BATON ROUGE — State lottery officials say a 50-year-old Donaldsonville man has claimed his $1 million prize from the Jan. 19 Powerball drawing.
Officials say Bryon Davis received $700,000 after federal and state taxes were withheld.
He purchased his ticket at Bellina’s Grocery in Donaldsonville. The store will receive a selling bonus of $10,000, which is one percent of the prize.
Parish considers road-revenue plan
GREENSBURG — The St. Helena Parish Police Jury wants to rededicate two sources of tax revenue to road improvements, which all jurors agreed is an immediate necessity.
On a 4-2 vote, the jury decided this week to seek advice from bond attorneys about possibly rededicating a 5-mill ad valorem tax that supports a now-defunct Parish Health Unit and part of a 1-cent sales tax that funds the parish’s solid waste disposal system.
The proposal came as the jury voted to call an election May 4 to renew the existing health unit tax.
Police Jury President Major Coleman said the voters would ultimately have to decide if they wanted the taxes to be rededicated.
Ex-priest seeks bond reduction, suppression
LAKE CHARLES — A former priest accused of molesting boys asked the court to reduce his bond and suppress his statement to police.
The motions were two of six filed Wednesday by Mark Anthony Broussard.
Broussard is being held at the Calcasieu Correctional Center on $3.42 million bond.
The motion to suppress his statement was on Wednesday’s docket, but both sides met for a pretrial conference at which the dates were set. A hearing on the motions is set for April 10.
Broussard’s trial is set for Sept. 16.
Broussard is charged with aggravated rape, molestation of a juvenile, aggravated oral sexual battery, aggravated sexual battery and sexual battery.
He was originally charged with 224 counts of child sexual abuse.
Man sentenced
to 3 years for killing pedestrian
GRETNA — A 30-year-old Metairie man who ran over a pedestrian while driving drunk two years ago has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Roger Grissom pleaded guilty last year to vehicular homicide in connection with the Feb. 19, 2011, death of 53-year-old Veronica Smith.
Witnesses told the Jefferson Parish deputies that Grissom was driving aggressively when he struck Smith, who also was intoxicated as she was crossing a Metairie Street. She died at the scene.
State District Judge John Molaison sentenced Grissom on Wednesday to the minimum jail time.
Coach accused of indecent behavior
DOYLINE — The track/cross country coach at Doyline High School has been arrested and booked with indecent behavior with a juvenile.
William Andrew Major, 29, was arrested Wednesday by Webster Parish Sheriff’s detectives.
Major is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a female student.
Details about the relationship have not been released.
No bond has been set.
Troopers: Woman killed by deputy
LAPLACE — State police say a 60-year-old woman fatally shot by a St. John the Baptist Parish sheriff’s deputy was pulled over because of a broken headlight.
Troopers say Barbara Lassere was shot after evading a Thursday morning traffic stop.
Trooper Melissa Matey said Lassere refused to get out of the car when she was stopped and instead brandished a gun before fleeing the scene.
She says the deputy then engaged in a slow-speed chase, following Lassere to a nearby home where police say Lassere then again refused to exit the car and instead fired a round at the deputy.
Matey says the deputy returned fire fatality injuring Lassere.
Sheriff Mike Tregre says state police will handle the investigation into the shooting.
Mayor explains overpayment error
ZACHARY — Zachary Mayor David Amrhein said a discrepancy between an old city ordinance and the revised home-rule charter approved in 2010 has caused him to be overpaid by $3,200.
The ordinance specified that he and the police chief would be eligible for a 2 percent raise plus half of the Consumer Price Index inflation percentage each year, but the home-rule charter later capped their annual raises at the CPI percentage.
Amrhein said Wednesday that because the prior administration did not bring the home-rule charter provision to the payroll clerk’s attention, he was overpaid.
The mayor said that because he has already paid income taxes on the overpayment, he will repay the funds through payroll deductions through the end of this year.
Donelon rejects
State Farm deductible plan
BATON ROUGE — Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon has rejected a request by State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. to introduce a regional deductible for homeowner’s coverage.
Donelon said State Farm, Louisiana’ largest insurer, with more than 300,000 homeowner’s policies or 29 percent of the market, is the first company to request a regional deductible plan.
The Insurance Department said a regional deductible request must include a business plan that meets 10 criteria, including a plan to write new business in the parish where the regional deductible would be implemented.
Man sentenced for having porn on cellphone
BATON ROUGE — A 32-year-old Zachary man was sentenced to five years and 10 months in federal prison after he admitted he persuaded a 14-year-old girl to text him nude photographs of her torso in 2010.
Chief U.S. District Judge Brian A. Jackson also ordered Christopher S. Brown to pay a $5,000 fine and serve 10 years of post-prison supervision by federal investigators.
Brown also pleaded guilty to possession of a cellphone with illegal images of two other girls, one believed to be 8 years old two years ago.
Judge denies venue change
ST. FRANCISVILLE — A state district judge has denied a motion to move the theft and conspiracy trial of an Ethel minister out of West Feliciana Parish.
Clay Calhoun, attorney for the Rev. George Veal argued Thursday before District Judge William G. Carmichael that Veal cannot get a fair trial in West Feliciana Parish because of news articles about the case and the October trial of co-defendant John Cobb.
Cobb, a former West Feliciana Parish police juror, Veal and five other people were arrested in 2010 after a state police investigation into the transfer of insurance money from a defunct Clinton nonprofit organization to Cobb’s church in Weyanoke.
State police accused the seven of diverting the bulk of the money to private hands, instead of the church.
4 awarded emeritus titles
THIBODAUX — Nicholls State University has awarded four retirees with “emeritus” titles, honoring them for decades of accomplishments, professional contributions and service to the university.
Those honored include O. Cleveland Hill, Nicholls’ first black student athlete, who had a record-breaking collegiate basketball career and went on to become dean of the College of Education.
Marilyn Kilgen, who taught biology at Nicholls for 41 years, was honored, along with Betty Kleen, a nationally known microbiologist and seafood safety scientist, and Deborah “Raz” Raziano, who served for 32 years as Nicholls’ director of alumni affairs.
Hill, Kilgen and Kleen were named professors emeritus, while Raziano was granted the title of director emeritus of alumni affairs.
Woman pleads guilty to impersonating OSHA official
NEW ORLEANS — A 46-year-old woman has pleaded guilty to federal charges that accuse her of posing as a federal worker to make nearly $216,000 giving fraudulent training classes to fishermen who hoped to get jobs cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010.
Connie M. Knight was living in Belle Chasse when the crimes occurred, but currently lives in Wiggins, Miss.
According to a plea agreement announced Thursday, Knight impersonated a high-ranking Occupational Safety and Health Administration hazardous waste safety instructor and inspector in order to collect money from people who hoped to work on the cleanup effort that followed the spill.
Knight faces up to 22 years in prison and a $600,000 fine for the three felony criminal charges and one misdemeanor criminal charge. No sentencing date was set.
From The Associated Press.
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