State drops charges in 2nd Street invasion case

Courthouse sources asserted months ago that Dwight Hampton would never be tried on charges related to the 2010 armed invasion of a South 2nd Street home. They were right.
Pre-trial motions were due to be heard in Judge James Doherty’s court last Wednesday.
Only one was made. The state moved to dismiss the four-year-old case based on communication with law enforcement.
Hampton was charged with aggravated battery, aggravated assault and criminal damage after he allegedly broke into the house.
Police theorized the bandit thought the house was empty.
Instead, a woman was asleep and was awakened by the noise and began screaming when she discovered the interloper, who waved a pistol at her, then fled.
The suspect evaded a police dragnet. Hampton was subsequently arrested in Houston, Texas.
The state’s case evidently was shaken from the outset, the sources said.
Hampton, who has a record of other arrests in both St. Landry and Evangeline Parishes, was brought to trial in January 2013.
But the trial ended as quickly as it started when the state moved for a mistrial the day after jury selection, telling Doherty that Eunice Police Sgt. A.J. Frank had violated rules of the court.
Parties could not comment regarding the dismissal.
Other sources said Frank had gone to Hampton’s aunt’s house to discuss her testimony.
She apparently told the court that she wasn’t changing her story -- that she had told investigators Hampton was out of town on the day of the invasion.
Trial was re-set for September 2013, then February 2014, then June 2014, with sources saying the re-settings were delaying the inevitable dismissal.