Crime against nature sentence ‘illegally lenient’ but will stand
Published 2:03 pm Tuesday, December 26, 2023
- The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal serves 21 parishes in Southwest and central Louisiana.
While ruling the 13-year sentence for an Oklahoma man convicted of two counts of aggravated crime against nature against a 7-year-old girl while he spent time in Cameron Parish for work was “illegally lenient,” the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal is allowing his sentence to stand but is remanding how much he will spend in court costs back to the trial court.
Eric Wayne Lemay spent a three-month period between 2016 and 2017 staying with family in Cameron Parish. When he returned to Oklahoma following the Cameron stint, the 7-year-old told her grandmother Lemay had climbed into the shower with her and made her wash his penis with a bar of soap. In a video statement to a forensic interviewer, the girl detailed additional incidents — including waking up in Lemay’s lap with his penis and “goop” on her face.
On Jan. 15, 2019, Lemay was charged with molestation of a juvenile. The charge was later amended to aggravated crime against nature and Lemay waived his right to a jury trial.
Lemay was convicted on Sept. 7, 2022, and sentenced on Feb. 27, 2022, to consecutive terms of 13 years at hard labor on count one and 15 years at hard labor on count two. The sentence on count two was suspended and Lemay was placed on three years of supervised probation and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, court costs, a supervision fee of $60 per month, and a sex offender technology fee of $11 per month.
Lemay sought a review of his conviction and sentence with the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal, which ruled this month that it would be vacating, in part, his sentence. The panel did, however, affirm his conviction.
While citing Louisiana law as labeling aggravated crime against nature as a crime of violence — which means the maximum sentence for which Lemay could have been sentenced was 20 years with or without hard labor on each count — the court declined to “disturb the trial court’s imposition of sentence” since the prosecution team has not lodged a complaint. The court did vacate the portion of Lemay’s sentence dealing with court costs, citing there is no indication the trial court conducted a hearing to “determine whether payment in full of the aggregate amount of all the financial obligations to be imposed upon the defendant would cause substantial financial hardship to the defendant or his dependents.”
“Mr. Lemay claims that his $5,000 fine and fees are illegal because he was declared indigent by the trial court,” the court said. “Because a hearing was not held, the financial obligations are hereby vacated, and the matter is remanded for the required hearing.”
The court cited a lack of merit in Lemay’s claim he was deprived of choosing his own counsel.
