Habitual offender gets life sentence
LAFAYETTE — A 36-year-old Kaplan man accused in the March 2010 killing of a Pizza Hut delivery driver has been sentenced to life in prison as a habitual offender, a prosecutor with the 15th Judicial District Attorney’s Office said Thursday.
Aaron Orlando Richards will serve life in prison after he was convicted of three separate crimes of violence, prosecutor Alan Haney said.
Richard’s most-recent conviction occurred in October 2011 when a jury of 12 returned a guilty verdict for an April 2009 second-degree robbery outside of Buffalo Wild Wings on Ambassador Caffery Parkway.
Prosecutor Cynthia Simon said at the time that Richards pulled up in a vehicle behind a 19-year-old woman and punched her twice in the face when she exited her car.
Richards then stole the woman’s purse and sped away in a vehicle.
The other two violent crimes occurred in Vermilion Parish. The first was a second-degree battery conviction in 1997 and the second was a 2007 conviction for aggravated flight from an officer, which is also considered a violent offense, Haney said.
Richards is still facing trial in the killing of a Pizza Hut delivery driver.
He has been jailed without bail at the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center since August 2010 when he was arrested in the March 2010 stabbing death of Timothy Falgout.
Authorities have said that Richards stabbed and killed Falgout during a robbery attempt while Falgout was delivering pizza to a home in the 300 block of Rue Canard in Lafayette Parish.
Richards and a second man, Marcus Joseph Feast, 43, have yet to stand trial in that case. Richards is charged with first-degree murder. Feast is charged with principal to first-degree murder and unauthorized use of an access card. No trial date has been set, according to the Lafayette Parish Clerk of Court’s Office.
Haney, who handles habitual-offender cases for the District Attorney’s Office, said Wednesday’s hearing took less than an hour. State District Judge Patrick L. Michot handed down the sentence.
“We believe the statute prescribed a mandatory life sentence and that’s what he received,” Haney said. “I believe that was the correct sentence.”