Ex-teacher pleads no contest to battery

A former St. Mary Parish alternative school teacher pleaded no contest last week to a battery charge after being accused of instructing a student to hit another student in 2015, according to St. Mary Parish Clerk of Court records.
Randy Louis, 35, of Jeanerette, pleaded no contest Aug. 9 to the charge of simple battery. On the motion of Assistant District Attorney Christ Beaner, District Judge Lewis Pitman ordered the remaining charge of contributing to the delinquency of juveniles dismissed.
Pitman sentenced Louis to one year of supervised probation with special conditions, including attending a court approved anger management program.
On April 17, 2015, the St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office received a complaint of a possible battery involving a juvenile. During the investigation, detectives learned that Louis, a teacher at the St. Mary Parish Alternative Program school in Verdunville, restrained a 9-year-old male student while instructing another student to strike him, a sheriff’s office news release said.
According to Louis’ May 9, 2015, booking sheet, Louis allegedly became angry with a student. Louis was accused of then holding the student tightly by his arm and his neck when he told another student to hit the student. The student, whom Louis allegedly instructed to strike the other student, fractured his hand in the process.
Louis had served as a long-term substitute teacher with the St. Mary Parish School District, and, at the time of his arrest in May 2015, had “been relieved of duties” with the school system, former St. Mary Parish Schools Superintendent Donald Aguillard said.
Samantha Moore, the mother of the child who Louis allegedly instructed to hit the other student, filed a lawsuit in April against Louis and the St. Mary Parish School Board for damages.
On Aug. 3, Judge Vincent Borne approved Moore’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit without prejudice and for each party to bear their own costs, court records stated. Moore stated in her motion that the parties had reached a settlement.