Film director arrested as a fugitive from St. Bernard Parish on a 2003 arrest involving 34 pounds of marijuana

Rene Fabre apparently forgot he was a fugitive from St. Bernard Parish since 2003 on a charge involving 34 pounds of marijuana when he posted on social media about the screening in New Orleans of a low budget film he directed in 2013.

Someone saw the posting about the screening and tipped off narcotics officers in St. Bernard, who notified a U.S. Marshal’s Service Fugitive Task Force, Sheriff James Pohlmann said.

Fabre, 42, who lives in New Orleans, was arrested by the Marshal’s Service May 20 and placed in the St. Bernard Parish Prison, where he is being held in lieu of bond set at $750,000.

The film being shown that led to Fabre’s arrest is named Duct Tape, a 2013 independent film Fabre directed. It is billed as a gritty look at 20-something year-old drug dealers on the streets of New Orleans. Fabre is also known for his work on the films Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), Terminator Genisys (2015) and Focus (2015).

Fabre had been living in Chalmette at the time he was arrested in March 2003. Along with 34 pounds of marijuana, some 3.5 grams of methamphetamine was seized in the arrest along with a half-dosage of methadone, the sheriff said.

Fabre missed court appearances on the charges, bench warrants were issued for his arrest but he wasn’t found at the time. Then Hurricane Katrina devastated St. Bernard Parish and Fabre was never arrested.

But the evidence in the case is still in custody and the charges remain, Sheriff Pohlmann said.