Last week a St. Tammany Parish jury deliberated less than an hour before finding 62 YO Pastor John Raymond of Slidell guilty of multiple crimes relating to two incidents at Lakeside Christian Academy in which Raymond claimed he was simply administering appropriate discipline to misbehaving students.
The jury returned guilty verdicts against Raymond on one count of second degree cruelty to juveniles and three counts of cruelty to juveniles.
District Attorney Collin Sims, along with Assistant District Attorney Christina Fisher, prosecuted the case. Judge John Keller presided over the six-day trial.
According to testimony during the trial, Raymond was the founder and headmaster of Lakeside Christian Academy in Slidell. Several witnesses referred to him as the school’s “disciplinarian” yet school administrators conceded they sometimes attempted to keep him out of the school’s disciplinary matters due to the excessive methods he employed. In March of 2022, the Slidell Police Department first became aware of such an incident at the school when multiple parents appeared in the station’s lobby upset about the manner in which Raymond had “reprimanded” their sons for speaking in class.
After investigating the incident, detectives with the Slidell Police Department arrested Raymond on three counts of cruelty to juveniles. Raymond’s arrest was widely covered by local news agencies which led several people to contact the Slidell Police Department and report another unsettling incident involving Raymond that had occurred five years earlier.
Judge Keller set Raymond’s sentencing for October 23rd. Second degree cruelty to juveniles carries a sentence of up to forty (40) years in prison and Cruelty to juveniles carries a sentence of up to ten (10) years in prison.
