NEW IBERIA — The Iberia Parish Coroner’s Office has identified the victim of a Tuesday night stabbing as Lolita Bailey, whose 13-year-old stepson is being held on a count of second-degree murder.
Coroner Dr. Carl Ditch said in a news release that Bailey died of multiple stab wounds.
Bailey’s stepson was transported to St. James Juvenile Detention Center on Tuesday.
Sheriff’s Capt. Ryan Turner said a friend walked in while the attack was occurring.
Iberia officials have not released the name of the suspect because of his age.
Mom rejects plea deal in child’s death
LAFAYETTE — Lafayette prosecutors say they offered a plea deal to the mother charged in the death of her 9-year-old son in exchange for her testimony against her boyfriend.
Assistant District Attorney James Prather told District Judge Marilyn C. Castle that the district attorney’s office at one point had agreed to allow Stefani Morgan to plead to something other than first-degree murder.
Prather said Morgan didn’t accept the offer.
Details of the plea became public at a pretrial hearing in the case Thursday against 33-year-old Ronjoerox Hamilton, the boyfriend who is accused in the death of Dylan Royer.
Royer was unresponsive when Hamilton took him to Women and Children’s Hospital on June 11, 2011. He died the next day from what appeared to have been a severe beating.
Man found guilty of vehicular homicide
BATON ROUGE — A six-person East Baton Rouge Parish jury deliberated less than 45 minutes before finding a Denham Springs man guilty of vehicular homicide in a speed- and alcohol-related crash in Central that killed a Greenwell Springs teenager in 2011.
James Watts III, 32, who was taken into custody immediately after the verdict was read on Thursday, faces a prison term of five to 30 years in the death of 16-year-old Phillip Abington on Sept. 9, 2011.
State District Judge Richard Anderson scheduled a May 31 sentencing date.
Citizens to borrow $100 million
BATON ROUGE — Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp.’s board has voted to borrow $100 million through bonds to cover a $70 million shortfall — in direct defiance of the Jindal administration’s wishes.
In an email after Thursday’s vote, Division of Administration spokesman Michael DiResto criticized the proposed bond issue, describing it as bad for all property owners and taxpayers.
Citizens issued $978 million in bonds in 2006 to cover its Hurricane Katrina and Rita claims. Citizens billed property insurance companies doing business in the state for the payments on those bonds.
Citizens Chief Financial Officer Steve Cottrell said Citizens can arrange its payment schedule so that the current assessment, 3.74 percent of property insurance premiums, does not increase for policyholders.
Lafayette may give amnesty for tickets
LAFAYETTE — The Lafayette City-Parish Council is considering giving drivers until April 30 to pay the nearly 29,000 past-due city parking tickets and traffic camera citations before the start of a tougher collection policy.
The council last year approved a new collection policy that calls for the City-Parish Attorney’s Office to file lawsuits to recover traffic camera citations.
City-Parish Attorney Mike Hebert told council members the hope is the amnesty program would be an incentive for drivers to pay delinquent fines before city-parish government spends the money to take them to court.
Preacher pleads in money-swap scheme
ST. FRANCISVILLE — An East Feliciana Parish minister has pleaded “no contest” to felony theft in connection with a scheme to illegally transfer funds from a nonprofit organization to private hands.
Until the Rev. George Veal, of Ethel, entered the plea on Thursday, he had been scheduled for trial next week.
State police arrested seven people in 2010, including Veal, former East Feliciana School Board member Oliver Wingfield and former West Feliciana Parish Police Juror John Cobb, after investigating the finances of Cobb’s church, Union Bethel Family Church, in Weyanoke.
State police investigators accused Veal and Wingfield of giving $80,000 in insurance money to Cobb’s church in return for Cobb kicking back $25,000 to each to them through other parties.
24-year kidporn sentence upheld
NEW ORLEANS — A federal court has upheld a 34-year-old Sulphur man’s sentence for a scheme using Facebook to get online sex chat and sexually explicit photographs or videos from teenage boys.
Jamy Church contended that 24 years and five months was unreasonable. He pleaded guilty in April 2012 to four counts each of producing child pornography and of using interstate commerce to try to make a minor engage in criminal sexual acts.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the sentence was within properly calculated federal guidelines and therefore was reasonable.
Prosecutors said more than 50 boys were victimized in 2009 and 2010 after answering contacts from Facebook pages that Church created using names and images of high school girls.
He was arrested in January 2011.
Steel Co. advertising for 3 managers
SHREVEPORT — A German steel company is advertising for three managers for its planned $900 million expansion in Shreveport, and has a new website for job applications and information.
Benteler Steel/Tube Manufacturing Corp. will begin construction of its tube mill this year at the Port of Caddo-Bossier and broader hiring will start in 2014, Louisiana Economic Development said in a news release Thursday.
Benteler Steel/Tube GmbH said in October that it eventually will provide 675 full-time jobs.
It’s looking for quality, hot rolling mill and finishing managers. Each must have an engineering degree and at least five years of similar management.
People can register at www.BentelerJobsInLouisiana.com to get emails as other jobs open.
The Shreveport mill, on a 330-acre site at the port, will make products for oil and natural gas exploration and transport, with secondary markets in power generation and plant mechanical applications.
Benteler expects to open its first Shreveport mill in the second half of 2015 and a steel production mill by the end of 2019.
As hiring increases in 2014 and 2015, the state, Bossier Parish Community College and regional partners including the Greater Bossier Economic Development Foundation, the City of Bossier City, and the Bossier Parish Police Jury plan a $22 million training center focused on manufacturing technology at the college, the department said.
That center will provide training for ongoing hiring at Benteler and other regional manufacturers.
Benteler Steel/Tube is headquartered in Paderborn, Germany. It’s is a business unit of Benteler Group based in Salzburg. Austria.
From The Associated Press.
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