A Metairie man was convicted Friday night (March 4) of sexually abusing a girl over a 4-year period, starting when she was 8 years old.
Simon Shokr, 44, faces a mandatory life sentence in prison for his conviction of aggravated rape, sexual battery and indecent behavior with a juvenile.
The jury deliberated about 1 ½ hours before delivering its verdict at 11:35 p.m., ending the 3-day trial. Judge Stephen Grefer of the 24th Judicial District Court set sentencing for March 23.
The victim, who is now 16, is not being identified. The abuse began in 2008, when she was a student at a Metairie elementary school. Shokr, who was acquainted the child’s family, abused the girl without her mother’s knowledge, telling the child to tell no one.
“She didn’t tell for a very long time,” Assistant District Attorney Rachel Africk, who prosecuted with Assistant District Attorney Lynn Schiffman, told the Jefferson Parish jury in opening statements on Thursday.
An assistant principal at her elementary school described the girl as “one of our go-to students,” saying she was “very respectful” to teachers and was assigned to the safety patrol to help younger students.
“At a point in the fifth grade, there was a drastic change in her behavior and demeanor,” the assistant principal testified. “She went from a go-to student to a student who had to be disciplined. She had never been disciplined before. … It was a life change. It was drastic. It was huge.”
The child would not talk about what led to her behavioral changes, so the assistant principal said she alerted teachers to watch for her to determine whether she was bullied. The assistant principal also said she contacted the child’s mother, asking her to be vigilant in watching her.
The girl remained quiet about the abuse until she reached high school, where she disclosed it to two classmates, prosecutors said. Those students told a teacher, who had a mandatory obligation to report the allegation. That led to the investigation by the state and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Shokr, a businessman and native of Beirut, Lebanon who immigrated to the United States in 1989, denied the accusations. He asserted the girl fabricated the story because of upheaval in her family.
Jacoby Maize was convicted Friday (March 4) of repeatedly brutalizing his wife and of fatally shooting an acquaintance in his Old Jefferson home on the day after Easter Sunday in 2011, then returning to the crime scene the following day to set the house on fire.
Maize, 38, of Kenner, faces a mandatory life sentence in prison for the most serious of his seven charges: The April 25, 2011 second-degree murder of Justin Hendricks Jr., 34, who was shot and bled to death in his home in the 100 block of Maine Street.
The shooting happened after Hendricks anonymously called 911 to report that Maize pistol-whipped his wife in the Maine Street house. Maize shot him once in the hip, the bullet severing a femoral artery before exiting his body.
The jury also found Maize guilty of aggravated arson, for dousing Hendrick’s house with gasoline the day after the killing and igniting it in an attempt to destroy evidence. Expert testimony indicated that Maize’s fire endangered the lives of the residents in a neighboring house.
Maize additionally was convicted of aggravated second-degree battery, witness intimidation and aggravated assault with a firearm, all of which involved his wife.
The jury heard testimony about Maize shooting at her, pistol-whipping her, slicing her left cheek with a knife and ordering her to “kiss the ground” before beating her with a baseball bat. He threatened to kill her family if she told anyone he shot Hendricks.
Maize is “nothing but a low and cowardly abuser of women,” Assistant District Attorney Doug Freese, who prosecuted the case with Assistant District Attorney Lindsay Truhe, told jurors in opening statements.
Additionally, Maize was found guilty of two counts of convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Because of his criminal history, Maize was barred from having guns and yet used one to beat his wife and to shoot Hendricks, prosecutors said. In testimony Friday, Maize indirectly admitted he possessed a Glock pistol “every day” during the period Hendricks was killed, in denying he had the gun used in the homicide.
The jury deliberated just over an hour in finding Maize guilty as charged of all seven counts. He showed no reaction. Judge Henry Sullivan of the 24th Judicial District Court will hand down the punishment March 28.
Maize denied all but the firearm possession charges. He accused his wife of killing Hendricks. He assailed the myriad witnesses who testified against him, including the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives who investigated and arrested him, Rhonda Goff and Sgt. Eddie Klein.
“All of your witnesses are liars, proven liars,” Maize told Freese during the cross-examination. “I’m like, you brought a bunch of liars.”
The jury also heard testimony from a Jefferson Parish man who said Maize shot him for no reason other than that he said hello to his wife on the morning of Easter Sunday 2011. That shooting happened at Tchoupitoulas and Upperline streets in Uptown New Orleans, when Maize, his wife, the man and two others were driving in Maize’s vehicle.
The man was able to get out of Maize’s vehicle and run. He said he was struck by three bullets before a he ran into the path of a truck that struck him, breaking one of his leg bones.
Maize’s wife, who was sleeping in their vehicle when her husband shot the man, testified she endured daily abuse but never called police or left the relationship.
“I wanted to be loved,” she testified. “I thought that was love. I thought I could get no better. I thought I found someone who wanted me and held my hand. So I stayed.”
A Harvey man faces spending the rest of his life in prison for his conviction Tuesday (March 1) of raping a child during a two-year period beginning when she was 11 years old.
Clifton Raye, 48, gave no reaction when learning of the verdict: Guilty as charged of two counts of aggravated rape, two counts of sexual battery and one count of oral sexual battery.
“The court finds the testimony of the victim in this matter to be extremely credible,” 24th Judicial District Court Judge Lee Faulkner said in announcing the verdict just before 5 p.m.
Judge Faulkner, who presided over the daylong trial without a jury, described Raye’s testimony as “incredible.” The judge said he will hand down the mandatory life sentence on March 10.
Raye was accused of performing sexual acts on the child, and having her do the same to him, before the allegations were disclosed in 2013 when she was 13 years old. The victim, now age 16, is not being identified.
The state Department of Child and Family Services received an anonymous report of the abuse, investigated it and contacted the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, prosecutors said. Doctors at Children’s Hospital in New Orleans found no physical evidence of sexual abuse, leaving only testimony.
Raye denied it and said the victim had been “coerced” into wrongly accusing him of rape.
Assistant District Attorneys David Wheeler and Rachel Africk prosecuted the case.
Lauren Trout, a restorative practices school specialist at the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office, discusses the program for the parish’s Children and Youth Planning Board during its meeting on Jan. 26, 2016. (JPDA photo)
West Jefferson High School is in its first year of using a program designed to resolve conflicts among its students, from the incidental classroom clashes to the gang-like rivalries that spill over onto the Harvey campus.
But already, Assistant Principal John Kulakowski says, “restorative practices approach” has had a “tremendous” effect at the institution. Fewer students are being suspended or expelled, because a newly trained facilitator is guiding warring students and their families to confront their disputes in face-to-face settings called “talking circles” or “community circles.”
The goal is to not only keep students in school and out of the juvenile criminal justice system, but to teach them conflict resolution. In the school setting, it also allows teachers and administrators to tend to other pressing issues instead of being mired in disciplinary actions, Kulakowski said.
“It does work, if done properly,” Kulakowski told the Jefferson Parish Children and Youth Planning Board during its Jan. 26 meeting.
Kulakowski spoke of Restorative Justice, a program implemented in school systems nationally during the past decade as an alternative to simply kicking students with disciplinary problems out of school or having them arrested.
Jefferson Parish Juvenile Court judges began looking at Restorative Justice in 2011, incorporating it into the court’s Families in Need of Services program, said Blake Bascle, deputy chief of the District Attorney’s Office pre-trial diversion program.
A the time, Bascle worked for the Juvenile Court, which extended Restorative Justice practices to Roosevelt Middle School in Kenner, he said. The program migrated with Bascle to the District Attorney’s Office, where DA Paul Connick Jr. authorized Restorative Justice be implemented into the Pre-trial Juvenile Diversion program.
“With Mr. Connick’s support and grant funding support from the Baptist Community Ministries Foundation, the rest is history,” Pam Occhipinti, who has overseen Connick’s diversion program since 2012, said of the spread of Restorative Justice from the courts to juvenile diversion to the public school system.
Pre-trial Juvenile Diversion is a voluntary counseling program done in lieu of prosecution for certain youths between the ages of 10 and 17. If they successfully complete the program, prosecutors can refuse or dismiss the criminal charges.
In the Juvenile Diversion program, Restorative Justice is used in cases involving fights, thefts from a person, destroying another person’s property, assaults and batteries or any incident where “both parties are willing to come together to discuss the harm that was done,” said Michaela Bono, who oversees the Restorative Justice program created more than two years ago.
Youths charged with offenses such as narcotics, inter-family incidents and theft of goods from big chain stores aren’t candidates for Restorative Justice, Bono said. Now, it has spread to the schools.
“Because of Mr. Connick’s willingness to be at the forefront of change, the public school system experienced the positive effects of what we were doing,” Occhipinti said. “They partnered with us to help expand a new approach to conflict resolution.”
Using a variety of grants, the District Attorney’s Office and the Jefferson Parish Public School System began a collaboration last year, training teachers on Restorative Justice practices.
“These are processes that build and restore relationships,” said Lauren Trout, a restorative practices school specialist for the District Attorney’s Office and public school system. “It’s not another program. It’s not something you pull off a shelf.”
In schools, Trout said, students are taught math and other subjects. “And if they don’t know how to behave, we punish them,” she said. And that teaches students what not to do. Restorative practices helps students build relationships while retaining individuals’ dignity.
Gathering in what’s called “restorative circles” or “community conferences,” parties involved in the conflict are brought together to repair the harm caused by a particular incident, Trout said.
“Circles are always voluntary, meaning that everyone that comes to the circle is there because they agree to handle the matter through a community conference,” Trout said. “And its goals are for everyone to have a voice in repairing the harm done by the conflict or incident, and restoring the relationship.
“Rather than ask the questions ‘what rule or law was broken, and how do we punish?’ we are asking ‘what happened, who was affected and how, and what does everyone need to feel better?’” Trout said.
Trained and certified facilitators, such as Trout, plan the circles, where everyone involved or affected by an incident has the opportunity to share their experiences, she said. From there, the parties that include the juveniles’ families, agree on what needs to be done to repair the harm. Trout recalls a case she facilitated at a school where a student made online death threats toward the principal.
“After meeting with the student and his family, and then meeting with the principal, I brought the group together and facilitated a circle in which the student expressed many feelings of isolation and loneliness within the school community, which ultimately led to his actions that got him arrested,” Trout said.
“For the principal, who said she would feel the situation was resolved if the student felt less isolated, repairing the harm from the situation meant not further isolating him from the school community, but rather encouraging him to participate in the school community,” Trout said. “With the help of, and monitored by his parents, the student got involved in a student climate leadership and other after-school activities, and everyone in the circle had their needs met.”
In addition to West Jefferson High School, Alfred Bonnabel Magnet Academy High School and Grace King High School have fully implemented the program schoolwide, she said. Livaudais Middle School will implement the program school-wide in the coming academic year, while John Q. Adams Middle School has trained sixth grade teachers and is building out the program during the next three years, she said.
All of the schools were trained and supported through the Center for Restorative Approaches, a New Orleans-based organization that is working with the Jefferson Parish Public School System, Trout said. The U.S. Education Department’s School Climate Transformation Grant program has funded the work – and pays her salary, she added.
Speaking to the Jefferson Children and Youth Planning Board on Jan. 26, Kulakowski endorsed the program and said more schools should adopt it.
“It’s going to drastically reduce the conflict,” Kulakowski said.
Lauren Trout, a restorative practices school specialist at the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office, discusses the program for the parish’s Children and Youth Planning Board during its meeting on Jan. 26, 2016.
A Harvey man with ties to West Jefferson’s Harvey Hustlers street gang was sentenced Monday (Feb. 29) to 15 years in prison.
Keitrel B. Gumms, 25, pleaded guilty on Jan. 13 to racketeering, conspiracy to distribute cocaine, conspiracy to distribute heroin and marijuana, distribution of marijuana and cruelty to juveniles. Although he pleaded guilty as charged last month, his sentencing hearing was delayed until Monday.
Gumms was sentenced to 15 years in prison for each count except for the cruelty to juveniles offense, for which he received a 10-year sentence. Judge Henry Sullivan of the 24th Judicial District Court ran the sentences concurrently, for a total of 15 years.
Gumms was one of 21 people named in a 30-count indictment prosecutors filed in court last year. Of them, 19 pleaded guilty and the remaining two were convicted of the racketeering-related offenses during their trials. Their sentences ranged from five years to 120 years in prison.
The Harvey Hustlers, which traces its roots to the Scotsdale neighborhood in the 1980s, was responsible for trafficking as much as 20 kilograms of cocaine into the West Bank from Texas monthly. The gang also had an enforcement arm called the “Murder Squad,” which used violence to protect its illegal narcotics enterprise.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office collaborated on the cases. The investigation and prosecutions are ongoing in state and federal courts.
Assistant District Attorneys Doug Freese and Seth Shute prosecuted the cases.
Damion Savage, 42, was one of two masked gunmen who robbed four businesses in early 2011. No one was injured. He was charged with six counts of armed robbery, or one count for each of the six employees who were victimized during the spree.
After denying the defense request for a new trial Thursday, Judge Michael Mentz of the 24th Judicial District Court sentenced Savage to 55 years in prison on each of the six counts. The judge granted prosecutors their request to add five years to each sentence under the state’s firearm enhancement law, because Savaged used a pistol in the crimes. Mentz ran the sentences concurrently, for a total of 60 years.
Savage was convicted of robbing a Marrero Subway store on Barataria Boulevard twice, on Jan. 23, 2011 and on March 6, 2011. He robbed a Subway on Jefferson Highway in Old Jefferson on March 13, 2011, and a GameStop outlet on Promenade Boulevard in Marrero on March 24, 2011.
None of the victims was able to identify the gunmen. Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives cracked the case after finding two Newport brand cigarette butts outside the Marrero and Old Jefferson Subways. On both butts, Sheriff’s Office DNA analysts found genetic material belonging Jonathan Isaac, prosecutors said.
The detectives linked Savage to Isaac through cellular phone records that showed the duo had extensive conversations around the time of the robberies, prosecutors said. Further, the detectives determined that the suspects were in the area of the robberies when they happened, by using records from cellular phone transmission towers.
When searching Savage’s Tensas Street apartment, the detectives found caps, a jacket and shoes that were identical to what one of the robbers wore, according to testimony. Savage confessed and was arrested, prosecutors said.
But during his trial, he testified his confession was both coerced and tainted because he was under the influence of heroin at the time. The jury found him guilty as charged on Feb. 19.
Savage is due back in Mentz’s court on May 17, for hearings on his pending charges of possession of heroin, hydrocodone and drug paraphernalia.
Isaac, 54, of Marrero, awaits trial on five counts of armed robbery. He’s accused of being Savage’s cohort in all but one of the Marrero Subway robberies.
Assistant District Attorneys Angel Varnado and Blair Constant prosecuted the case.
A Harvey man who admitted he killed another man outside a Waggaman daiquiri shop five years ago was sentenced Wednesday (Feb. 23), to 35 years in prison.
Raheem Robinson, 23, shot Albert Bullock in the head early on the morning of Jan. 26, 2011, outside the business in the 8700 block of River Road. Bullock, 24, of Gretna, died at the scene.
Robinson pleaded guilty to manslaughter in November 2013. He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and illegal discharge of a firearm, both in connection with Bullock’s death.
Judge Stephen Grefer of the 24th Judicial District Court sentenced Robinson to 35 years for the manslaughter, 35 years for the conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and 20 years for the illegal discharge of a firearm. He ran the sentences concurrently.
Robinson is one of three people to be sent to prison in the Bullock homicide. Harry Smoot, 30, of Avondale, and Terrance J. Antoine, 34, of Harvey, pleaded guilty in 2013 to obstruction of justice in a homicide for removing Bullock’s gun from his body.
Smoot was sentenced to seven years in prison, and Antoine was sentenced to 15 years in prison, records show.
Last year, Robinson was sentenced to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to battery on a corrections officer. Separately, he’s serving a 13-year prison sentence for an armed robbery he committed in November 2011, to which he pleaded guilty in January 2012.
A Chalmette man averted his trial on charges he molested an 8-year-old girl on Tuesday (Feb. 23), pleading guilty as charged to three counts of sexual battery in exchange for a 2-year prison sentence.
Jose Castillo, 46, also must register as a sex offender for 25 years after his release from a state prison and faces a lifetime of supervision.
The victim, now 23, asserted Castillo molested her around 2000, but she delayed reporting the crime almost a decade. Castillo, a Honduras native who lived in Old Jefferson at the time of the crimes, was arrested Dec. 28, 2009 and was released two days later after posting a $100,000 bond, records show.
He has been free from incarceration since then. With his plea, Castillo was taken into custody to begin his prison sentence.
Jury selection was set to begin Tuesday morning when Castillo opted to plead guilty. Judge Adrian Adams of the 24th Judicial District Court accepted the plea and handed down the sentence.
At the time of the offense, the punishment for sexual battery of juveniles was up to 10 years in prison. The Louisiana Legislature since increased the sentence for that crime to 25 years to 99 years in prison.
Assistant District Attorneys Matt Clauss and Rachel Africk prosecuted the case.
A Harvey man was sentenced to 49 ½ years in prison Tuesday (Feb. 23), after pleading guilty as charged to armed robbery and illegal discharge of a firearm.
Dernard Harris, 25, admitted he was the gunman who, at about 8:30 a.m., on July 3, 2014, robbed a construction worker in full view of his coworkers at a job site at Manhattan Boulevard and Elton Court.
The victim and a co-worker then followed Harris, who in turn charged at his pursuers and fired a round at them from a .380-caliber pistol. Harris then ran into a vacant apartment complex in the 1500 block of West Chelsea Road, where he tossed the pistol into a closet before leaping off a second-floor balcony.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies chased Harris to an apartment complex on Old Compton Road, where he forced his way into a unit. He ran through the apartment and then into the back door of a clothing cleaning business on Manhattan Boulevard, where deputies caught him as he was fleeing out of the front door.
Deputies recovered the pistol from the closet, and ballistics experts confirmed it matched the discarded bullet casing recovered at the shooting scene, prosecutors said.
Jury selection was set to begin Tuesday when Harris pleaded guilty to the charges. Judge Stephen Enright of the 24th Judicial District Court sentenced Harris to 49 ½ years in prison for the armed robbery and two years for the illegal discharge of a firearm offense. He ran the sentences concurrently.
Harris then pleaded guilty to being a second offender under Louisiana’s habitual offender law, in light of a 2011 conviction of accessory after the fact to armed robbery. Enright sentenced Harris to 49 ½ years in prison as a double offender.
Assistant District Attorneys Angad Ghai and Sloan Abernathy prosecuted the case.
District Attorney Paul D. Connick Jr., was on hand when two assistants, Doug Freese and Seth Shute, and investigator Kevin Smith received Excellence in Law Enforcement Awards from the Metropolitan Crime Commission for their work in dismantling the Harvey Hustlers street gang. (JPDA photos)
Two Jefferson Parish prosecutors and their investigator who are part of the task force that dismantled the murderous Harvey Hustlers street gang on the West Bank were recognized Tuesday (Feb. 23), by the Metropolitan Crime Commission.
Assistant District Attorneys Doug Freese and Seth Shute and Capt. Kevin Smith were among the local and federal authorities to receive the commission’s 2016 Excellence in Law Enforcement Awards, presented annually to those who “contribute to making our community a better place to live, work and raise our families,” Rafael Goyeneche, the commission’s president and executive director, told a luncheon audience at the downtown New Orleans Sheraton.
A joint federal and local task force was born from the Harvey Hustler’s investigation, creating an unparalleled level of cooperation between federal and Jefferson Parish prosecutors, the FBI and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.
“Over the last twenty years, the level of cooperation between the District Attorney’s Office, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI has been exceptional,” said Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick, the parish’s top prosecutor for two decades.
“In investigating and prosecuting these cases, however, the quality of our cooperative work has gone to a whole new level, with everyone willingly and without reservation contributing enormous manpower and other resources needed to ensure we achieved the results our community deserved,” Connick said.
Between state and federal jurisdictions, the task force’s work led to 66 indictments, and the sentences gang affiliates received ranged from five years to life in prison, said Alan H. Philipson, the Metropolitan Crime Commission’s chairman.
During the five-year period ending in 2015, the active years in Harvey Hustler prosecutions, Jefferson Parish saw a 39-percent reduction in homicides, he said.
Originating in Harvey’s Scotsdale neighborhood, the Harvey Hustlers and its affiliated arms funneled about 20 kilograms of cocaine into West Jefferson from Texas monthly, distributing it and heroin and marijuana on area streets.
It’s “Murder Squad” was charged with protecting the gang’s illegal trade and was responsible for numerous homicides in the area. The gang’s death toll includes an 81-year-old Bridge City woman and a 58-year-old Marrero man, neither of whom were the intended targets.
Federal authorities, led by the FBI, began the investigation in 2009, leading the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Orleans to begin obtaining indictments beginning in 2010. U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite said his office assembled a “dream team of prosecutors” for the Harvey Hustlers case, and his office and Connick’s collaborated in which jurisdiction to prosecute to “give us the biggest bang for our buck.”
Of the cases that were not prosecuted in U.S. District Court for the Eastern Division of Louisiana, where several Harvey Hustlers have received life sentences for homicides, 26 defendants have been prosecuted in six cases filed in Jefferson Parish’s 24th Judicial District Court.
“To all of you, I extend my deepest appreciation for all the work you’ve done,” Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand told award recipients.
From the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, detectives Brad Roniger and Jeremiah Washington also received the Excellence in Law Enforcement Awards.
FBI Special Agents Todd Schliem, Christopher Stokes and ATF Special Agent Karen Evanoski were awarded accolades, as were the FBI’s Gabrella S. Kelly, Karen Reed.
From the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Orleans, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Duane Evans, David Haller, Greg Kennedy and Myles Ranier received the awards. Paralegal supervisor Ashley R. Rohde was recognized. Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Collin Sims, a former federal prosecutor who now oversees felony prosecutions in St. Tammany Parish, also was involved in the Harvey Hustlers cases.
The Metropolitan Crime Commission awarded its 2016 “Excellence in Law Enforcement Awards” to members of the task for that investigated and prosecuted the Harvey Hustlers gang. (JPDA photo)Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick Jr., left, speaks with New Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro, center, and investigator Capt. Kevin Smith during the 2016 Metropolitan Crime Commission awards ceremony on Tuesday, Feb. 23. (JPDA photo)
