Friends, family and supporters of Austin Rivault, the 15-year-old St. Thomas More student shot and killed in 2013 by Seth Fontenot, are taking to the sky to urge Judge Ed Rubin to give Fontenot a stiffer sentence when Fontenot is resentenced on Thursday: Four billboards have gone up on the south side of Lafayette — Dear Judge Rubin, PLEASE GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME! — that bear a copy of Rivault’s actual signature. The billboards, located on Kaliste Saloom Road, Ambassador Caffery Parkway and Johnston Street, are also undersigned by a group calling itself Concerned Citizens of Lafayette.
Rubin will resentence Fontenot after Fontenot’s attorney, Tommy Guilbeau, acknowledged in a court filing last week that the sentence Rubin originally gave Fontenot — three years at hard labor with all but 13 months suspended, meaning Fontenot could serve as little as four months in prison — was illegal because the manslaughter charge Fontenot was convicted on was technically a “crime of violence” because a gun was involved.
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