I A6 THE LIVINGSTON PARISH NEWS SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2013___

faces the prospect of a civil lawsuit from the victim’s family.

Mack said Deputy Attorney General Curt Wall conducted the grand jury session and allowed Sibley to tell his story there. According to Mack, Sibley testified that he had swerved to avoid Iasigi’s truck stopped in the middle of the road and when he felt something strike his vehicle he thought someone had thrown something at him. Ac-cording to the testi-mony, Sibley was scared and continued driving a ways before stopping. When he looked back, he saw no headlights and so he continued.

Mack said Sibley tried to call him the next day to arrange coming for-ward when he learned of injuries in the wreck, but police visited his home before Mack re-turned the call.

A State Police investi-gation determined that Sibley was not at fault for the accident itself since Iasigi had stopped his truck and stepped out in the middle of the dark highway.

District Attorney Scott Perrilloux re-cused himself from the case because he has known Sibley for years and once employed his daughter.

Sibley, 66, missed two School Board meetings soon after the accident, but has presided over all of them since.

Mack said his com-ments Friday will serve as Sibley’s statement to the public on the mat-ter.

Investigators found that Iasigi had stopped his vehicle and got out in an attempt to fight with another man who he had been his pas-senger.

By John Dupont The Livingston Parish News

DENHAM SPRINGS — District Attorney Scott Perrilloux pinpointed a common factor among cases in 21st Judicial District Court.

Drug offenses account for one in every three convic-tions, while drug-related cases make up the other two, Perrilloux told the Livingston Parish Chamber of Commerce at its monthly luncheon last Wednesday.

“Drugs are the driving factor,” he said.

The number of prescrip-tion drug abuse cases in the 21st JDC have increased sig-nificantly in recent years, Perrilloux said.

“The use and abuse of narcotic painkillers has become the number one is-

sue in drug-related cases,” he said.

Painkillers such as Oxy-codone serve as the chief culprit.

In fact, prescription drug abuse has been prevalent in other offenses.

“A lot of the DWI offense we’ve seen lately have been because of being impaired by pain pills – it’s not just about alcohol anymore,” Perrilloux said.

Perrilloux also discussed the challenges growth brings to the 21st Judicial District Court.

The district now ranks as the fifth largest in the state, he said.

The Livingston Parish population totaled 90,000 when he took office in 1997, but that count has swelled

to 130,000, he said.“But we’re still doing our

jobs with the same amount of staff and resources – and that’s a big difference,” Per-rilloux said. “We all work on limited resources, but we made up some ground with improvements in technol-ogy for our case manage-ment, which allows us to be more efficient.

“We’ve become a big dis-trict,” he said.

The growth of the district has led to the advancement of attorneys from part-time to full-time in the 21st JDC, Perrilloux said.

“Our work as a whole has increased,” he said.

Perrilloux also discussed the working relationship between his office and the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s

Office.He commended Sheriff Ja-

son Ard’s office for a strong code of ethics.

“Law enforcement organi-zations will have a culture, generally, and those of you who follow New Orleans news know the culture of police department there is not good,” Perriloux said. “Sometimes a thin line exists between violators and those who enforce the law, but quite the opposite occurs here in the Livings-ton Parish Sheriff’s Office, where there’s a culture of doing the right thing.

“Everyone here is for-tunate to have a sheriff’s department committed to doing the right thing,” he said. “The parish benefits from that.”

DA: Drug cases clog criminal courts

DAVID NORMAND | THE NEWS

Brighter lights on Friday nights

Journeyman electri-cians Kevin Wyatt (left) and David Jenkins, with Ken’s Electric LLC of Ham-mond, replace 15 old lights with new 1500 watt metal halide lights at the Walker High School football stadium on Wednes-day morning. The new lights, which are now round rather than square, should make the stadium brighter on Friday nights.

Jr. high student

charged with gun assault

By Alice Dowty The Livingston Parish News

DENHAM SPRINGS — A student from Denham Springs Junior High has been charged with aggravated assault after pulling a gun on other students on their way home from school Sept. 12, according to police and the mother of one of the students who was held at gun-point.

The names of the four students are being withheld because they are minors, according to Denham Springs Police.

The gun was hidden off campus near a car wash, according to Denham Springs Police Chief Scott Jones.

The boy accused of having the gun was arrested at his home, Jones said.

The boy was not taken to the Florida Parishes Juvenile Detention Center, Jones said.

Thursday’s arrest is the first this year in Denham Springs in-volving a juvenile with a gun, Jones said.

The Denham Springs Police Department has two officers assigned to schools as resource officers, but they do not work full time at the schools, Jones said.

Sibley

testifies for grand jury

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