Hearings held for 3 charged in sex cases

Three men accused of separate sex crimes allegedly committed against victims 5-, 6- and 8-years-old had hearings this week at the 16th Judicial District Court with one scheduled for trial Monday.
A plea-deal offered by Assistant District Attorney Erica Rose on Tuesday to Lynwood Darby Jr., 46, was turned down and jury selection in his trial on the charge of indecent behavior with a juvenile is scheduled Monday morning. Rose said she could not comment on what offer was made.
Patterson police said Darby’s wife told them the victim told her Darby tried to coax the girl into a sex act, but the victim refused, according to an affidavit of probable cause. The wife said on Nov. 11, 2012, she walked into the bathroom and found her husband in a questionable position. After telling her husband to leave she asked the victim what was happening, the affidavit said.
Darby claimed in his written statement that he was helping the little girl button up her pants and was standing up to clean the tub when his wife walked in and saw him with the girl. He said his wife made up the story because they were having problems.
District Judge Edward Leonard Jr. ruled on Dec. 12 that Rose can introduce evidence Darby “has committed other sex acts with a juvenile,” specifically that Darby, when he was 29, was accused of a lewd or lascivious act upon a 14-year-old girl in 1996. Leonard also ruled that Darby’s statement to police can be used at his trial.
If convicted, Darby faces at least two and up to 25 years in prison, with at least two years served without parole, probation or suspension of sentence. Darby has been arrested multiple times in Morgan City, Patterson and Texas for drug-related crimes, burglary, assault and robbery, court records state. He was given a first-time offender’s pardon in 1996 after serving a sentence for attempted first degree robbery, a court record stated.
In an earlier hearing, Randy LeBlanc, 32, who is charged with aggravated incest, had his attempt to lower his $350,000 bail on Monday rescheduled to a Feb. 19 court date.
LeBlanc, arrested Oct. 10 in Houma, made a statement to molesting an 8-year-old girl multiple times, at least twice while living temporarily at Twin City Motel in Morgan City, the affidavit of probable cause said. St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s detectives made the arrest after they were called by Houma police who were told by LeBlanc’s wife that he told her about the Morgan City incidents, the affidavit said.
LeBlanc told detectives he molested the victim prior to being in Morgan City and had promised her a doll if she did not tell anyone, the affidavit prepared by St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Det. Jacob Carpino said.
“LeBlanc explained that he had been fighting the urge to molest young girls for several years,” Carpino wrote. “He told me that he was a disgusting human being and that he deserved to die because he ruined the little girl’s life.”
Carpino said LeBlanc also admitted he molested another girl about 1-and-a-half-years-old a couple years earlier in Venice. His trial date was set for April 14. He remains jailed at the St. Mary Parish Law Enforcement Center in Centerville.
In the third case, Dex Michael Clements, 27, of Berwick, was given an April 14 trial date on the charge of sexual battery. That date was set in a pretrial hearing on Tuesday.
He is accused by a 13-year-old girl of sexual contact seven years ago, the affidavit of probable cause said. The accusation against Clements was made after the victim and her mother encountered the defendant in November and the mother noticed the girl refused to let him hug her after he had hugged her mother, the affidavit said.
Her mother said the incident must have occurred between October 2006 and March 2007 when Clements was “hanging around” the family.
Clements was arrested by the sheriff’s office on April 7 and was released after posting $20,000 bail 10 days later.