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Thousands of Catholic priests have been identified as pedophiles, and thousands more have not. The John Jay College of Criminal Justice estimates that roughly 3 percent of priests accused of pedophilia is ever convicted and only 2 percent receive a prison sentence.
One of the priests convicted was Robert Lester Melancon. He was arrested in June 1995 for the sexual abuse of an 8-year-old boy while serving as a priest at the Annunziata Church in Houma, Louisiana. The sexual abuse reportedly occurred during a period (at least once a week) between 1984 and 1989.
It was not Melancon’s first incidents of sexual abuse.
He was also accused of molesting an 11-year-old boy in the 1970s while he was a priest at the St. Genevieve Church in Lafayette, Louisiana in the 1970s.
In 1993 a “sexual harassment” complaint was filed against Melancon by a parishioner at that same church. The diocese settled a lawsuit in connection with that complaint for $30,000.
Following his 1995 arrest for the aggravated rape of the 8-year-old boy, an anonymous donor posted a $1 million dollar cash bail for Melancon. Apparently some very powerful people wanted to buy the priest’s silence.
Melancon was indicted in December 1995 for that offense and convicted in July 1996. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. He was transferred to the David Wade Correctional Center and placed in the N5 protection unit where I was housed.
In 1997 I exposed a major scandal that involved a pedophile priest named Gilbert Gauthe, the late U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Henry Politz, and then Louisiana Corrections Secretary Richard Stalder. I provided information to Bill Elder, a Peabody award winning investigative reporter with WWL-TV in New Orleans. Elder did a series of reports that prompted legislative and criminal investigations into the relationship between these three parties.
I also provided Evan Moore with information that supported his front page Houston Chronicle (Nov. 1998) report that detailed the scandalous nature of the relationship involving Politz and Gauthe, and to a lesser extent Stalder.
After Gauthe was released from prison, he and Politz would visit Melancon at the Wade facility.
Because of the Gauthe affair, I was always high on Melancon’s suspicion list and he was high on my dislike list. Those initial feelings never changed for either of us.
The former Catholic priest was given the moniker “The Padre” by the inmates in the N5 unit. He was assigned to the unit in 1996. He was the second Catholic priest to be assigned there. The infamous Gilbert Gauthe, who triggered the pedophilia scandals for the Catholic Church in Louisiana in the early 1980s, was assigned to the unit with the political assistance Henry Politz.
The Padre was also a beneficiary of Politz’s political clout with his N5 assignment.
I learned about Gauthe shortly after my arrival at the Wade facility in 1995. The former priest was the author of the prison’s “special projects” program which was located in the laundry. The program was initially established to make “toys” for deprived children at Christmas, but it became Gauthe’s toy. He had an “art room” located in the laundry that served as his headquarters for the “special projects” program.
Gauthe would get his young homosexual lovers – mostly juveniles convicted as adults and assigned to N5 for protection until they reached age eighteen – assigned to the “special projects” program. That gave him private access to them in the “art room.” Prison security was instructed to stay out of the art room. It was off-limits to them. It was Gauthe’s personal “sex den” where he sexually abused the juveniles with promises that Judge Politz would help them if they cooperated or hurt them if they did not.
Whether Politz ever gave Gauthe the authority to say that, or even gave the priest the impression that he could use the judge’s name in that manner was never established.
What was indisputably established in Evan Moore’s 1998 Chronicle article (an article for which my wife and I provided background information) was that Gauthe received extensive special treatment in prison because of his relationship with Judge Politz.
“Periodically,” Moore wrote, “Gauthe would be visited by Politz and Monsignor Murray Clayton of Shreveport, La. The pair became regular visitors to Gauthe and Robert Melancon, another convicted pedophile priest. Also present during those meetings were Gauthe’s friends, murderer Johnny Smead, who was one of Gauthe’s teenage assistants, and William Tiner, an adult prisoner then serving time for robbery [both of whom were Gauthe lovers].
“According to prison guards, Gauthe was exempt from many of the rules in Wade. Several of those officers requested anonymity, although one retired Lt. Greg Faust, said he conducted a search of Gauthe’s office [the laundry art room].
“’I had written him up at least 20 times for various violations,’ said Faust, ‘mostly putting his hands on other prisoners, fondling them in the halls, and nothing happened. Officers would tell him to keep his hands off the other prisoners and he’d just look at you and tell you to leave him alone. Then, one night, several of us decided to have a look in that office of his.’
“In a desk, said Faust, he found pornographic cartoons drawn by Gauthe and a plastic bag filled with pubic hair.
“’I stapled the bag and the drawings to an infraction report, and turned it in,’ said Faust. ‘Not only did nothing happen to Gauthe, the next day I was told (by a superior officer) to stay out of his personal effects’.”
Like Gauthe, The Padre also had rich, powerful friends who wanted to keep him quiet and happy, like the anonymous benefactor who posted the one-million dollar cash bail (paid with a cashier’s check) for him. One of those other friends was a Terrebone Parish businessman who was also indicted on child molestation charges. The FBI believed Melancon and the businessman operated a “sex club” for boys offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. I never learned who that businessman was.
Like a number of his fellow Acadiana-area priests, Melancon had a history of molesting young boys and maintaining stockpiles of hardcore child pornography. The Church, God’s sanctuary, became a repository for his pedophilia activities and pornography. He betrayed his victims, his flock, his community, and, above all else, his God.
But that didn’t stop powerful people connected to the New Orleans Catholic Diocese from trying to secure Melancon’s early release from prison in 2017.
In a December 2023 article published in The Guardian, Ramon Antonio Vargas said that the freedom effort was led by New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond and Metairie, Louisiana Catholic Deacon Virgil Maxey “VM” Wheeler, who would later be convicted of child molestation charges himself, and that the effort reached into the Louisiana governor’s office.
That freedom effort did not succeed but only because Catholic Church officials in Terrebone Parish where Melancon was convicted vigorously opposed the behind-the-scenes political freedom effort. The following year Melancon died a feeble old man in prison at age 82.
The Padre never changed during his penal incarceration. He was in N5 only a few days before he received a disciplinary report for homosexual behavior. A guard witnessed the priest put his hand in another inmate’s pants and masturbate him. He pled guilty to the report.
Melancon then took up with another homosexual lover upon whom he bestowed the affectionate moniker “Lukie.” Lukie was a former small town cop from the same Acadiana area as Melancon. He was convicted of sexually abusing his own daughter over a period of years. He was finally convicted of raping her in the presence of his wife and then forcing the mother and daughter to have sex with each other. As if this perversion was not enough, he then put a gun to his wife’s head and forced her to give him oral sex while he played with the gun.
Both child molesters quickly became “honor” inmates in N5. Melancon’s connections to Politz certainly aided in that assignment. That privileged status allowed The Padre to regularly receive “special visits” from his clergy friends – one of whom had been twice indicted and ultimately convicted of possessing child pornography. Politz and Gauthe (after his release) also visited the priest, assuring that it would secure special privileges for him at the institution. Special treatment had been given to Gauthe so it was natural for The Padre and Lukie to expect special treatment as well.
Whether or not the late Judge Politz instructed prison officials to provide special treatment for certain inmates is debatable. Prison officials deny it. What is not debatable is that the highest ranking judge in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had a personal interest in pedophiles and their homosexual lovers. He visited them on a personal basis. He either knew or should have known that his personal and professional stature as a federal judge would produce special treatment for any inmates with whom he had a visiting relationship. There was no rational reason for a chief judge of a federal appeals court to visit pedophiles in a state prison facility.
The Padre and Lukie were both horribly obese – Lukie weighed close to 350 pounds and Padre tipped the scales at 280 pounds. Both had large, protruding stomachs that concealed the lower half of their bodies, but it did not hide the offensive odor of un-cleaned body fat. Each time I looked at Melancon’s immense belly, and his wobbly knot-knees, I could imagine the terror and trauma endured by the altar boys he sexually abused.
I truly detested The Padre and Lukie – old cons called them “baby rapers.” That was once the worst social stigma that could be put on an inmate in the prison system – at least before child molestation became so prevalent and sex offenders so common in prison. While prison still maintains rigid class distinctions, child molesters are tolerated more today than two decades ago.
I still put them at the bottom of the prison class system.
That’s one of the reasons why my nine-year stay in the N5 unit was worst than my six-year death row experience. Child molesters, and killers of women, formed the top of the social hierarchy in the N5 unit. They were the social elites, much like the Kennedy’s in Massachusetts. The prison administration bestowed upon them the privileged status as “honor inmates.” I could never adjust to the way the institution’s security staff, from top to bottom, curried favor with these offenders, frequently breaching security protocols to provide them with special favors.
While the Politz/Gauthe affair set the benchmark for this special treatment practice, the prison’s security staff actually developed and cultivated a social identity with these offenders, sharing the same values and beliefs. In fact, one N5 security guard who curried favor with these pedophiles would be convicted for molesting his own children – a deviant sexual preference, I believe, he picked up in the N5 nit.
The Padre was educated, cultured, and infected with an ugly arrogance borne of a life of privilege as a priest. He was a constant whiner, always crying about the rigors of prison life – its food, medical care, living conditions, heat, cold, noise, and a litany of other inconveniences.
Lukie was the polar opposite. He was dumb as dirt, and epitomized what is known in the South as “trailer trash.” Like Padre, he was also a whiner – but his law enforcement background had provided him with a talent to manipulate those in higher authority. His mammoth size actually gave him an advantage in those conniving endeavors, allowing him to worm his way into the “good ole boy” prison security network.
Lukie also used those skills to draw Melancon into their homosexual affair. He quickly realized that The Padre received regular “special visits” from priests, bishops, and other prominent people. He learned that this network of friends and supporters donated thousands of dollars to Melancon’s “defense fund.” The ex-cop moved in to control The Padre’s life, cajoling him with “love” and intimidating him with “threats.”
Prison homosexual relationships are distinctly different than those in a free society. Prison homosexual relationships parallel heterosexual relationships. One is the Alfa male, the “husband” in the relationship; the other is the bitch, the “wife” in the relationship. The husband is the “pitcher” and the wife is the “catcher.”
The Padre was the “bitch” in the relationship, forced to submit to the power, authority, and dominance of Lukie. Melancon, however, was the bread winner, supporting their illicit relationship with funds siphoned off from his “defense fund.” He fed Lukie’s insatiable appetite. It allowed them to live in grand style by prison standards, providing the ex-cop with a maximum $90-a-week canteen allowance. Padre spent the same amount because it took that much money to feed the gluttony of the two lovers.
It was shameful to watch money donated to the priest for one purpose – a mistaken belief in his innocence – being spent to feed a human garbage disposal like Lukie. It did not bother The Padre who prepared nightly meals for his lover followed by neck messages, back rubs, and hugs ‘n kisses.
Melancon and Lukie were products of individual perversion. Prison did not make them what they were, nor did it force them to behave as they did.
` Human beings are possessed with a free will – an inherent power of choice. By no means does this right of choice make all human choices right. Some human choices have always offended both the laws of nature and man. That is precisely why civilized societies must have criminal “laws” to govern human choices, especially those choices that involve pedophilia.
In his book “The Sermon on the Mount,” Emmet Fox wrote about human choices:
“Now we can choose the sort of thoughts that we entertain. It will be a little difficult to break a bad habit of thought, but it can be done. We can choose how we shall think – in point of fact, we always choose – and therefore our lives are just the results of the kind of thoughts we have chosen to hold; and therefore they are of our own ordering; and therefore there is perfect justice in the universe. No suffering for another man’s original sin, but the reaping of a harvest that we ourselves have sown. We have free will, but our free will lies in our choice of thought.”
Criminal human choices put The Padre in prison – and it was those choices that caused him to die in prison.