Joe Gyan Jr
Louisiana’s top court agreed to hear the case of a St. Landry Parish man whose convictions were reduced in a fiery, 2011 “road rage” crash in Baton Rouge that killed five people including a Eunice native and her three children.
East Baton Rouge Parish prosecutors are asking the state Supreme Court to reinstate David Leger’s original vehicular homicide convictions and eight-year prison sentence.
The state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal reduced Leger’s convictions in 2017 to negligent homicide and ordered him resentenced, saying nothing pointed to his intoxication as a contributing factor in the Interstate 10 crash that killed five Ascension Parish residents, including three young boys.
“We are pleased that the Supreme Court has agreed to consider the decision of the appellate court and believe that upon review of the briefs that the Supreme Court will reinstate the verdict of the jury,” District Attorney Hillar Moore III said on Jan. 18.
Leger’s appellate attorney, Rachel Conner, has asked the high court to let the appeals court ruling stand. She argues there is no evidence of a causal relationship between Leger’s intoxication and the fatalities.
Leger’s blood alcohol level after the crash was 0.10 percent. A blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent is considered presumptive evidence of drunken driving in Louisiana for those 21 and older.
A partially empty bottle of rum was found inside Leger’s pickup after the crash.
Trial testimony indicated Leger, 36, of Palmetto, and Kelsye Hall, 29, of Baton Rouge, were engaged in a high-speed game of “cat and mouse” on I-10 West when Leger’s truck attempted to pass Hall’s sport utility vehicle on the right shoulder. The two vehicles came into contact, and Leger’s truck spun out of control and crossed the grassy median.
His truck smashed into a car driven by Effie Fontenot, 29, of Prairieville, on I-10 East between the Highland Road exit and Bluff Road overpass. Fontenot’s car burst into flames.
Fontenot, a Eunice native, was killed, as were her sons — Austin and Keagan Fontenot, 3 and 11, respectively, and Hunter Johnson, 7. Kimberly Stagg, 19, of Prairieville, who was riding in the front seat, also died.
Many Eunice residents remember Fontenot from the time she worked at Nick’s on 2nd Street.
She was working at a restaurant in Prairieville at the time of her death, as was Stagg.
Hall, who was not intoxicated, was found guilty by state District Judge Trudy White on five counts of negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in prison in 2013.
An East Baton Rouge Parish jury convicted Leger in 2014 on five counts of vehicular homicide, and state District Judge Chip Moore sentenced him to eight years in prison.
In 2016, state District Judge William Morvant awarded nearly $5.5 million to the victims’ families who sued Leger, Hall and their auto insurance carrier. The judge found Leger and Hall — who blamed each other at the trial of the lawsuit — equally at fault for the crash and the damages.