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Posted on 07/15/2008 4:09:48 PM PDT by Coleus

AMITE — Former Hosanna pastor Louis D. Lamonica will not face charges that he sexually abused a 2-year-old girl at his upcoming aggravated rape trial, Assistant District Attorney Don Wall said in court Monday. That case will be severed from the rape charges involving Lamonica’s two sons, ages 11 and younger at the time of the alleged abuse, on which Lamonica will be tried next month in 21st Judicial District Court.

Lamonica, 49, of Holden, is among the seven members of the former Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula indicted in 2005 in the abuse of the three children. His trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 18. Wall told the court he plans to sever the two counts of aggravated rape relating to the abuse of the girl from the four counts related to the abuse of the two boys.

While Lamonica, at the August trial, won’t face charges in the rapes of the girl, he could be tried on those charges at a later date. Wall offered no explanation during the hearing for splitting the charges and declined to comment afterward, citing a gag order issued in this case by state District Judge Zoey Waguespack in August 2007. Wall also said in court he plans to file a motion of his intention to introduce evidence at trial that Lamonica abused other children besides the two boys.

If Waguespack grants that motion, then evidence related to the girl’s alleged abuse could be presented at trial. Waguespack also ruled that the defense attorney, Michael Thiel, could allow an expert to review the taped interviews of the victims conducted by the Child Advocacy Center in Livingston. Assistant District Attorney LeAnne Malnar argued that the expert could not view the tapes based on a law passed by the Legislature this past session that restricts who gets copies of the tapes and who can view them.

Thiel and Wall also presented their arguments on a change-of-venue motion, and Thiel submitted as evidence records of publications and broadcasts from Baton Rouge and New Orleans media. Thiel said the publicity about the arrests of his client and the six other Hosanna defendants and the media coverage of the trial of Hosanna defendant Austin “Trey” Bernard III could prejudice a jury and prevent Lamonica from receiving a fair trial.

“Given the extensive nature of the coverage and what has been said, I submit there is an extreme danger that the jurors will not be able to respond with the veracity and candor as expected during the voir dire process,” Thiel said, referring to the process of questioning potential jurors. Wall countered that there have been other cases in the state, such as the trials of serial killer Derrick Todd Lee in Port Allen and Baton Rouge , where juries were seated despite even more-intense coverage than the Hosanna defendants have received.

“In the Trey Bernard case, we found very few people who had heard of this case,” Wall said. “What we think people are really watching closely, we find out this stuff isn’t examined as closely as we think it is.” Waguespack did not rule on the change-of-venue motion Monday, but ordered WWL-TV reporter Doug Mouton, who was covering the hearing, to sign the service on a subpoena ordering him to a hearing next week to testify about an interview he did in February with Nicole Bernard, the mother of the 2-year-old girl and ex-wife of Trey Bernard.

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