Tag: child abuse

Avondale man pleads guilty to possessing, distributing child pornography

A 20-year-old Avondale man was sentenced Tuesday (July 19) to 10 years in prison, after he admitted he possessed and distributed child pornography.

Taylor Bourgeois also will have to register as a sex offender for 25 years, beginning on the day he is released from prison, 24th Judicial District Court Judge Lee Faulkner ordered.

Bourgeois’ illegal activities came to light in February, when he was observed discussing in an online chatroom that he raped a 4-year-old girl. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children passed a tip about Bourgeois’ assertions to the Louisiana Attorney General’s Cyber Crime Unit, which, working with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, opened an investigation that led to Bourgeois’ home, according to the arrest report.

After obtaining a search warrant on March 7, state and Sheriff’s Office agents and members of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force found a computer and two cellular devices in Bourgeois’ bedroom – along with six potted marijuana plants being grown in a cardboard box in his closet and bagged marijuana weighing 5.2 grams.

Bourgeois, who worked at an ice cream parlor in Westwego, confessed to downloading and possessing child pornography, which was stored on a cellular device, and to sharing several hundred images and videos through a file sharing website, according to the report.

Investigators uncovered images that included infants and girls under age 13 being raped by adult men, according to the report.

He pleaded guilty as charged Tuesday to three counts of possessing child pornography involving children under age 13, three counts of distributing child pornography involving children under age 13 and one count of possessing child pornography involving children between the ages of 13 and 17.

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for each of the seven counts. Judge Faulkner ran them concurrently.

Bourgeois told agents that he purchased marijuana seeds about two months prior to his arrest and began growing them in the cardboard box he equipped with a light and fan, according to the arrest report. He also purchased marijuana that was recovered from his bedroom.

He also pleaded guilty Tuesday to two misdemeanor counts of marijuana possession. He received two 15-day sentences for those offenses, run concurrently with the 10-year sentences.

Assistant District Attorney Michael Smith prosecuted the case.

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Convicted Marrero rapist guilty of failing to register as sex offender again

A former Marrero resident faces five years to 20 years in prison, for his conviction on Wednesday (June 22) of a second offense of failing to register as a sex offender.

A Jefferson Parish jury deliberated just over 15 minutes in finding Gerald Dominick guilty as charged. The jury delivered the verdict about 5:40 p.m., Wednesday.

Judge June Darensburg of the 24th Judicial District Court is scheduled to sentence Dominick on July 25.

Dominick, 60, was required by law to register as a sex offender for life because of a conviction of forcible rape in Jefferson Parish in 1984. He had been charged with aggravated rape of a 13-year-old girl in February 1984. Subsequent to a negotiated plea agreement, he admitted to committing a forcible rape that same year and received a 17-year prison sentence.

Then, between 2005 and 2011, he failed to maintain his registration. He pleaded guilty to failure to register in 2011 and received a two-year prison sentence. He returned to Jefferson Parish in January 2013, but he never registered as a sex offender.

The Sheriff’s Office arrested him in 2015, leading to his being charged with the second offense of failing to register and to this week’s trial.

Dominick pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and his attorney argued that because of his history of psychiatric disorders, Dominick did not know right from wrong when he failed to register.

Assistant District Attorneys Josh Vanderhooft and Douglas Rushton prosecuted the case.

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Gretna man sentenced to maximum 40 years for raping teen

A Gretna man who claimed he falsely confessed to sexually abusing a teenaged girl in part because of the “high-grade marijuana” he smoked before meeting with a police detective was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Thursday (June 16).

Omar Duplessis, 31, was convicted as charged of forcible rape, for abusing the girl at least three times beginning when she was 13 and ending the on day before Thanksgiving in 2014, when she was 16.

In addition to receiving the maximum punishment for forcible rape, Duplessis also will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life after his release from prison, 24th Judicial District Judge Henry Sullivan ordered.

Judge Sullivan, who handed down the guilty verdict on May 27 because Duplessis waived a trial by jury, rejected Duplessis’ request for a new trial on Thursday. In handing down the maximum 40-year sentence, Judge Sullivan cited Duplessis’ “deliberate cruelty” in raping on “multiple occasions,” and of using force during the rapes to prevent the victim from resisting.

The victim told her mother about the rapes, but the mother did nothing, according to trial testimony, when the mother said in court that she didn’t believe her daughter’s accusations. The victim then disclosed the abuse to her uncle, who contacted the Gretna Police Department and led to Duplessis’ arrest.

Duplessis, one of nine witnesses who testified during the two-day trial, initially denied the accusation. In a second recorded statement, he told the detective that he was in his bed intoxicated when the girl attempted to have sex with him.

In the third and final recorded statement, he admitted to raping the girl “at least four times, maybe five, maybe, like once every – I don’t know.”

During the trial, however, he said he was at his job as a longshoreman on New Orleans’ riverfront when he learned of the rape accusation. He testified he didn’t immediately go to the Gretna police headquarters, but then “smoked a blunt of high-grade marijuana” before meeting with the detective to help him relax. He asserted that in part led to a false confession.

The girl’s mother, whose name is being withheld to protect the victim’s identity, pleaded guilty on Feb. 25 to failure to report the commission of certain felonies, meaning the rape. She received two years of active probation, because she did not disclose to authorities that Duplessis sexually abused her daughter. She testified for Duplessis during his trial.

Assistant District Attorneys Rhonda Goode-Douglas and Marko Marjanović prosecuted the case.

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Child sexual predator sentenced to 20 years for twice failing to register as sex offender

An admitted child sexual predator was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday (June 10), for his second conviction of failing to register as a sex offender.

Tommy Mouton, 62, a former Bridge City resident, failed to register as a sex offender last year, after he was released from state prison for his first conviction of failing to register as a sex offender.

Judge Donnie Rowan of the 24th Judicial District Court, who has presided over Mouton’s criminal cases and ruled in 2013 that he was likely to re-offend against children, handed down the maximum sentence after denying a defense request for a new trial. Failure to register second offense carries a sentencing range of five to 20 years in prison.

“It is the court’s opinion that if he was released and out on his own, someone else would be assaulted,” Judge Rowan said in explaining his handing down the maximum sentence.

Mouton received a 10-year prison sentence in 1990 in Jefferson Parish for his convictions of sexual battery, aggravated oral sexual battery and indecent behavior with a juvenile. That case involved a girl he molested over a 21-month period beginning in 1986, when the girl was 6 years old.

While serving that sentence, state corrections officers found in his cell his journal, in which he detailed child abuse and had drawings of young girls being sexually tortured. That led to his conviction in Claiborne Parish of possession of child pornography.

He was sent back to prison in 2010, after he was convicted the first time of failing to register as a sex offender. While in prison, he was evaluated by a Sex Offender Assessment Panel, or SOAP, which seeks to determine whether certain inmates pose a danger to society.

In that process, Mouton stipulated he was, in fact, a child sexual predator. Judge Rowan, who presided over the SOAP hearing, found that Mouton was a danger to society during a December 2013 hearing. Mouton was ordered to register as a sex offender and have his whereabouts tracked via GPS for the rest of his life when released from prison.

Before his release from prison on Feb. 12, 2015, Mouton told the state Department of Corrections that he intended to reside in the 200 block of 8th Street in Bridge City, according to trial testimony.

He failed to report to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office within three days of his release, leading deputies to obtain a warrant for his arrest.

Mouton was at large for 15 days following his release from prison, until a fugitive task force that included the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, the New Orleans Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Service, found him in the 1800 block of Gravier Street in downtown New Orleans. He had condoms and a bottle of lubricant in his pockets, authorities have said.

Judge Rowan noted on Friday that Mouton made no attempt to at least alert Jefferson Parish authorities that he had difficulties in trying to register last year. “They literally had to do a manhunt to find you,” the judge said. “That’s my problem with that. You sought no help.”

Following Mouton’s arrest last year, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office persuaded a 24th Judicial District Court magistrate to hold him in jail without bond until his trial for second-offense failure to register. That trial ended May 25, with his conviction by a unanimous Jefferson Parish jury.

His attorney asserted Mouton, a U.S. Army veteran, was moneyless and homeless, and that he was in downtown New Orleans to get treatment at the U.S. Veterans Administration hospital.

Assistant District Attorneys Matt Clauss and Andrew DeCoste prosecuted the case.

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Marrero man sentenced to 10 years for possession of child pornography

A Marrero man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty on Monday (June 6), to one count of possession of pornography depicting juveniles under the age of 13.

Sean A. Byers, 26, who lived in Westwego at the time of his arrest, appeared before Judge Lee Faulkner of the 24th Judicial District Court to enter the plea reached pursuant to negotiations.

Byers must serve the sentence without the benefit of probation, parole or suspended sentence. He also must register as a sex offender for 25 years starting with the day he’s released from prison, Judge Faulkner said.

He was arrested Aug. 6, 2015, after the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents served a search warrant of his residence at the time in the 400 block of Celotex Parkway.

Sheriff’s Office Detective Nick Vega had opened the investigation a month earlier, as part of an ongoing undercover search of people engaged in the distribution and possession of child pornography on the internet. Byers shared with the detective three videos depicting prepubescent girls engaged in sexual activities with adult males, according to the arrest affidavit.

During the search of Byers’ home, police found a flash drive containing those three videos in addition to 16 other images and videos depicting child pornography, according to the arrest affidavit. Byers confessed he downloaded the videos and images.

Byers posted a $10,000 commercial bond two months after his arrest, records show. He surrendered to authorities on Monday to begin his sentence.

Assistant District Attorney Michael Smith prosecuted the case.

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Metairie man sentenced to 30 years in prison for sexual battery of young girl

A former Metairie resident was sentenced on Monday (June 6) to 30 years in prison for the sexual battery of a girl.

Alejandro Bravo, 45, was convicted last month of inappropriately touching the child on at least three occasions, the last of which occurred on March 9, 2013, when she was 7 years old.

The child was visiting her step-grandmother’s home on Severn Avenue, when Bravo touched her as she sat on his lap. The child spoke out, leading her step-grandmother to call her own mother before alerting the victim’s parents, who in turn notified the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, according to testimony during last month’s trial.

The child testified during the trial that Bravo touched her three times, and that she did not understand that his behavior was wrong until police were notified.

“You made my daughter a victim, but my daughter refuses that label,” the girl’s mother said in an impact testimony letter that a prosecutor read aloud in court on Monday.

After the Sheriff’s Office initiated its investigation and obtained an arrest warrant, Bravo vanished. He was arrested two years later in Minnesota and was extradited to Jefferson Parish to face charges, according to testimony. He testified during the trial that the child “obviously” was lying.

Sexual battery involving a juvenile under age 13 carries a sentence of 25 years to 99 years in prison. Judge Lee Faulkner of the 24th Judicial District Court, who denied Bravo’s attorney’s request for a new trial last week, cited Bravo’s being a middle-age man in handing down the sentence without probation, parole or suspended sentence.

Judge Faulkner also ordered that Bravo register as a sex offender for the rest of his life from the day he’s released from prison. The registration must be updated every six months, the judge told Bravo.

Assistant District Attorneys Lindsay Truhe and Michael Smith prosecuted the case.

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Gretna man who claimed false confession convicted of forcibly raping teenage girl

A Gretna man who testified during his trial that the “high-grade marijuana” he smoked moments before meeting with a detective was among the reasons he falsely confessed to raping a teenage girl was convicted on Friday (May 27) of sexually abusing the victim.

Omar Duplessis, 31, faces five years to 40 years in prison for his conviction of forcible rape. He was found guilty of raping the teen beginning when she was 13 and ending the on day before Thanksgiving in 2014, when she was 16. The victim, now 17, testified that Duplessis used force when he raped her numerous times.

Judge Henry Sullivan of the 24th Judicial District Court rendered the verdict, because Duplessis waived a trial by jury. “The court finds the State of Louisiana has carried its burden,” Judge Sullivan said in announcing the verdict immediately following closing arguments. “The court finds Omar Duplessis guilty as charged of forcible rape.”

Duplessis, who had awaited trial while free on a $100,000 bond, was remanded to the parish jail until his sentencing hearing on June 16.

The girl’s mother, whose name is being withheld to protect the victim’s identity, pleaded guilty on Feb. 25 to failure to report the commission of certain felonies, meaning the rape. She received two years of active probation, because she did not disclose to authorities that Duplessis sexually abused her daughter. She and her mother – the victim’s grandmother – testified for the defense.

The victim twice told her mother about the abuse, but the mother did nothing, according to testimony. The victim then disclosed the abuse to her uncle on Dec. 2, 2014, the uncle testified. Police were notified, and Duplessis was arrested the same day.

Duplessis initially denied the charge, telling Gretna Police Department Detective Jerry Broome that the girl falsely accused him of rape out of resentment. However, in subsequent interviews that were videotaped, Duplessis confessed to Broome that he had had sex with the girl.

In his second statement, he told the detective that he was “drunk and stoned,” and watching television in his bed when the girl got into bed with him, disrobed and “kind of” had sex. He said he told the girl to stop and leave. He said it was the only time it happened, and he denied the girl’s accusations that they’d had sex before.

He opened his third recorded statement saying, “I’m hurting, and my life is over,” he told the detective. “This hasn’t been the first time,” he confessed. “At least four times, maybe five, maybe, like once every – I don’t know.”

Duplessis testified on Friday that he was at his job as a longshoreman on New Orleans’ riverfront when he learned of the accusations against him. He said he did not immediately go to police but used marijuana beforehand to help him relax.

“I smoked a blunt of some high-grade marijuana,” he testified under cross-examination. He blamed the marijuana, long work hours during the days preceding the police interview and Broome for what he asserted was a false confession.

The victim disclosed the rapes at the Jefferson Children’s Advocacy Center and to Dr. Jamie Jackson, an expert in child sexual abuse pediatrics at the Audrey Hepburn Children at Risk Evaluation (CARE) Center at Children’s Hospital. “She actually talked about trying to fight, about being pinned down,” Jackson testified.

The victim testified she was 13 when the first rape happened, after school and when she was home alone with Duplessis. The rape happened frequently, she said. “Sometimes it happened at night. Sometimes it happened during the day,” she testified.

Assistant District Attorneys Rhonda Goode-Douglas and Marko Marjanovic prosecuted the case.

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Child sexual predator convicted of failing to register as sex offender

An admitted child sexual predator who molested a prepubescent girl in the 1980s and later wrote journal entries in prison detailing how to kidnap, rape and murder children has been convicted a second time of failing to register as a sex offender.

Tommy Mouton, 62, a former Bridge City resident, faces five years to 20 years in prison. The Jefferson Parish jury that was seated on Tuesday deliberated approximately 15 minutes in the evening before finding Mouton guilty as charged. Judge Donnie Rowan of the 24th Judicial District Court is scheduled to hand down the punishment on June 20.

Mouton failed to alert the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office or any other law enforcement agency of his residency after he was released from prison last year for his first conviction of failing to register as a sex offender.

Mouton finished that five-year sentence on Feb. 12, 2015, and informed the state Department of Corrections that he planned reside in the 200 block of 8th Street in Bridge City. A warrant was issued for his arrest after he failed to register again.

Fifteen days after he was released from prison, police found Mouton in New Orleans, with unused condoms and a bottle of lubricant in his pockets, authorities have said. As a result of his absconding, prosecutors succeeded last year in persuading a 24th Judicial District Court commissioner to order that Mouton be held in jail without bond until his trial.

Mouton pleaded guilty in state court in Jefferson Parish in 1990 to sexual battery, aggravated oral sexual battery and indecent behavior with a juvenile. He admitted he molested a girl over a 21-month period beginning in 1986, when she was six years old.

While serving his 10-year sentence for that crime, corrections officers found in his cell his journal with entries detailing child abuse and drawings of young girls being sexually tortured. Those images led to his conviction in Claiborne Parish to possession of child pornography.

He was released from prison in 2008, but he later failed to register as a sex offender. A Jefferson Parish jury convicted him of that crime in 2010, and Judge Rowan, who presided over that case, too, sentenced him to five years in prison.

Before his release, he was evaluated by a state Sex Offender Assessment Panel, or SOAP, which seeks to determine whether certain inmates pose danger to society.

Mouton shortcut the process by admitting he is a child sexual predator. As such, he was ordered to wear a GPS monitor and register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He was required by law to register as a sex offender within three business days after his release from prison.

He failed to do so, and 15 days after he walked out of prison, members of a U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force found him on a sidewalk near the 1800 block of Gravier Street in New Orleans, according to testimony.

Mouton, a U.S. Army veteran, was in downtown New Orleans because of an appointment with nearby the U.S. Veterans Administration hospital, according to testimony. He asserted that when released from Dixon Correctional Institute in Jackson, La., he rode a bus to New Orleans, where he was homeless and had little money.

Assistant District Attorneys Matt Clauss and Andrew DeCoste prosecuted the case.

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Metairie man faces 25 to 99 years in prison for sexual battery of 7-year-old girl

A former Metairie resident faces 25 years to 99 years in prison, for his conviction Tuesday night (May 17) of fondling a child.

Alejandro Bravo, 45, was convicted as charged of sexual battery of a juvenile under age 13, in connection with at least three instances of touching that happened over a period of time ending in March 2013, when the girl was 7 years old. Bravo was acquainted with the child through her step-grandmother.

The Jefferson Parish jury deliberated about three hours before delivering its verdict at 8 p.m. Judge Lee Faulkner of the 24th Judicial District Court is scheduled to sentence Bravo on May 26.

According to trial testimony, the girl was visiting the step-grandmother at her Severn Avenue home on March 9, 2013, when the last incident occurred. The child, now 10, testified Tuesday that he touched her inappropriately after she sat on Bravo’s lap to watch a video on a computer.

The step-grandmother testified she heard the child tell Bravo to stop touching her and then questioned the child apart from Bravo. The child disclosed that the man had touched her genitals, the woman testified.

The step-grandmother called her own mother before she told the child’s parents, who in turn notified the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. Still, the step-grandmother testified that she did not believe the child.

The child testified she recalled three instances of Bravo touching and hurting her. She learned that Bravo’s behavior was wrong only “when the police came to my house,” she testified.

Sgt. Terri Danna, a Sheriff’s Office juvenile crimes detective who has investigated hundreds of child sex abuse cases, testified she got involved in the investigation on March 11, 2013, two days after the child disclosed Bravo’s touching.

Danna testified the child disclosed the abuse to her, too. The detective obtained an arrest warrant more than two weeks later, after the victim disclosed the abuse to a forensic interviewer at the Jefferson Children’ Advocacy Center.

The child also disclosed the crimes to a child abuse physician at the Audrey Hepburn Children at Risk Evaluation (CARE) Center at Children’s Hospital in New Orleans, according to trial testimony.

By that point, Bravo had vanished, Danna testified. “I had to suspend the investigation pending his apprehension,” she testified.

Bravo remained at large until May 2015, when he was located in Minnesota and extradited to Jefferson Parish, Danna testified. Danna said that during her interview with the suspect, the only statement he volunteered was that his coworkers in Minnesota used cocaine.

Bravo testified Tuesday, telling jurors the child “obviously” was lying.

Assistant District Attorneys Lindsay Truhe and Michael Smith prosecuted the case.

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Judge orders lifetime of monitoring for ‘dangerous child predator’

A Jefferson Parish judge on Friday (May 6) determined that a former Metairie resident with four convictions of possession of child pornography, who authored letters expressing his desire to sexually abuse children, is a dangerous child predator and must submit to lifelong restrictions once he’s released from prison.

Jonathan Ruiz, 34, must wear a GPS monitor on his ankle, register as a sex offender and remain under state supervision for the rest of his life, 24th Judicial District Court Judge Nancy Miller ruled after hearing testimony and reviewing a Sex Offender Assessment Panel packet of information about the man that a prosecutor presented in court.

“The court does find the content of that package extremely disturbing and clearly indicates, in this court’s mind, that Mr. Ruiz will upon release from (the Department of Corrections) in some fashion offend again,” Judge Miller said.

She based the decision on evidence presented by the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office through a Sex Offender Assessment Panel. Called SOAP, the Louisiana Legislature in 2009 created the three-person panels under the state Department of Corrections and Public Safety, to determine whether inmates convicted of certain sex offenses are dangerous child predators or sexually violent predators.

Prosecutors present the panels’ findings, testimony and other evidence to judges to determine whether restrictions should be instituted before the inmates are released from prison and into the population.

Dr. Matthew Gamble, a psychiatrist appointed to evaluate Ruiz as part of the SOAP process, testified he found the letters Ruiz wrote in prison containing graphic sexual descriptions involving young children, to be “extremely worrisome.” He said Ruiz is one of only two out of hundreds of inmates he’s assessed who need the tightest lifetime restrictions.

While he was confined to the Rayburn Correctional Center in Angie from 2006 through last year, Ruiz wrote letters asserting he had sexually abused children, whom he called “toys,” and desired to do so again when released from prison, according to evidence presented in court.

Corrections officers began screening his non-legal letters after finding pictures Ruiz drew of children in sexual poses, some of which he hid in his legal documents, according to testimony.

He tore photographs of children’s faces from magazines and used them with the bodies in his drawings, leading corrections officers to ban him from magazines that contained photos of children, according to testimony. His letters also included detailed drawings of a compound that he intended to build in a remote location where he could abuse children secretly, according to the evidence.

“Sexual impulse control has continued to be a problem, even in the penitentiary setting,” Gamble testified. He said he has “a high degree of concern” that Ruiz would re-offend after he’s released from prison.

Through an attorney, Ruiz denied the accusations. The letters were written as “fiction,” and there was no evidence that Ruiz has ever sexually abused a human being, his attorney said.

In addition to theft-related offenses, Ruiz was convicted of three counts of possession of child pornography in Jefferson Parish and one conviction attempted possession of child pornography in Livingston Parish.

Ruiz’s most recent conviction in Jefferson Parish was 2006, when he received a nine-year prison sentence for three counts of possession of child pornography. At the time, Ruiz lived in the 200 block of Radiance Street in Metairie, where his parole agents and Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies performing a residence check found sexually explicit photographs of children in addition to stolen property, according to the arrest report.

After he was released from prison for those convictions, he moved to New Orleans and failed to register as a sex offender, leading to his April 13 guilty plea in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and when he’s released, he’ll have to comply with the conditions that Judge Miller set on Friday in deciding he is a dangerous child predator.

In addition to a lifetime of GPS monitoring and sex offender registration, Ruiz must regularly report to parole agents and submit to random, unannounced residential inspections. All of his electronic communications and internet use will be monitored as well.

Judge Miller found that the state, which carries the burden of proof in SOAP proceedings, proved “by clear and convincing evidence” that Ruiz is a child sexual predator. She found that child pornography is a sexual offense against children, and that Ruiz has a mental abnormality, which is another element of the SOAP law.

Assistant District Attorney Matt Clauss prosecuted the matter.

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