A Kenner man who was convicted last week of four felonies, including shooting at his lifelong friend on a city street, was sentenced on Monday (May 2) to 22 years in prison.

Otis D. Washington, 26, also was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine in connection with his April 26 convictions of aggravated criminal damage to property, aggravated assault and two counts of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

After a lifelong friend questioned him about a pistol he possessed, Washington began shooting at the victim as he left a store in the 1000 block of 3^rd Street in Kenner on April 28, 2015, according to trial testimony. As the victim drove away, bullets shattered a back door window, punched through a door and struck the back of the front passenger’s seat where a pregnant woman sat.

The following day, the victim saw Washington at Jefferson Highway and Wilker Neal Avenue in River Ridge. Washington pointed the same pistol at the man, leading to the aggravated assault charge. Washington was barred from possessing firearms because of a 2010 simple robbery conviction, and yet did so on back-to-back days, leading to the two gun possession charges.

The victim contacted the Kenner Police Department only after Washington pointed the gun at him. Following the shooting, he said he hoped his mother and Washington’s mother would resolve the matter, he testified.

After denying a defense request for a new trial, Judge Michael Mentz of the 24^th Judicial District Court sentenced Washington to 20 years for each of the two firearm counts, 10 years for the aggravated assault and 15 years for the criminal damage counts. He ran the sentences concurrently, for a total of 20 years.

At the time of his arrest in the case, Washington was serving two years of probation because of his conviction of unauthorized use of property valued at more than $500. He pleaded guilty to that charge less than three months before his arrest in the shooting case.

Kenner police arrested him for the earlier offense in October 2013, after observing him drive through a private parking lot on Williams Boulevard to avoid a traffic signal, while watching a pornographic movie on a DVD player, according to the arrest report.

Police learned that the DVD player and other items in Washington’s car had been stolen in a residential burglary in Kenner earlier that day. Mentz, who presided over that case, too, suspended a two-year prison sentence and gave Washington two years of probation.

But with last week’s conviction, Judge Mentz on Monday revoked the probation and ordered Washington to serve the original two-year prison sentence. That sentence was run consecutively with the new 20-year sentence, for a total of 22 years.

Prosecutors on Monday also filed a multiple bill under Louisiana’s habitual offender law, charging Washington as a third felony offender. Apart from two misdemeanor convictions, Washington’s background includes felony convictions of simple robbery, simple burglary and unauthorized use of movable property.

Sentencing range for the bill is 10 years to 30 years in prison. Judge Mentz is scheduled to consider the bill on May 19.

Assistant District Attorneys Angel Varnado and Douglas Rushton prosecuted the case.

A Kenner man on probation for a 2013 felony was convicted of four more charges on Tuesday (April 26), for shooting at a lifelong friend outside a Kenner store last year, and of pointing the same pistol at the victim a day later.

A Jefferson Parish jury deliberated about an hour in convicting Otis D. Washington, 26, of 400 Warren St., as charged of aggravated assault, aggravated criminal damage to property and two counts of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

The victim, a 36-year-old man, testified that he left a store in the 1000 block of 3^rd Street on April 28, 2015, when he saw Washington with a pistol and asked about it. Washington, whom the victim had known since he was a baby, responded, “I got you slippin’,” according to the Kenner Police Department.

Fearing Washington was going to shoot him, the victim and his pregnant female companion tried to flee in the four-door 1997 Buick Le Sabre the victim purchased days earlier. “The first shot hit the door, and the second shot hit the window,” the victim testified Tuesday. “And he kept on shooting … I don’t know why he did what he did, because I never did him that.”

No one was injured, although one bullet struck the front passenger seat where the woman sat, according to evidence presented to the jury. That shooting is the basis for the aggravated criminal damage charge.

The victim didn’t call police, opting to have his mother speak with Washington’s mother to resolve the dispute. But the following day, he said he was on Jefferson Highway at Wilker Neal Avenue in River Ridge when Washington pointed the same pistol at him from a passing vehicle. That encounter is the basis of the criminal damage charge and led the victim to call police, the victim said.

Washington was arrested days later at his girlfriend’s apartment in Metairie, with help from the U.S. Marshals Service’s Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force. Jurors heard recordings of telephone calls he made the following day from the parish jail, in which he said he paid for the victim’s window and referred to the victim as “a rat.”

He said nothing about an alibi, but during trial his attorney presented an alibi defense in arguing he was at his job as a dishwasher in a Metairie restaurant at the times when the victim said the crimes happened.

Jurors were shown photos of Washington holding a pistol that were posted on his Facebook page under the name Dwayne Carter, which is New Orleans-born rapper Lil’ Wayne’s real name. The victim testified the pistol in the photographs is the same one Washington used in the shooting and assault.

Washington was barred from possessing firearms because of a 2010 felony conviction of simple robbery, for which he received a 3-year sentence. That conviction stemmed from his snatching a woman’s purse in a Williams Boulevard pharmacy in 2008.

He now faces 10 to 20 years in prison for each of the firearm possession counts, up to 10 years for aggravated assault and from one year to 15 years for aggravated criminal damage to property. Judge Michael Mentz of the 24^th Judicial District Court set the sentencing for Monday (May 2).

Less than three months before he was arrested in the shooting, Washington pleaded guilty in Judge Mentz’s court to unauthorized use of property valued at more than $500, for items police found in his possession that had been stolen in a residential burglary in Kenner in 2013.

Judge Mentz suspended a two-year prison sentence and gave Washington two years of probation. Because of Tuesday’s conviction, Mentz on Monday also will consider whether to revoke the probation, meaning Washington’s two-year prison sentence could be reinstated.

Assistant District Attorneys Angel Varnado and Douglas Rushton prosecuted the case.

A Kenner man who pleaded guilty last month to robbing a Kenner business was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Thursday (April 14).

Terrance C. Williams, 27, admitted that he went to the Chevron store at 181 West Airline Drive about 1 a.m., on Jan. 29, 2015, and demanded that the clerk give him cash from the register.

The clerk initially thought he was joking and turned away to stock merchandise, according to the Kenner Police Department. That’s when Williams brandished a small black pistol that was in his right pocket, police said. The clerk complied and handed over about $325 in cash, according to the arrest affidavit.

Williams then fled on a bicycle. About four hours later, Kenner police officers were patrolling the 500 block of Salvador Road when they saw Williams with a bicycle matching the robber’s. The clerk, who told police the robber had tattoos on his face, was driven to Salvador Road, where she identified him as the man who robbed her. Williams has numerous tattoos on his face.

He pleaded guilty on March 9 to charges of armed robbery and obscenity. The latter charge stems from an incident in the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center, where on Feb. 20, 2015 he exposed his genitals.

Yet on Thursday, when he was scheduled to be sentenced, Williams asked to withdraw his guilty plea. “I didn’t understand what I was signing at the time,” Williams told the judge of the plea form.

Judge Stephen Enright of the 24^th Judicial District Court, who accepted the plea last month, told Williams that by withdrawing the plea he potentially faced life in prison as a career offender if he went to trial and was convicted, given his past criminal convictions.

Judge Enright also noted the discussion he had with Williams during the guilty plea on March 9, as well as his signing the plea forms. “In this court’s estimation, Mr. Williams did understand” his guilty plea, Enright said.

Judge Enright declined to allow Williams to withdraw the plea. He the sentenced Williams to 35 years for the armed robbery and three years for the obscenity. The sentences were run concurrently.

Assistant District Attorney Angad Ghai prosecuted the case.