Sheriff’s Office Capt. Walter Dornan receives the Kiwanis Club Life-Saver Award for his actions helping motorists trapped after accidents on the iced-over Paris Road Bridge last January

Sheriff’s Office Capt. Walter Dornan will remember last Jan. 24 for spending a freezing night dealing with the slippery, ice-covered Paris Road Bridge in New Orleans and helping the more than 20 motorists – mostly from St. Bernard Parish – who were trapped on it after traffic accidents.

Dornan, a veteran deputy who heads the department’s Traffic Division and lives in Chalmette, was honored Sept. 9 by the Kiwanis Club of St. Bernard with its Life-Saver Award for his actions that night.

The Kiwanis Club gives the award four times a year, twice to a parish sheriff’s deputy and twice to firefighters.

The ceremony included Sheriff James Pohlmann and Maj. Adolph Kreger of the Sheriff’s Office, Dornan’s wife, Brandy, Kiwanis Club President Shirley Pechon and Sam Catalanotto, chairman of the Life-Saver Committee.

In presenting the award, Catalanotto said that more than 10 years ago the Kiwanis Club started it as way to recognize first-responders in the parish for the work they do to protect the public. “They are the first people through a door’’ to rescue someone in an emergency, he said. “They put their lives on the line’’ for St. Bernard.

Dornan thanked the group for the honor, saying, “I enjoy being a policeman’’ and added, “It wasn’t just me out there’’ that night helping people. “It was a joint effort.’’

He had been off-duty the night of Jan. 24 when he heard a call come out about icing and auto wrecks on the south-bound lanes of the Paris Road Bridge, which while in New Orleans also connects St. Bernard to the eastern part of the city.

“I knew it had to be our people from St. Bernard Parish involved,’’ said Dornan, who has been with the Sheriff’s Office since the late 1980s and graduated the FBI National Training Academy in 2010,

He was the first deputy on the scene at the bridge that night and decided immediately to prevent other accidents by shutting down the north-bound lanes, even though the bridge wasn’t in his parish. He parked his vehicle across its two lanes to prevent motorists from going up.

Sheriff James Pohlmann was notified the bridge had been blocked and other deputies were called to the scene.

The sheriff said at the ceremony, “I wasn’t surprised Walter was the first on the scene. He often is.’’ Sheriff Pohlmann also went to the bridge and found Dornan had “made sure the scene was safe. When I left he had it under control.’’

There were more than twenty vehicles piled up in accidents at the top of the bridge on the south-bound lanes heading toward Chalmette.

“We got on the phone with parish government,’’ Dornan said, to get road crews out to sand over areas of the south-bound lanes and Fire Department personnel out so an attempt could be made to reach motorists stuck in their vehicles after being in the wrecks.

Units from New Orleans police weren’t on the scene.

The Fire Department got food and water to people trapped in the vehicles.

“We had people injured up there in accidents,’’ Dornan said. “It was pretty slippery and I was in dress shoes.’’

People going up the bridge to get to those injured had to hold on to the middle area between the north- and south-bound lanes, he said.

“We took our time and walked up the bridge and checked on people. It was a joint effort.’’

Dornan said, “It took hours to get them out,’’ because they couldn’t be brought down until the bridge was sanded.

Even St. Bernard school buses were used to take people home when they got them down, he said.

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All seven defendants in Lebeau Mansion arson fire of Nov. 22, 2013, have pleaded guilty and been sentenced; four receive prison terms

All seven defendants arrested within hours after the historic 1850s Lebeau Mansion in Old Arabi was destroyed in an arson fire on Nov. 22, 2013, have now pleaded guilty to arson or trespassing charges and have been sentenced, with four receiving prison terms.

Owned by the Meraux Foundation of St. Bernard Parish, the 10,000 square-foot Lebeau Mansion near the Mississippi River, was the largest pre-Civil War plantation house left in the New Orleans area.

The fire was started, Sheriff James Pohlmann said following the arrests of the seven men involved, after they had been smoking marijuana and drinking and wanted to summon ghosts from a legend about the house. Seven men ages t 17 to 31 were arrested within hours after the fire.

Four of them who had all come from the Dallas area to work selling newspaper subscriptions pleaded guilty in state district court in Chalmette recently to simple arson charges. All were sentenced to prison terms.

Dusten Davenport, who was 31 when arrested; Joshua Brisco, 20 at the time; Jerry Hamblen, 17 at the time; and Joseph Landin, 20 at the time, all pleaded guilty to an arson charge.before state District Judge Jacques Sanborn. All but Landin were sentenced to 11 years in prison, with five years of the term suspended, and with credit for time served in St. Bernard Parish Prison since their arrests.

Landin was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with five suspended, and with credit for time already served.

All four will be on active probation for five years after the sentences are served.

Three others, Kevin Barbe, 20 when arrested and who lived in Arabi not far from the Lebeau Mansion; Bryon Meek, who was 29 at the time and Joshua Allen, 21 when arrested, all pleaded guilty to criminal trespassing.

Barbe, the only one of the seven who had made bond – released from jail in January – was sentenced to six months in Parish Prison, with all but 50 days of the sentenced suspended, a period he had served before his release on bond.

Meek and Allen, also from the Dallas area, were both sentenced to six months in Parish Prison, with credit for time served. Allen has been released while Meek was sent to Texas authorities on a probation hold.

The arrests came when sheriff’s detectives followed up on reports at the fire scene that local residents had seen seeing young people coming from the Lebeau property in days just before the fire and one of them had been identified as Barbe.

Sheriff Pohlmann said after the sentences he was glad to see several of the people involved had received prison terms. On the day of the fire and arrests the sheriff had said the culprits didn’t seem to realize they had destroyed a piece of St. Bernard Parish history by what they had done.

From its perch near the Mississippi River, the two-story Lebeau Plantation House weathered many a hurricane since it was built in the mid-1850s but had no chance against the fire early the morning of Nov. 22, 2013.

Firefighters answering the fire call were met by a wall of flames engulfing the mostly wooden structure.

The building, shown over the years on TV specials about South Louisiana mansions along the river, was reduced to its brick chimney stands and just portions of the frame.

No one was injured in the blaze, which could be seen for miles and also damaged a vacant building on a nearby street because of burning embers.

St. Bernard Parish Historian William Hyland said the LeBeau House – built by Franciose Barthelemy LeBeau – was the largest pre-Civil War mansion remaining in the New Orleans area.

It stood on land that was an indigo plantation in the 1740s. There was an older and smaller home which existed on the land prior to the LeBeau House being built in the 1850s, Hyland said. The LeBeau family owned the property from the 1850s to 1906.

In the 20th Century, the house was used as the Friscoville Hotel and then a gambling casino in the 1920s until in 1967 when Joseph Meraux purchased the house. It was damaged by a 1986 fire when some people had been allowed to live there. It had deteriorated badly afterward.

The Meraux Foundation of St. Bernard Parish had owned the property for years and spent money on stabilizing the house but it hadn’t been renovated.

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Sheriff’s deputies help woman escape overturned tanker truck on fire on Interstate-10 in eastern N.O.

An overturned tanker truck on fire on Interstate-10 in eastern New Orleans on Aug. 26 after its driver was rescued.

Vehicles are backed up on the interstate by the fiery accident.

A burning, overturned tanker truck on Interstate-10, with billowing black smoke rising, quickly drew the attention of nine St. Bernard Parish sheriff’s deputies and reserve officers on their way to a training academy in Slidell in the late afternoon of Aug. 26.

What they saw and heard next: the 24-year-old woman driver screaming hysterically as she tried to escape the truck’s cab, rushed them into action.

The deputies, along with an off-duty New Orleans police officer, were among the first vehicles at the scene after the truck which carried 8,600 gallons of gasoline overturned on the east-bound side of the interstate about 4 p.m.

Four St. Bernard deputies and reserve officers, Richard Scheuermann, Jeremy Roig, Corey Gonzales and Scott Winters ran to the burning truck and the others dealt with traffic on the interstate, keeping vehicles a safe distance away.

Also on the scene from the Sheriff’s Office were Heather Lyons, Shelton Smith, Shane Samaniego, Merlin Flores and Andrew Mowers.

Sheriff James Pohlmann said he was proud of the actions of the officers involved, who remained calm in a pressure situation in order to try to help someone.

“We did a 25-yard dash’’ toward the woman driver who was screaming, said Reserve Division Deputy Gonzales. “She was on the passenger side’’ trying to climb out of the overturned 18-wheeler.

“It was wild,’’ said Jeremy Roig, who works in the Criminal Records Division of the Sheriff’s Office. He said there wasn’t time to hesitate by thinking about whether they would be injured by running toward the fire.

“We were thinking about getting her to safety,’’ Roig said of the driver.

Gonzales said, “We fell back on our training’’ to just react and get her away from the truck, saying “it was a team effort.’’

“It happened so fast,’’ said Scheuermann, who is a corrections officer in St. Bernard Parish Prison. “We were running and I could see her hands (as she was trying to get out) and heard her screaming.’’

When officers got to the driver, Jasmine Henderson, she was climbing out of the cab and the NOPD officer and deputies helped her get off the truck and got her to a safe distance from the blaze. Henderson was treated later at a hospital for minor injuries.

It was just a short period after they all got away that the truck erupted into a heavier fire.

Also, several of the officers said, it wasn’t until after it was over they even realized how hot the fire had been when they saw how much they were sweating.

The officers, who have been training several days a week at the Slidell Regional Police Academy, never made it to class that night because they were on the scene for several hours.

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Two N.O. men arrested with $2,000 worth of heroin and $1,350 cash in a vehicle stopped in Chalmette

Rashan Angeletta, booked with heroin in Chalmette

Carl Heim, booked with heroin in Chalmette.

Two New Orleans men were carrying $2,000 worth of heroin and $1,350 in cash in a vehicle on Saturday, Aug. 30, when they were stopped in Chalmette by a sheriff’s deputy who noticed there wasn’t a visible license plate, Sheriff James Pohlmann said.

More than 16.5 grams of heroin in 28 small bags and the cash were recovered but both men denied it belonged to them, the sheriff said.

One of the men’s one-year-old child was also in the vehicle when it was stopped on West Judge Perez Drive just after noon. The child was released to the custody of a relative.

Dep. Ryan Lopez, assisted by Dep. Lance Kramer, made the arrests.

Rashan Angeletta, 28, the driver, and Carl Heim, 28, were both booked with possession with intent to distribute heroin and with illegal use of a controlled, dangerous substance in the presence of a juvenile.

Angeletta was also booked with having no driver’s license or insurance, having a fake motor vehicle inspection sticker, with having illegal tinted windows and with improper display of a temporary tag. Heim was also booked with resisting an officer.

Both men are being held in St. Bernard Parish Prison in lieu of bond set at $25,000 each.

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