Dozens of Big Easy criminals felt the hard hand of the law during the holidays.
US Marshals arrested 30 people in New Orleans and outlying areas — and rescued five missing teenagers — during the annual Operation Boo Dat crackdown on convicted sex criminals, officials said.
The idea is to sweep potential parole violators from the streets from Halloween through Christmas, with an emphasis on making “sure that registered sex offenders don’t have the light on and they’re not handing out candy,” Deputy US Marshal Brian Fair told Coffee or Die Magazine.
This year, 17 of the arrests were tied to convicted sex offenders who allegedly violated registration requirements. Others were wanted by law enforcement on active arrest warrants. According to US Marshals, they included:
- Lorenzo Oliver, 34, who was arrested Dec. 10 on a New Orleans Police Department warrant for allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl in an empty West Bank home. Oliver was convicted in 2015 for attempted forcible rape and sexual battery.
- Anthony Roberts, 51, who was arrested Dec. 7 in Metairie on a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office warrant for failing to register as a convicted sex offender. He was convicted in 1997 for attempted forcible rape and was sentenced to 20 years behind bars.
- Kuimar “Marty” Stephans, 34, who was arrested Dec. 22 while allegedly trying to flee out of a window in a New Orleans residence while possessing the banned street drug Ecstasy. He also had outstanding warrants for failing to register as a sex offender and for firearms violations. He was convicted in 2012 for simple rape and second-degree kidnapping.
Law enforcement officers visited more than 100 convicted sex offenders to make sure they were living at their reported addresses, a process Fair said can take many hours of investigative work. He said his team was “definitely very pleased” with the number of registration compliance checks they made, given the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic in the wake of Hurricane Ida.
This year’s campaign brought together the New Orleans Police Department, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, the Louisiana State Police, and the US Marshals Service New Orleans Task Force to hunt for the wanted criminals and missing youths.
Fair said they also got support from the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office, the US Department of Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI New Orleans Field Office, the Louisiana Department of Child and Family Services, Louisiana Probation and Parole, the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office, the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, and Crimestoppers Greater New Orleans.
Coffee or Die's Noelle Wiehe is on the ground in Louisiana reporting on Hurricane Ida's destruction and the effort to save people, homes, and businesses.
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Fair said several of the missing teens the officers discovered had been trafficked into the sex trade.
“We at least give them a chance to get out of a bad situation and often are able to at least arrest an adult that has been doing something bad, or at least bringing that adult onto law enforcement’s radar,” Fair told Coffee or Die.
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