NEW ORLEANS — Lynell Reynolds was weeks, if not days, from being released early from a juvenile halfway house last year following his guilty plea and juvenile life sentence for shooting and paralyzing a man during a failed armed robbery.
Then he escaped, walking away from a so-called “juvenile step-down” facility in Calcasieu Parish.
Reynolds, 19, will now serve until at least age 25 after being sentenced to five years in prison Monday following his guilty plea to simple escape, according to the Calcasieu Parish Clerk of Court’s office.
In adult court, because he was 18 at the time of his escape, Reynolds was given the maximum sentence on top of the juvenile life sentence he was already serving. With a judge ordering the terms to be served consecutively, the earliest Reynolds could be freed is after he turns 25.
Reynolds had been preparing for an early and imminent release when he snuck out of La Maison De Grace in Lake Charles. Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice officials set off a firestorm when they were slow to notify authorities or Reynolds’ victim, saying he was considered a “runaway” rather than an escapee.
Reynolds was the subject of a three-week manhunt involving the U.S. Marshals Service before he was captured in San Antonio.
Angela Filardo, 32, a former teacher of Reynolds who police say drove him to Texas, was booked with accessory to simple escape. Filardo is now facing those charges in both Orleans and Calcasieu parishes.
Reynolds was 13 when he shot then-20-year-old Darrelle Scott, paralyzing him from the waist down. Orleans Parish Juvenile Court Judge Candice Bates Anderson sentenced Reynolds to juvenile life, but gave him the opportunity for early release after he made rehabilitation milestones in state detention.
Scott and his family initially advocated for Reynolds, who suffered his own profound trauma with his mother and two siblings being lost to gun violence. But two previous escapes and a poor disciplinary record by
Reynolds led to a change of heart by Scott and his family and they began protesting against his early release.
Anderson, who granted Reynolds the sentencing break despite the family’s vehement objections, gave Reynolds a blistering rebuke when she re-sentenced him last year.
“We gave you every opportunity,” Anderson told Reynolds. “Everybody said, ‘You’re a child. A child can change. A child can do better.’ So we waited until you were 17. And this is what you do? Put this victim and this family in fear? Put this city in fear?”
Filardo is scheduled for trial in New Orleans on Oct. 28.
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