Duo sentenced in woman’s death

Two of four men accused of killing of a Galliano woman nearly two years ago pled guilty to lesser charges of manslaughter and obstruction of justice on Friday, the Lafourche Parish District Attorney said.

Gonzalo Cortes, 22, and Esdras Garcia, 23, were each sentenced to consecutive 30-year prison terms at hard labor. Prior to the plea, Cortes faced a second-degree murder charge and Garcia was charged with first-degree murder.

District Judge Walter Lanier, III imposed the sentences.

As a result, Cortes and Garcia are eligible to testify in the state’s case against Jose Moreno and Luis Nava, both of whom are charged with second-degree murder of 33-year-old Angela Laudun and face life in prison, if convicted.

“They are going to give us their full cooperation at the trials of both Moreno and Nava,” Morvant said. “We expect that they’ll testify truthfully at the trials.”

Laudun’s partially clothed body was found just north of Golden Meadow off of La. Highway 3235 on May 8. The four Mexican nationals were arrested the next day after an investigation led to police to their residence at Quality Shipyard Bunkhouse, according to the arrest report.

When questioned, the men allegedly admitted to picking up Laudun from the Tequila Sunrise bar in Cut Off and bringing her to a house at 273 E. 23rd St., where they had worked on a remodeling project.

The men claimed they had each agreed to pay Laudun $30 to have sex with her, according to the arrest report. The men allegedly said that upon arriving to the house, they tried to have sex with her simultaneously, which she resisted.

The men allegedly admitted taping her mouth shut before she became unconscious, and the report states the men confessed to dropping her body in a wooded area off of Highway 3235.

The arrest report states that a Spanish-speaking interpreter was available when the men were approached for questioning and during questioning at the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office Galliano substation.

Garcia, one of the defendants who reached a plea deal, allegedly admitted that all four males “raped Angela and choked her,” according to the arrest report.

A grand jury indicted the men on charges of aggravated rape and first-degree murder. District Attorney Cam Morvant II initially said the state would pursue the death penalty, but later the charges were amended to second-degree murder in the cases against Cortes, Garcia and Nava.

The charge against Garcia remained first-degree murder and aggravated rape. Morvant said Garcia’s case was not presented to the grand jury for an amended charge because Garcia had cooperated with investigators from the beginning.

“Garcia had cooperated with us early on, so his charges had remained the same because we were going to at some point, like we did Friday, amend the charges,”

Morvant said.

The DA said he could not disclose whether or not a similar plea deal had been offered to Moreno and Nava because “it would not be fair to the other side.”

The state contends that all four defendants were involved in Laudun’s death and participated in disposing her body and evidence afterward.

Morvant said he has been in contact with Laudun’s family since she was killed and indicated that they approved of the case’s latest development. “Without the family’s involvement, we would not have gone forward with the plea,” Morvant said.