Business News

Boudreaux pleads ‘not guilty’ to felony theft

by Walter Pierce

Architect Henry Boudreaux was indicted by a Lafayette grand jury on a single count of theft over $25,000.

Henry Boudreaux

[CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story referred to Henry Boudreaux as an architect, but his state license has lapsed. According to the Louisiana State Board of Architectural Examiners, Boudreaux is a registered architect (license #5073), but his license has been delinquent since Jan. 1, 2014, because he has not paid the annual $75 renewal. Boudreaux is primarily a residential designer; those projects that do not require a licensed architect.]

Lafayette home designer Henry Boudreaux pleaded not guilty Aug. 11 to a felony theft charge in connection with allegations that he bilked a Vermilion Parish couple out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracting, design and consultation fees for a renovation to their historic 1840s Acadian home in the community of Meaux. The allegations are currently part of an ongoing civil suit in Abbeville during which Boudreaux was sanctioned $66,000 by District Judge Marilyn Castle, who found that Boudreaux “purposely abused the legal process and misled the trial court to delay and extend the litigation ...” (Boudreaux appealed the sanction and was fined an additional $10,000 by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal for filing a frivolous appeal.)

Boudreaux was indicted by a Lafayette grand jury on July 8 on a single count of theft over $25,000. The indictment received no media attention, likely because that same day the grand jury declined to indict a Youngsville gun shop owner who shot and killed a teenager who had broken into his store. That story led the evening newscasts that day.

Read more about Henry Boudreaux’s legal troubles in this Aug. 19 story at theind.com.