One of our guys was coming from Lafayette down to Venice for his hitch. It was about 3:30 am and he was in New Orleans on the elevated part by the Superdome to cross over the bridge to the West Bank when a naked, badly beaten woman ran out in front of him and he stopped. She was incoherent, yelling and pretty much gone crazy saying a black man had robbed her, beat her and raped her then dumped her out on the road to please help her.
He took her and went down to the Saint Charles exit and found a police cruiser. She told them that he had raped her. They arrested him and booked him in jail in New Orleans. Of course he was a no show at the heliport.
I got a call about noon time from him, in jail, trying to explain what happened. Our company lawyers were in New Orleans and I called them to go see what they could do.
Two lady cops later that evening at the hospital got the woman to tell them what really happened. The lawyer got him out and drove him down to Venice. His truck was impounded.
I told the poor bastard to take a company car and go home and settle his business and he did.
When he came back to work 2 weeks later he caught hell from the guys. If they paged him on the PA system they’d ask, “would the rapist please pick up” or “ladies’ man, pick up “.
No good deed goes unpunished.
