Former teacher accused of group sex with student wants house arrest terms eased

Critics: La. teacher evaluations need changes
BATON ROUGE (AP) — The state should consider trimming the requirement that links 50 percent of annual teacher evaluations to student test scores. That’s according to a panel studying the issue.
Under a 2012 state law pushed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, half of the job review for some teachers is based on the growth of student achievement through exam results and half on traditional classroom observations by principals.
Critics contend that relying on test score results for half of a job review is too high and out of step with most other states.
Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, said on Monday job evaluations should vary rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all state system.
Teachers are graded on a four-point scale that ranges from highly effective to ineffective

Former teacher accused of group sex with student wants house arrest terms eased
HAHNVILLE (AP) — One of the former Destrehan High School teachers accused of having sex with a 16-year-old student is asking a judge to ease the terms of her house arrest.
Shelley Dufresne was originally released on a $200,000 bond on the condition she remain in her home except for limited circumstances.
Her lawyer wants a curfew running from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. so Dufresne could take her children to school, attend appointments and go to exercise classes.
The New motion will be heard on Nov. 25.
Dufresne was arrested Sept. 30 and booked on one count of carnal knowledge of a juvenile for an alleged sexual encounter at her Montz home.
A day later, she was arrested by Kenner police, along with fellow teacher for allegedly having a three-way sexual encounter with the student.

State Farm to raise auto rates
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Auto insurance rates will rise an average of 4.4 percent beginning Dec. 8 for Baton Rouge customers of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.
State Farm is Louisiana’s largest auto insurer, covering about one in three vehicles. The company said it will increase auto premiums for liability, collision and comprehensive coverage. Comprehensive covers losses from theft, storm damage, fire, vandalism and windshield damage.
State Farm’s auto rates will rise an average of 3.7 percent statewide.
The auto rate increase will generate $40.4 million annually from State Farm’s 1 million customers.
New Orleans customers will see their rates rise an average of 5.7 percent.
Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon has said Orleans motorists paid 40 percent more for auto coverage than the average statewide.

17 1/2-year sentence
in child sex case
LAFAYETTE (AP) — A New Iberia man has been sentenced to 17 ½ years in prison for traveling to the state of North Carolina to have sexual contact with a child.
U.S. Attorney Stephanie Finley in Lafayette said Monday that U.S. District Judge Richard Haik handed down the sentence for 55-year-old Ray Paul Dionne.
Finley said in a news release that Dionne had pleaded guilty in the case. According to documents filed with a plea agreement, Dionne admitted that he traveled to North Carolina twice in 2012 to have sexual contact with the child, who was 12 years old.

Trial delayed for pair in dismembered stripper case
GRETNA (AP) — The Kenner couple accused of stabbing Bourbon Street dancer Jaren Lockhart to death and dismembering her body two years ago will not stand trial on Jan. 12 as originally planned.
State District Judge Stephen Grefer on Monday scheduled routine motions for that date instead. Thirty-year-old Margaret Sanchez and 42-year-old Terry Speaks are charged with second-degree murder and obstruction of justice in Lockhart’s death.
Prosecutors have said they plan to try Sanchez and Speaks separately. The two are accused of stabbing Lockhart to death in June 2012, dismembering her body and throwing it off a bridge into the Gulf of Mexico. The obstruction of justice charge stems from the dismemberment.

Pension debt plan a no-go
BATON ROUGE (AP) — A proposal to borrow money to help reduce state pension system debts is going nowhere.
The idea was to borrow money that would be used to pay one lump sum and buy out the pensions of vested retirees who have not yet begun to draw their benefits. Waiting before drawing on a pension allows the retiree’s pension to increase in value. Paying off the benefits of those retirees would reduce the state’s $20 billion long-term debt obligations, called the unfunded accrued liability.
But a state treasury official, the Legislature’s actuary and two state retirement system chiefs all testified Monday that the idea was plagued with problems.

East Baton Rouge
spending jumps in Sept.
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Consumer and business spending in East Baton Rouge Parish rose by 7 percent in September.
Sales tax collection figures released Monday by the city-parish Finance Department show businesses and consumers spent $709.6 million in September. That compares with $662.7 million in spending in September 2013.
Spending, excluding vehicles, within the Baton Rouge city limits was up 8.4 percent in September to nearly $389.7 million. Spending outside the city limits of Baton Rouge was up by almost 5.5 percent in September to nearly $320 million, despite a tough comparison. In September 2013, the Mall of Louisiana was outside the city limits. The city-parish annexed much of the mall into the Baton Rouge city limits in June.

2 judges throw out
suits about big cat ban
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Judges in Baton Rouge on Monday dismissed two lawsuits challenging different aspects of Louisiana’s law against owning exotic cats.
One lawsuit sought to overturn an exemption to the ban that allows the owner of Tiger Truck Stop near Baton Rouge to keep his live tiger mascot on exhibit. District Judge William Morvant dismissed the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s challenge to the exemption granted to truck stop owner Michael Sandlin.
The other lawsuit was filed by Yogie and Friends, a north Louisiana animal sanctuary threatened by the ban. District Judge Robert Downing dismissed the suit filed for sanctuary director Jenny Senier.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund is considering its next move.
“We disagree with Judge Morvant’s legal conclusions, so an appeal is certainly an option, but we need to decide whether it’s just easier to do as he suggested” and make the challenge to Sandlin’s exemption part of Sandlin’s earlier challenge to the ban itself, Matthew Liebman, a staff attorney for the group, said in an email.
District Judge Janice Clark heard arguments in Sandlin’s earlier lawsuit seeking to overturn the ban 2 ½ years ago but has not yet ruled.
Attorney Jennifer Treadway Nixon, who represents both Sandlin and Senier, is also considering how to respond to the development. She described largely procedural reasons for throwing out the lawsuits.
She said she might combine the sanctuary’s lawsuit with Sandlin’s earlier challenge to the ban or just file a new lawsuit for Senier.
Nixon had asked Downing for a temporary order to keep the state from enforcing the law against Yogie and Friends.
Instead, she said, he agreed with state attorneys who said she had broken a court rule by failing to note that Sandlin’s challenge to the ban was already in court.
“Our main concern was the safety of the cats and preventing criminal charges against the owners for possessing the cats,” Nixon said. She said sanctuary officials may move the animals to an out-of-state sanctuary until the case is decided.
“If they do that there’s no urgency and we can wait on Judge Clark and add them to that suit,” Nixon said
A state law passed in 2006 prohibits big cat ownership in Louisiana, with exceptions for universities, zoos and scientific organizations. A new law passed this year established an exemption that some lawmakers said applied only to Sandlin.