[Editor's Note: This morning, just before 15th Judicial District Judge Glennon Everett could render a decision on whether state prosecutors had enough evidence to move forward with the criminal case against Busted in Acadiana's Chris Hebert, his lawyer, Steven Spring, filed a motion for continuance. According to attorney Joy Rabalais, who represents Lafayette City Police in a civil suit filed by Hebert, that means the criminal case will now go to trial, which is tentatively set for March 27.]
Chris Hebert, the Busted in Acadiana Facebook page administrator and mastermind behind the BIA website indicted five months ago on charges of stalking and cyberstalking, has filed a lawsuit against his alleged victim.
He’s also suing the Lafayette Police Department, Police Chief Jim Craft and two LPD detectives for the “mental anguish” he claims to have suffered due to wrongful arrest, unlawful seizure of his computers and malicious prosecution.
Ironically, a preliminary hearing set for Thursday, which Hebert has requested for his criminal case, will likely determine whether the outrageous claims outlined in his civil suit have merit. Read the suit here.
Hebert first made headlines in September 2011 when IND Monthly identified him in a cover story as the mastermind of Busted in Acadiana, a controversial Facebook page that pooled mug shots from local law enforcement agencies and profited from public records.
The twisted administrator behind BIA was arrested less than a month later on one count each of stalking and cyberstalking for allegedly threatening a female victim, Erica Roberie, several times over the phone and online.
He faces a maximum of two years in prison and up to $3,000 in fines if convicted.
Hebert maintains his innocence in the lawsuit filed by his attorney, Stephen Spring, and accuses LPD Detective Stephen Bajat and another unidentified officer of conspiring with Roberie to falsely imprison Hebert and ruin his “good name.”
Allyson Prejean, an attorney with the Barry Sallinger Law Firm representing Roberie in her civil defense, said Judge Glennon Everett has granted a preliminary examination of Hebert’s criminal case and will decide Thursday whether the state has enough evidence to proceed with a criminal trial.
“If there’s probable cause on the criminal side, then you don’t really have grounds for a wrongful arrest lawsuit on the civil side,” Prejean says.
According to Prejean, the evidence will show that Hebert’s arrest came after detectives searched multiple electronic devices and hard drives they seized from Hebert’s home — “pursuant to search warrants that were signed by a judge.”
“He is truly a sociopath and he should be behind bars,” Roberie told The IND in an email she sent after the newspaper linked Hebert to BIA. “I know that I live in fear that he will some day really act out his threats. I just hope that he is caught and prosecuted before that happens.”
Prejean also says Hebert’s civil lawsuit and reported “other incidents of harassment” against Roberie since his arrest are in direct violation of the terms Hebert agreed to when he posted bond more than a year ago.
“It’s very clear that he is to have no contact with the victim, including contact through a third party which is what he did in this lawsuit,” Prejean says. “It's deplorable that the victim of stalking and cyberstalking is being sued. She's being revictimized. It's sick.”
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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