A former mayor of Louisiana who is being accused of sexually assaulting a child while she was in office says she is not guilty.
Misty Police in the Pelican State say that 42-year-old Dawn Clanton Roberts is charged with one count of rape in the third degree and one count of contributing to the delinquency of minors.
The suspect was caught by Louisiana State Police and taken to the Beauregard Parish Sheriff’s Office on Thursday to be booked.
Roberts quit his job as mayor of DeRidder, a small town about 50 miles north of Lake Charles, unofficially on July 27. She was in the middle of her second term as mayor of the town. In 2022, she won reelection with 60% of the vote.
According to Louisiana state election law, the secretary of state needs to receive a letter that has been signed and notarized in order to officially process a resignation. As of late last week, city officials told the Lake Charles-based daily American Press that this had not happened.
It was quite a shock when the mayor quit in the middle of the term.
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Roberts wrote a pretty harmless letter to the city council on July 25 telling them she would be “out of the city” for two weeks. She then put DeRidder Fire Chief Ken Harlow in charge as acting mayor.
But once the departure letter was sent, rumors spread all over the bayous.
It is said that city council members were the first ones to get calls about the stories, but they wouldn’t say what they were about. After that, they got together with the city attorney. Next, a special meeting of the council was called to talk about whether to start a probe into the mayor. When lawmakers found out that police were already questioning Roberts, they decided not to go ahead with their plan.
The Louisiana State Police are looking into the former mayor on July 31. Still, there were no details.
The agency put out a press statement on Thursday after the former mayor turned herself in to police “without incident.”
It came out that on July 26, the Beauregard Parish Sheriff’s Office asked the Louisiana State Police Special Victim’s Unit to look into a report against Roberts for allegedly having sex with a child.
In the news release, state police said, “As the investigation went on, LSP SVU interviewed two juveniles, one of whom was the victim.” “Both of the teens admitted that Roberts had a sexual encounter with one of them while he was Mayor.” The Beauregard Parish 36th Judicial District Court issued an arrest warrant for Roberts, which was picked up by the police.
For her part, Roberts strongly denied the accusations in a statement made by her lawyer Adam Johnson and given to Baton Rouge-based CBS affiliate WAFB.
“My client found out about the warrant late last night, even though investigators hadn’t asked to talk to them before getting the warrant,” the statement says. “My client says she is innocent, and according to the facts, she is.” She hasn’t been charged with or found guilty of any crime. And we hope that people will honor her constitutional right to be presumed innocent, which is a key part of our justice system. Misty and her family are thankful for the help they’ve gotten from their friends and neighbors, and they can’t wait to get this bad situation over with.
Jail records show that Roberts was freed after making a $75,000 bond.
For more information on this story, Law&Crime asked both Johnson’s office and the Beauregard Parish Sheriff’s Office, but as of the time of publishing, they had not responded.