Daye drug charge dismissed

An assistant to the state attorney general filed paperwork dismissing a drug charge against a New  Iberia man who will now stand trial for second-degree murder in the death of local barber Cliff Williams.

Anthony Daye, 36, who was serving time in Angola Penitentiary as a repeat offender, had the marijuana possession conviction that sent him to prison for life overturned in December. The conviction was thrown out after the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Unit officers who arrested him in 2012 pleaded guilty to various federal charges as part of the federal prosecution against Sheriff Louis Ackal.

On Monday, state Assistant Attorney General Clifford Strider III filed a motion in 16th Judicial District Court under Act 631 to dismiss the second offense possession of marijuana charge against Daye, which ended the state’s prosecution of the case.

During Ackal’s trial, Daye testified for the defense, saying the sheriff was not present when Narcotics Unit officers beat him in the jail’s chapel. Daye also testified at the trial that the 2012 arrest which earned him multiple offender status and a life sentence at Angola was a frame-up, with Narcotics Unit officers “dropping” marijuana during a search of Daye’s girlfriend’s house.

Daye also figured prominently in the indictments against Ackal. He is the inmate, identified in court documents as A.D., who said in his civil suit against the IPSO he was beaten and that Ackal told a canine handler to use a police dog to menace him while in the Iberia Parish Jail’s chapel. Those claims were later borne out in plea agreements that nine IPSO Narcotics Unit officers accepted during the course of Ackal’s prosecution.

Daye was sent from Angola Penitentiary back to the Iberia Parish Jail where he is still awaiting trial on second-degree murder charge in the 2010 death of Williams.

Ackal was acquitted in November on federal civil rights, obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges after nine of his former deputies, along with his former chief deputy, admitted to an array of lawless acts, including beating inmates and lying under oath in the investigations that followed the beatings in the IPJ chapel.

Seven of those deputies were sentenced Tuesday, including four who were involved in Daye’s 2011 beating, with punishment varying from six months to four and a half years. Daye made a statement at the opening of the sentencing hearing, basically saying he had nothing new to add to his testimony from the Ackal trial.

According to his lawyer, Richard Spears of New Iberia, Daye may be back in court by August on the murder charge.