Ex-DHS band teacher released from jail

Court rules that he didn’t violate terms of home incarceration

Former Destrehan band teacher Byron Toups has been released from prison after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that he didn’t violate the terms of his home incarceration.

Toups, of Des Allemands, had his probation revoked and was sent back to jail last year after Judge M. Lauren Lemmon found that he had violated conditions of his home incarceration and had failed to refrain from criminal conduct because of a 2010 arrest for simple burglary, criminal trespassing and simple battery.

Toups’ first trouble with the law came in 2008 when he was accused of sleeping with a 16-year-old Destrehan student and trying to kiss a 17-year-old student. As part of a plea deal reached in the case, he pled guilty to malfeasance in office, intimidation of a witness and simple battery in 2009.

Toups was given a year in prison, with credit for time served, and six months of home incarceration.

He was also sentenced to five years of probation.

Toups completed his jail sentence in March, but while serving his home incarceration he was charged with simple burglary, simple battery and trespassing after authorities say he broke into his girlfirend’s home in Napoleonville in June.

On July 16, a motion and order for a hearing to revoke Toups probation was filed by the Division of Probation and Parole.

On Aug. 31, Lemmon revoked Toups’ probation and ordered him to serve the original five-year sentence, which had been suspended as part of his 2009 plea deal.

Toups appealed the decision and a three-judge panel of the state’s 5th Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that Toups couldn’t have violated the conditions of his home incarceration because none were ever set by the trial judge. Prosecutors also admitted that the state could not revoke Toups’ probation based on his alleged criminal conduct, telling the court, “You know, I agree we can’t revoke him, you (the trial court) can’t revoke him based on the criminal conduct, because that has – that’s for another day. We don’t have a witness. We don’t have the girlfriend.”

Toups will now finish his two months of home incarceration and will be monitored with an ankle bracelet. He will only be allowed out of his home to go on job interviews, to go to church and to go to work. If he is going to work, he must provide proof of employment and he can’t work for anyone that he is romantically involved with.

That specific condition was included after officer Ralph Dunn, of the Gretna Police Home Incarceration Division, told the court that Toups would often claim to be doing construction work at his girlfriend’s Napoleonville residence. Dunn also told the court that he did not personally verify that it was Toups’ girlfriend’s house, and neither he nor any other police officer ever attempted to verify that Toups was performing repairs to the house.

Toups was originally charged with molestation in 2009, which has a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. During the trial, Lemmon told Toups that the only reason she approved a reduced sentence is because the victims didn’t want to go through the torture of a trial or have Toups rot in prison.

The malfeasance in office charge stemmed from an incident in February of 2007 when Toups behaved indecently with a 16-year-old student at his house. The victim gave two statements in the case, first saying that she didn’t know Toups and then admitting that the two had sex, according to court documents.

However, Toups was not convicted of a sex offense because parish prosecutors thought they might have had problems getting the victim to testify in a trial.

In July of that same year, Toups took a band student into the nurse’s office at the school, pinned the victim against the wall with his body and attempted to kiss her behind a locked door, according to court documents.

Toups then told the student that if anyone found out about the incident, she would regret it, according to the police report.

That incident led to Toups pleading guilty to simple battery and intimidation of a witness.

 

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