FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 20, 2016
COVINGTON—A 23-year-old Mandeville man is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 1 for raping a then 18-year-old woman last year after she became intoxicated in his home. A St. Tammany Parish jury found Terry J. Ducote guilty Thursday (July 14) of simple rape by intoxicating agent.
Ducote faces up to 25 years when District Judge Allison Penzato sentences him.
Ducote knew the victim, who was feeling down about personal issues, when the two smoked marijuana together on June 28, 2015. Ducote also gave a bottle of Vodka to the victim, who rarely drank. When she became so intoxicated that she could not move, Ducote raped her, despite her pleas for him to stop.
The next morning, the victim confided via a text message to her sister that she had been raped. The sister notified their father, who took the victim to the hospital and contacted the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office.
The jury rejected Ducote’s claims that the victim initiated the act. Among the evidence presented by Assistant District Attorneys Jay Adair and Casey Dieck were text messages to the victim from Ducote, who apologized profusely, stating the incident “never should have happened,” and blamed it on his own intoxication.