boy recanted, he still had symptoms that were consistent with his history of sexual abuse. Doctor Mayfield felt his symptoms in fact got worse and the boy began using illegal drugs. You may ask, well, he were canton, what's up with that? That is so common? It's unbelievable, y'all. This is this boy's father, and as disgusting as that

25:37 guy is, the son likely was feeling guilty about confessing this information, and so he thought, Hey, if I change my story, my dad will get out of jail. As crazy as all that sounds, it happens all the time, and it's consistent with victims who were sexually abused. Now, both boys testified at trial, and they had both written about the sexual abuse that occurred. As I told you, one of the two boys, he drew pictures of the abuse. Now, they both claimed at trial that the sexual abuse never occurred and that they were forced to make these false allegations.

26:22 They also both claimed that the allegations of sexual abuse that they had written about were not true and their mother told them what to write. One brother said that the other brother also told them what to write, and Lewis Lamonica he testified at the trial that none of the sexual allegations he had confessed to or written about were true. So everybody starts denying all of this at the trial, and it's obvious in Lewis Lamonica's case, why he would deny this Clinically, it's not uncommon for victims of sexual abuse that are related to the person being charged with the sexual abuse well recant statements. Obviously it's bullshit. The evidence was overwhelming that this did occur, so Lewis Lamonica at the trial also testified he was a pastor of the church and he made Lois Mowbray his spiritual adviser. He also said that he believed that Lois was a prophet in that she spoke to God. Lamonica claimed that he made the false confessions because Lois had control over him and forced him to speak him write about things that never actually happened, but may have been thought about. According to Lamonica, the notion of spiritual thought preached by Lois meant that if you think something, then it happened. Lamonica claimed that his a strange wife also made him write about sexual acts that never occurred, and that if he did not write Is instructed

27:55 she would divorce him and he would never see his sons. He also testified that Lois made him remain at the church and work very long hours each day with little sleep and for no money. He also had to do work cleaning the church, and according to Lamonica, he was told the money he earned was being sent to his family. Lamonica claimed that the room in which he was staying inside at the church was locked at night from the outside with padlocks to ensure that he was locked in, and he testified that other members of the church hit him. He also claimed that they shaved his head and made him wear a dress in two snakes while he worked, and these were rubber snakes, and his estranged wife would see him and that when she would see him, it would make him feel very small. He claimed that Lois did not allow him to see his wife and sons, and that if he confessed or wrote about the sexual abuse that never occurred, Lois would allow him to go home to his family. He claimed that Lois told him to go to the police and confess about the church cult involving sexual abuse of children and Satanic rituals. He also claimed that Lois told him that he would have to ask police for a deal and that he would walk out of the police station with a deal. Now a twenty four year old woman named Karen Bushy. She testified at the trial that she was a member of Hazanah Church's youth group for

29:27 several years when she was a teenager. She said that she told the FBI police there was no cult activity in the church and she never saw any children being molested, animal sacrifices or Satanic rituals. She also told them she was never forced to have sex. Karen described it as a church cult only in the sense that Lois basically had control over everything, in control what everyone did, and on cross examination, Karen testified while Lois had control of every thing, Lois never convinced Karen that she had to have sex with La Monica or to write about or draw pictures of sexual abuse of herself or anyone else.

30:11 Desiree Luke, who was twenty three at the time, testified she was a member of the Hosannah Church youth group for several years when she was a teenager and said that she was never forced to have sex with anyone at the church. She also told him there were no Satanic rituals or colts involving sexual abuse of children at the church. She said that no one at the church ever asked her to write about having sexual people or draw pictures of sexual activity, but the evident, y'all was absolutely overwhelming to the contrary. And let me tell you more about Trey Bernard. So, Trey Bernard and Lewis Lamonica, they were the leaders of that church when a lot of these instances took place, and Trey Bernard was the youth pastor now at the time of the offenses.

31:10 Lewis Lamonica, as you know, he was the head pastor of a church. So Trey Bernard also had children, and in March of two thousand and three, when one of his children was just three and a half years old, Trey Bernard separated from his wife and he begins living with La Monica at that church. Now, when his child was five years old, she disclosed to her mother that La Monica and Bernard and Lamonica's two sons were quote unquote hurting her. And after talking to Lamonica about the allegations, the estranged wife of Bernard believed that Lamonica and Bernard had been raping and molested not only Lamonica's kid kids, two boys, but her little girl. And this was confirmed by doctor Adrian Asmus when on the stand, Doctor Adrian testified that both boys, both of La Monica's boys, confirmed that all of them were having sex with Bernard's little girl. Now, in May of two thousand and five, Tingebahoe pair of Sheriff's office detective Mike the Phillips. He interviews Bernard three times, and Bernard claims he had placed his penis in his daughter's mouth and

32:45 placed his mouth on her vagina. And on June tenth of two thousand and five, FBI special agent Joseph Edwards interviews Bernard, and according to Edwards, Bernard claimed he had mated his daughter from the time she was a year old until she was three or four years old. He claimed he had put his penis in her mouth and put his fingers into her vagina, and had also performed oral sex on her. And y'all, I'm quoting the actual court documents. Now, Bernard also lists nine teenagers, including le Monica's boys, that he had molested. Now, of course, in this trial, Bernard racants everything just like everybody else. But there's no racanning all of it in all its disgustingness. So, y'all, this episode is not as detailed as what I would typically give you. It's just disgusting. So I just gave you an review of it and I'm going to give you the verdicts in that case, and I'm just gonna wrap this one up because it's so disgusting and sick.

34:09 I don't even want to talk about it anymore, to be honest. Trey Bernard, who was the youth pastor of that church, he was actually convicted of three counts of aggravated rape for his role in that church sex abuse scandal, and he will spend the rest of his life in prison. A jury convicted Bernard of three counts of aggravated rape for his role. And that's a beautiful thing. What a sick piece of shit. And the other sick piece of shit Lewis Lamonica, who was the former pastor of that church.

34:51 He was also convicted of four counts of aggravated rape, including the abuse of his two sons, and he was given for life sentences. And that is the story of the Hosanna Church cult scandal. That one was heavy. I want to thank everyone for listening sharing. Please continue to do so. Please hit that subscribe button. It'll automatically alert you when we download new episodes.

35:44 And until next time, I'm Jim Chapman, your host of Exposed Scandalous files of the elite, much love,