Louisiana news briefs

Golden Meadow police back up to full staff
GOLDEN MEADOW (AP) — After spending much of last year without half of its officers, the Golden Meadow Police Department is back up to a full staff.
Police Chief Reggie Pitre said he hadn’t experienced a loss of personnel since his election in July 2012.
The department, which normally includes four officers, lost two officers last year. Pitre says Ashley Pollard resigned after being charged July 21 with manufacturing methamphetamine, and the other officer left for another agency.
To compensate for the department’s loss, Pitre said he had the remaining officers to work extra shifts instead of operating on the normal seven days on, seven days off schedule. The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office had to cover some shifts, and the chief would also help out by patrolling and enforcing traffic laws.

Crime lab faces cuts
NEW IBERIA (AP) — Facing drastic cuts, Acadiana Crime Lab pins hope on a state study.
The lab, located in New Iberia, serves an eight-parish region including Lafayette. The lab has tapped out its savings after years of deficits and is avoiding cuts this year only with the help of a special $800,000 appropriation from the state Legislature.
“That’s a one-time thing that we do not expect to see in 2016. It just buys us some time,” crime lab Director Kevin Ardoin said.
The crime lab’s expenses have remained fairly flat in recent years, hovering around $2.5 million.
But the lab’s main source of funding, court costs paid by criminal defendants in Acadiana, has fallen sharply, from about $2.2 million in 2009 to about $1.5 million in 2014.
The lab has dug deep into prior years’ savings to prop up the budget, which had deficits of around $700,000 for 2013 and 2014.
Ardoin began sounding the alarm over the budget issue in late 2013, and the Legislature formed a task force last year to study the issue.
The group has explored several proposals, including removing exemptions from court costs now granted for certain traffic offenses, seeking an annual state appropriation to cover 25 percent of the lab’s operating budget, and seeking funding from the alcohol and video poker industries and from the pharmaceutical industry because law enforcement agencies are increasingly dealing with the illegal use of prescription drugs.
The task force, which is expected to make its formal recommendations later this month to the Legislature, also has discussed raising some court costs and working with judges throughout the Acadiana region to ensure court costs are being collected.

Man accused of trying to set girlfriend on fire
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Baton Rouge police have arrested a 79-year-old man who was accused of trying to set his longtime girlfriend on fire for telling his wife about their affair.
Carlos Garrido told detectives that he doused the woman Saturday in a “flammable liquid” and tried to set her ablaze for calling his wife and telling her the two had been having an affair for several years.
According to an arrest report, Garrido tackled the woman when she tried to run away, but she was ultimately able to escape.
Garrido, of Baton Rouge, was booked into Parish Prison on a count of attempted second-degree murder. He was being held on $75,000.

Justices won’t hear gay marriage case
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court says it won’t hear Louisiana’s same-sex marriage ban before the federal appeals court in New Orleans considers it.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case Friday.
But, in an unusual move, both supporters of same-sex marriage and the state had already asked the Supreme Court to hear the case before the appeal is decided.
Louisiana is the only state where a federal district judge has found such bans constitutional. However, in November, an appeals court in Cincinnati upheld gay marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee and Ohio.
Four other appeals courts and dozens of district judges have overturned such bans.
The justices’ meeting Monday was the first time they had the issue before them since deciding in October against taking up same-sex marriage.

Auxiliary bishop named
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Archdiocese of New Orleans is getting an auxiliary bishop to serve under New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond.
On Monday, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced the naming of Father Fernand Cheri III, 62, a Franciscan monk who will serve as auxiliary bishop.
Cheri is a member of the Sacred Heart Province of the Order of Friars Minor and the director of campus ministry at Quincy University in Illinois. He was born in New Orleans.
Cheri says his appointment was unexpected: He was preparing for Quincy’s second semester when he was informed his ordination would be March 23.

Movie planned about Battle of New Orleans
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne says a major motion picture is in the works about the Battle of New Orleans.
Ken and Fred Atchity, of Atchity Brothers Entertainment, will produce the feature film, “Andrew Jackson — Battle of New Orleans,” based on military historian Ron Drez’s latest book, “The War of 1812: Conflict And Deception.”
The project is endorsed by the Battle of New Orleans Bicentennial Commission.
Andrew Jackson arrived in New Orleans in December 1814 to discover a local force in place with fewer than 1,000 soldiers. In two weeks, he put together an army to face the grand British force. The battle ended with a U.S. victory on Jan. 8, 1815.
The Atchity brothers are expected to announce actors and directors soon for their movie.

Trial date set in stripper’s death
GRETNA (AP) — A state judge has set a June 15 trial date for 42-year-old Terry Speaks, the man accused in the death of Bourbon Street dancer Jaren Lockhart and dismembering her body.
His alleged accomplice, 30-year-old Margaret Sanchez, will be tried at a later date that won’t be selected until May.
Speaks and Sanchez are accused of fatally stabbing Lockhart, who was last seen leaving Temptations Gentlemen’s Club with the couple on June 6, 2012. Parts of Lockhart’s body began washing up on Mississippi Gulf Coast beaches several days later.
Speaks and Sanchez are accused of second-degree murder, along with obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice by means of the dismemberment.
Jefferson Parish prosecutors had previously indicated they intended to try the two separately, and that became official Monday.

Former officers plead not guilty in sex case
BATON ROUGE — Three former Baton Rouge police officers have pleaded not guilty to charges that accuse one of them of forcing a woman to perform a sex act at a park in February while all three were on duty.
Attorneys for Isaac Bolden, Emerson Jackson and Travis Wheeler vehemently denied the abuse of office allegations Monday, and Jackson’s and Wheeler’s lawyers said their clients want to return to the force after they are exonerated.
Bolden is accused of forcing the woman to perform a sex act.
District Attorney Hillar Moore said his office stands behind the charges.
Prosecutors say Bolden, Jackson and Wheeler were on duty, in uniform and in marked police cars at the time of the alleged incident.
Their next scheduled court date is April 24.

EPA: 2nd Camp Minden artillery propellant
test burn planned
MINDEN (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency says it will hold another trial burn of artillery propellant at Camp Minden — and will make data about it public before burning 15 million pounds of the material.
That statement came after four members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation asked last week for more information about plans to burn the propellant before it becomes likely to explode on its own.
“If the EPA had the data to show that burning M6 is safe, then they would not need to conduct additional test burns. If they do not know that it is safe, then they should not burn it outside in our air,” Frances Kelly of the local group Louisiana Progress Action and Concerned Citizens, said in a news release Monday. “If the EPA needs further testing to uphold their claim that an open burn would be safe, then those tests should be conducted in a laboratory.”
U.S. Sens. David Vitter and Bill Cassidy and Reps. John Fleming and Ralph Abraham wrote to the EPA again Monday, saying they want the agency to show that burning it won’t hurt people who live in the area.
They say they also want assurance that air, water and soil will be monitored throughout the burning and cleanup.
“This issue has been dragging on for years, and folks have every right to question the EPA’s strategy,” Vitter said in a news release. “And what’s most frustrating is that this issue is urgent — the Army has told us that these explosives could detonate by this summer. Louisianians deserve to know why the EPA is using this open-burn method, and what that means for the health of their families.”
Local residents wanted an incinerator built on-site, but EPA officials said that would take too long to bid out and build.
The M6 was abandoned on site by Explo Systems Inc. after it went bankrupt in 2013. An explosion in October 2012 in one of Explo’s leased bunkers rattled homes, shattered windows 4 miles away in Minden and created a 7,000-foot mushroom cloud.
Asked Monday when the trial burn would occur, whether state and local officials would be notified in advance, and whether the EPA would let community experts review plans for the test burn, EPA spokesman Joe Hubbard said he would check.
“Verbal pledges of safety by EPA are not enough,” Fleming said. “The agency must assure the public’s safety with clear scientific data before any burning of explosives at Camp Minden. Our chief priority is the safety of residents across north Louisiana.”