Good police work by Sheriff's Office helps convict drug dealer

In less than an hour a Vermilion Parish Jury found Maurice’s Lance Cormier, 27, guilty as charged of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine and powder cocaine after a two day trial.

Assistant District Attorney Stanton Hardee, III from Kaplan prosecuted the case and criminal defense attorney Burton Guidry also from Kaplan represented the defendant.

Good police work helped take another drug dealer off the streets for a long time.

During the trial, Sgt. Travin Moore of the Sheriff’s Office testified that on December 6, 2011, it had been raining all day in Abbeville. While on patrol, Moore observed a vehicle run a stop sign at the intersection of North Putnam and Graceland in Abbeville.

Moore activated the emergency lights on their unit but the vehicle did not stop and continued traveling for several blocks until turning onto a dead end street where the vehicle stopped and the defendant exited the vehicle and ran jumping over the fence by Graceland cemetery.

Moore, who played college football as a defensive back, pursued Cormier, who ran by the treeline next to La. 14 across from the Abbeville Post Office until Moore caught him by the ditch running parallel to the by-pass.

Moore recalled seeing Cormier throw things while running, he said in the trial.

Sgt. Elliot Broussard of the Sheriff’s Office testified that he and Moore back-tracked over the route where the defendant ran and located $200 in $20 bills on the ground and a box of Newport cigarettes that also contained 23 bags of powder cocaine and 17 rocks of crack cocaine. The box was “bone dry” with wet ground all around it. The Newport box was found 10 feet from where the defendant was apprehended by Sgt. Moore.

Sgt. Broussard also found a box of Newport cigarettes sitting in the car that the defendant fled from that was the same as the Newport box that contained the cocaine.

Sgt. Reginald Reed of the Sheriff’s Office testified that he attempted to obtain fingerprints but could not find any legible prints on the Newport box that contained the cocaine. Reed agreed that getting legible prints is not as easy as it looks on TV.

Rachel Wickman a forensic chemist from the Acadiana Crime Lab testified that the substances recovered were 23 bags of powder cocaine and 17 rocks of crack cocaine.

Hardee will charge the defendant as a fourth habitual felony offender exposing him to a mandatory life sentence without parole, probation, or suspension of sentence.

Cormier had previous felony convictions for felony carnal knowledge of a 12 year old girl in January 17, 2006, in Vermilion Parish; distribution of cocaine on December 1, 2008, in Vermilion Parish, and accessory after the fact to armed robbery on August 9, 2005, in Lafayette Parish.

The Honorable Durwood Conque will preside over sentencing after a pre-sentence investigation.