Boudreaux's mother asks for support

Jean Smith will do anything she can to defend her son, Ray Boudreaux, who was found guilty of attempted manslaughter and aggravated battery for stabbing five people in New Orleans on Bourbon Street.

Smith, a teacher at Abbeville High, asks residents of Vermilion Parish to travel to New Orleans on July 22 for sentencing. He is out of jail until the sentencing.

Boudreaux, an Abbeville High graduate, who was on a football scholarship to Tulane, could be sentenced to 70 years.

“I want to fill the courtroom with people from the community showing support for my son,” Smith said. “I am calling for help. I am calling on the community.”

The sentencing will be held in the Orleans Parish Criminal Courthouse located at the corner of Tulane and South Broad Streets. Smith suggest that everyone meet at 8:30 a.m. in the courthouse front office.

Smith wants everyone to wear purple in support of Ray. Also, there is a website, justiceforray@yahoo.com that is being created in order to contact Ray Boudreaux’s family members with support.

When the verdict was announced on June 22, 2008, Ray cried.

“He was devastated,” said Smith. “I don’t think I could put it into words.”

She said her son is being portrayed nationwide as a violent, criminal offender. Smith said her son was defending himself when it happened.

Boudreaux, 23, was caught on videotape during the tail-end of the brawl that erupted after several patrons had left the club. In the much-played tape before the trial, Boudreaux can be seen trudging towards a victim and slashing at him with an object that prosecutors say is a knife.

Prosecutors Rachel Africk and Alvin Johnson argued that the videotape makes their case, and that the four eyewitnesses who identified Boudreaux as the sole culprit only bolsters the state’s evidence.

The defense presented an alternative videotape of the brawl that shows several men in white T-shirts, presumably the alleged victims, teaming up to stomp and slug an unarmed member of Boudreaux’s party that night.

“What I’m doing as his mom is taking a stand and coming forward. There has to be two sides of the story. For the type of person my son is, that in a matter of minutes to be that type of person he’s been portrayed, is without reason,” said Smith.