Victim in Gretna case to enter court without legal representation
11th April 2022 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
A Harvey man who filed a brutality lawsuit against the Gretna Police Department wasn’t assigned any attorney to represent him in the Jefferson Parish criminal case from which his allegations of unnecessary and excessive force against the GPD stem, even though his trial is less than two months away.
The 24th Judicial District Court Judge Steven C. Grefer has scheduled a sanity hearing in the criminal case of Kevin Beauregard, 33, for April 13, and a subsequent trial date of May 23.
Beauregard told The Louisiana Weekly that he is entering the crucial court dates without legal representation, even though the law requires a public defender be appointed to defend him if he can’t afford a private attorney, an oversight that could constitute a severe violation of Beauregard’s civil rights.
Paul Fleming, deputy chief public defender for Jefferson Parish, confirmed to The Louisiana Weekly that Beauregard indeed apparently had not been given legal representation since Beauregard’s previous legal representative, New Orleans attorney Aubrey Harris, withdrew from the case earlier this year. Harris has previously declined to comment to The Louisiana Weekly.
Fleming called Beauregard’s lack of counsel “strange” when contacted last week by the newspaper. He said he was surprised by Harris’ apparent failure to follow through with helping to secure subsequent legal representation for Beauregard, and Fleming added that Grefer should have appointed Beauregard another public defender following Harris’ recusal.
“I don’t know how or why that happened, but it happened,” Fleming said of Beauregard’s lack of representation, adding that the public defender’s office will investigate the situation immediately.
Paul Purpura, a spokesperson for the office of Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul D. Connick Jr., said the DA’s office does not comment on ongoing cases or investigations. According to court records, assistant district attorney Tucker H. Wimberly is prosecuting the case.
Beauregard faces criminal charges of marijuana possession, battery of a police officer and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, all stemming from an incident that occurred in an early-morning hours traffic stop in May 2020.
However, in April 2021, Beauregard, with civil court representation from attorneys with the ACLU of Louisiana’s ongoing Justice Lab Project, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court alleging that several of the GPD that were involved in Beauregard’s arrest and detention brutally assaulted him and violated his civil rights during the traffic stop and the ensuing hours.
The lawsuit names several defendants, including GPD officers Christopher Breaux, Kayla English, Timothy Kennedy Roland Kindell and other unnamed officers, as well as GPD Chief Arthur Lawson. ACLU attorneys representing Beauregard have declined further comment on his civil case.
Attorneys for the defendants in Beauregard’s civil case have denied the allegations of brutality and said the criminal charges against Beauregard are justified. At the request of the defense, Beauregard’s civil lawsuit, which is now before U.S. District Court Judge Barry W. Ashe, has been stayed pending the outcome of Beauregard’s criminal case.
Interestingly, however, defense attorneys for the GPD defendants acknowledged Beauregard’s lack of representation in their Feb. 9 request to extend the stay in the civil case for 60 days, ending April 15, which is two days after the sanity hearing that is scheduled in Beauregard’s criminal case.
According to court records, Grefer scheduled the sanity hearing following a case status conference on Feb. 23, two weeks after the officers’ defense attorneys issued their motion to further stay Beauregard’s civil case. In the stay extension motion, the civil defense attorneys asserted that Harris stepped down from defending Beauregard’s criminal charges because the relationship between Beauregard and Harris had deteriorated.
“Beauregard’s criminal counsel has withdrawn from his representation in the criminal proceeding stating that ‘communication has broken down between client and counsel to an irreparable place’ and because Beauregard ‘has threatened to sue counsel regarding this case which would cause a conflict of interest.’”
“Due to the on-going criminal prosecution of Beauregard,” added the motion, which Ashe granted, “particularly in light of the denial and Beauregard’s writ application by the Louisiana Supreme Court, and the withdrawal of Beauregard’s counsel in the criminal proceeding, Gretna suggests that good cause exists and hereby requests that the stay of this proceeding be extended for an additional 60 days from the date the current stay order is set to expire, or until April 15, 2022.”
Representatives for the city of Gretna have repeatedly failed to respond to requests for comment from The Louisiana Weekly.
Also deepening the intrigue in the two cases is the fact that two of the officers named by Beauregard in his civil lawsuit, Breaux and Kindell, themselves are currently facing criminal charges of a violent nature.
Breaux was charged in December 2020 with battery of a dating partner by strangulation. His case is set for a status hearing on April 27 in the 24th Judicial District in Jefferson Parish. Kindell, meanwhile, is scheduled to appear in 24th District Court on April 25 on a charge of battery of a dating partner by strangulation and a subsequent charge of violation of a protective order first issued in January 2021. Both charges might constitute a violation of Gwen’s Law.
Both Kindell and Breaux have been subpoenaed as witnesses in Beauregard’s criminal case. English has also been subpoenaed in Beauregard’s case; curiously, however, English had been granted a protective order against Kindell, who subsequently allegedly violated the order.
This article originally published in the April 11, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
