A River Ridge man who tried to carjack an undercover Jefferson Parish detective was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Thursday (June 2), after he pleaded guilty to that crime and to possession with intent to distribute cocaine for the crack rocks that deputies found stashed between his buttocks.

Jonas Kelly, 33, also pleaded guilty to being a double offender under Louisiana’s habitual offender law, because of a 2006 burglary conviction. Judge Stephen Grefer of the 24^th Judicial District Court, who accepted the guilty pleas, ran the sentences concurrently for a total of 15 years.

Kelly pleaded guilty to attempted carjacking and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. The latter offense stems from the 11 rocks of crack cocaine deputies found hidden between his buttock cheeks after he was arrested for the carjacking attempt.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office Detective Patrick Evans was dressed in plain clothing and in a black Ford Mustang parked near Wilker Neal and Newton streets in River Ridge, conducting patrol operations in the high-crime area, when Kelly approached him about 10 p.m., according to the arrest affidavit.

Kelly approached the passenger’s side and pulled on the door handle with his left hand while holding his right hand behind his back in implying that he had a weapon, according to the affidavit. Kelly told the detective to “open the door.”

Evans asked the suspect what he wanted, and Kelly responded by saying he wanted the car. Evans then pulled his pistol out, leading Kelly to back away. Kelly then walked into a crowd of people, and Evans called for assistance of other deputies, who arrested the suspect.

During the search on the scene, the deputies found the crack cocaine that later was weighed at 1.9 grams. The deputies also found $61 in cash in denominations consistent with narcotics sales.

Kelly was scheduled to stand trial on the two charges on Thursday. A panel of potential jurors was lined up outside Judge Grefer’s courtroom, waiting to being jury selection when deputies escorted the people away.

Kelly then pleaded guilty. He entered both pleas under North Carolina vs. Alford, named for a 1970 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Kelly refused to admit that he was in fact guilty but that he was pleading guilty because the prosecutors had sufficient evidence to prove the charges at trial.

In comments to the judge, Kelly denied trying to carjack the deputy. But he said the crack cocaine was his.

Prosecutors filed the double bill on the attempted carjacking charge, citing the 2006 burglary conviction for which he was sentenced to eight years in prison.

In that case, he burglarized a Newton Street apartment just three blocks from where he attempted to carjack the detective. He also pleaded guilty in that case to possession with intent to distribute cocaine and two counts of witness intimidation.

At the time of his arrest for the attempted carjacking, he was on probation for his 2012 conviction of possession of alprazolam. On March 21, he stipulated he violated his probation because of the latest case, and the original sentence of four years in prison was imposed. That sentence is run concurrently with the 15-year sentence he received on Thursday.

Assistant District Attorneys Matt Clauss and Thomas Sanderson prosecuted the case.

Westley Simmons told jurors that Jefferson Parish deputies framed him as payback for a 2007 crime in New Orleans, where he shot a rifle at a police officer. “They put crack on me, heroin on me and a gun they got out the back,” he testified of his Nov. 15, 2014 arrest in an apartment in Harvey’s Tallow Tree neighborhood.

The Jefferson Parish jury deliberated about 3 1/2 hours on Wednesday night (May 25), finding Simmons guilty as charged of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, possession of cocaine, possession of heroin, possession of tramadol without a prescription and of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

Simmons, 26, of Avondale, who declined a pretrial offer this week to plead guilty in exchange for a 10-year sentence as a double offender, will be sentenced on June 17 by 24^th Judicial District Court Judge Ray Steib.

He faces 10 years to 20 years for the firearm charge, two to 30 years for possession with intent to distribute cocaine, four to 10 years for each of the cocaine and heroin possession counts and up to five years for the tramadol.

He was barred by law from possessing guns because of his 2007 conviction in New Orleans Criminal District Court of aggravated assault on a peace officer with a firearm. He additionally had convictions of resisting arrest in 2007 and attempted convicted felon in possession of a firearm in 2009.

Wednesday’s conviction stems from his arrest in an apartment in the 1100 Orange Blossom Lane. Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies had gotten an alert through a license plate recognition camera of a stolen Ford Explorer in the area and investigated.

The vehicle was parked in front of the apartment, where a man exited and told deputies that the man who drove the vehicle was inside. The deputies went to the front door, which was not completely closed, and knocked. They smelled marijuana smoke and entered, according to testimony.

They saw Simmons standing in the kitchen. Simmons saw the uniformed deputies and tried to run out of the back door, Deputy Chad Gagnon testified. “Once he saw that, he had the deer-in-the-headlights look,” Gagnon testified.

A locked security bar prevented Simmons from getting out of the back door. Deputy Blake Hollifield testified that Simmons resisted, and the deputy noted a hard object in the suspect’s pants waistband. It was a loaded semiautomatic pistol with a round in the chamber, meaning it was ready to be fired, Hollifield said.

The deputies found in Simmons’ pockets two grams of heroin and 5.5 grams of crack cocaine, wrapped in individual pieces, along with a half-gram of power cocaine and five tramadol pills. The deputies also found a digital scale and a cigar roller in his pockets, along with the key to the stolen vehicle.

A second man, Randy Owens, 32, of Algiers, also was arrested in the apartment. He pleaded guilty on April 27 to possession with intent to distribute marijuana and attempted possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Steib suspended a five-year prison sentence and ordered Owens to serve five years of probation.

Assistant District Attorneys Angad Ghai and Blair Constant prosecuted the case.

A Harvey man arrested last year after deputies found more than 50 grams of heroin hidden in a coffee maker in his girlfriend’s home pleaded guilty on Wednesday (April 27) and accepted a 25-year prison sentence.

As his trial was set to begin, Megile Carter, 36, offered to plead guilty as charged to possession with intent to distribute heroin, possession of marijuana and possession of marijuana and heroin in the presence of children.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office narcotics agents arrested Carter on March 3, 2015, after finding 50.7 grams of heroin while serving a search warrant at his girlfriend’s home in the 6000 block of 6^th Street.

The agents found 37 baggies of heroin, packaged for street-level distribution, and two lumps of the narcotic stuffed in a sock that was hidden in a coffee maker’s filter compartment.

The heroin was within reach of the six young children who lived in the home, the detectives said. The agents also found a bag of marijuana and a marijuana cigarette in a bedroom. Carter admitted the narcotics were his, according to the arrest affidavit.

With a pool of prospective jurors waiting in an adjacent courtroom to begin jury selection, Judge June Darensburg of the 24^th Judicial District Court accepted Carter’s guilty plea and sentenced him to 25 years.

Carter received two six-month sentences for the marijuana and possession of drugs in the presence of children offenses. Judge Darensburg ran the sentences concurrently.

Carter’s convictions include second-degree battery, conspiracy to distribute 200-400 grams of cocaine and first- and second-offense marijuana possession, court records show.

Assistant District Attorneys Josh Vanderhooft and Rachel Africk prosecuted the case.

Moments after a jury was seated for his trial, a Kenner man agreed to plead guilty as charged on Monday (March 21) to eight narcotics and other offenses in exchange for a 22-year prison sentence.

Charles E. Nelson, 37, pleaded guilty to two counts of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, two counts of possession with intent to distribute hydrocodone, possession with intent to distribute alprazolam, possession of heroin, simple criminal damage to property and resisting arrest.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office narcotics agents booked Nelson on Jan. 11, 2013, after receiving information from a confidential informant that he was selling illegal narcotics in the Fat City area, according to the arrest report. The agent observed Nelson making a hand-to-hand drug sale, followed him and pulled him over for a traffic stop in the 3300 block of Cleary Avenue, according to the report.

Using a drug-sniffing dog, the narcotics agents found a sock in the vehicle’s engine compartment containing crack cocaine, powder cocaine, heroin and hydrocodone, and $613 in small bills inside the vehicle, according to the report.

He was released from the parish jail after posting a $90,000 bond and awaiting trial on charges of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and hydrocodone and possession of heroin when he was arrested again on Nov. 19, records show.

Narcotics agents had obtained information that Nelson again was selling crack cocaine and were seeking him when they learned he had a bench warrant for his arrest because he failed to show up in court in the pending case, prosecutors said.

The agents found him in the 4900 block of York Street in Metairie, and when they attempted to arrest him, he accelerated his vehicle and struck a Sheriff’s Office vehicle, according to the arrest report. Deputies said he resisted arrest by refusing to get out of his vehicle and then struggling with the officers as they tried to place handcuffs on him, according to the report.

They arrested him after finding crack cocaine, powder cocaine and alprazolam and hydrocodone pills. Prosecutors charged him with possession with intent to distribute cocaine, hydrocodone and alprazolam, in addition to simple criminal damage and resisting arrest.

The court spent the day Monday selecting a jury that was to hear testimony on all of the charges. Just after the panel was sworn in, Nelson agreed to a negotiated plea offer, which 24^th Judicial District Court Judge Lee Faulkner accepted.

Additionally, Nelson pleaded guilty as a double offender under the state’s career criminal law, because of a 2003 guilty plea to possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Judge Faulkner ran all of Nelson’s sentences concurrently for a total of 22 years.

The judge also ordered Nelson to pay restitution to the Sheriff’s Office in the amount of $3,007, for the damage he caused when he struck the deputy’s vehicle.

Assistant District Attorneys Sloan Abernathy and Linsday Truhe prosecuted the case.

A Harvey man has been convicted of being a crack cocaine dealer, in connection with narcotics with a street value of more than $20,000 that police found in his apartment.

Corey Faciane, 40, was convicted Thursday (March 17) as charged of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He faces two years to 30 years in prison for the drug offense and 10 years to 20 years for the gun charge.

Judge Michael Mentz of the 24^th Judicial District Court is scheduled to sentence Faciane on Tuesday (March 22).

Members of the West Bank Major Crimes Task Force booked Faciane on Feb. 10, 2011, after finding more than 350 grams of crack cocaine and cocaine powder and paraphernalia in his “stash house” apartment at 2201 Manhattan Blvd. The officers also found more than $28,200 in cash in Faciane’s residence.

They additionally found a pistol in the stash house that had been reported stolen in 2010. Faciane was barred from possessing firearms because of his criminal history. At the time of his arrest, he was serving probation for a conviction in New Orleans of illegal narcotics possession.

After his arrest, Faciane confessed to Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office Deputy Stephen Arnold that the drugs were his and that he sold drugs.

Unrelated to Faciane’s case, Arnold was shot five times by a suspect on Jan. 26 in New Orleans, while serving a warrant obtained by a federal narcotics task force. Arnold remains hospitalized in critical condition and is unable to speak and was unable to testify in Faciane’s trial this week.

Calling Arnold “an essential witness” in the case, prosecutors successfully convinced the judge to allow them to use testimony the deputy provided in a pretrial hearing in 2011. Prosecutors read aloud to the jury the testimony Arnold gave during that proceeding, including portions in which the deputy was cross-examined by Faciane’s attorney.

The jury also heard a recording of the confession that Faciane gave to Arnold.

The task force began its investigation after receiving information from the confidential informant that Faciane was selling narcotics between two apartments, at 2201 Manhattan Blvd., and 3300 Wall Blvd. The informant then agreed to purchase ½-ounce of crack from Faciane, using $500 in cash whose denominations were recorded beforehand.

Within 72 hours of the buy, Jefferson Parish deputies and Gretna police officers executed search warrants on both apartments. While counting the $28,215 in cash found in a shoe box in the Wall Boulevard apartment, the officers discovered the five $100 bills they gave the confidential informant to purchase crack from Faciane.

The jury deliberated about one hour, 15 minutes. Faciane, who had been free from jail on a $200,000 bond since the day of his arrest, was remanded to the parish jail to await Tuesday’s sentencing hearing.

Assistant District Attorneys Angel Varnado and Rhonda Goode-Douglas prosecuted the case.