Misty Roberts, 43, walked out of a Louisiana prison Monday after serving just 90 days for the rape of a 16-year-old boy at her home.
The former mayor of DeRidder, a town of roughly 9,800 in Beauregard Parish, had been freed a week after Judge Kent Savoie rejected prosecutors’ request to reconsider what locals have blasted as an extraordinarily light punishment. The Beauregard Parish District Attorney’s Office, which had pursued the maximum 17-year sentence, formally asked Savoie to revisit his ruling on Aug. 31. He refused.
“A slap on the wrist for a child predator, because at the end of the day, that is exactly what it is,” DeRidder native Kari McGee told KALB in June after the sentence came down.
“When it comes to children, we should use the fullest extent of the law,” she added.
Roberts, a mother of two, was convicted by jury in June of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and indecent behavior with a juvenile. Savoie handed her 90 days incarceration, a $5,000 fine, and two five-year suspended sentences.
The victim’s mother delivered a blistering statement in court, directly confronting Roberts about the July 2024 pool party that preceded the assault.
“You thought so much of yourself in that bikini that night, you knew exactly what you were doing with his mind. He was 16,” the mother said. “What hurt almost as much as the initial betrayal was the attempt to shift the blame onto a 16-year-old boy from a 42-year-old woman.”
Witness testimony and court documents established that Roberts, wearing an orange bikini, openly flirted with the intoxicated teen at the gathering before luring him to a “bonus room” in her home, where she stripped and had sex with him.
The assault was witnessed by Roberts’ own children. Her teenage son snapped a photo showing the victim on top of his mother and told jurors in a recorded interview that he had watched the act through a crack in a window. Her daughter testified that she saw Roberts and the teen “on top of each other.”
Jill Weaver, Roberts’ best friend and former sister-in-law, took the stand and recounted overhearing Roberts’ son screaming after the encounter that his mom “effed” his “best friend.”
The morning after the party, a DoorDash driver delivered Plan B emergency contraception to Roberts’ residence. Frantic text messages shown in court captured the victim’s mother questioning Roberts about whether she could become pregnant from the assault.
Roberts had won election as DeRidder’s mayor in 2018. She resigned from office just days before her arrest in 2024.
The case has drawn sustained outrage from residents who have questioned whether Roberts received favorable treatment because of her former position. The 90-day term stood in sharp contrast to the nearly two decades prosecutors had sought.