By Kristin Askelson
The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.
NEW ORLEANS — A Rayne man was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for threatening a former romantic partner using a contraband cellphone, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana .
Raylin Richard, 46, was sentenced Aug. 6 for interstate communication with a threat to injure. The sentence will be served consecutively to a 17-year federal sentence Richard is already serving for a prior child exploitation offense.
According to court documents, Richard’s previous conviction involved secretly recording a 12-year-old who was connected to his former romantic partner. After that conviction, the woman obtained a lifetime protective order against Richard and moved to another state.
While serving his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Oakdale, authorities discovered that Richard was using a contraband cellphone to send threatening messages to the woman through social media.
The messages included threats and photographs of the woman’s new residence, authorities said.
A forensic examination of the cellphone confirmed Richard had accessed the accounts used to send the messages, according to court documents.
Investigators also found messages between Richard and a former cellmate that indicated Richard’s anger toward the woman and corroborated his involvement in the threatening communications. Richard threatened to harm the woman if she reported him to police again, according to court documents.
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