The conviction and life sentence for a Lake Charles man who raped an 11-year-old in 2019 — and remained in hiding for a month after — will stand.

Allen Joseph Fontenot was found guilty of first-degree rape on April 8, 2022. He filed a motion for a new trial four days later, but the motion was denied. On July 15, 2022, he was sentenced to a mandatory term of life at hard labor without tbe benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence. A motion to reconsider that sentence was denied five days later.

In his filing with the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal, Fontenot said the prosecutor’s questions to witness Dr. Darrel Turner were “improper and exceeded the permissible bounds of his expert testimony,” claiming Turner never examined the victim or reviewed the notes of the sexual assault nurse examiner. He also claimed the trial court erred in failing to grant the defense counsel’s challenges for cause regarding two prospective jurors.

The appeals panel denied Fontenot’s initial claim, citing experts in child sexual abuse cases may testify regarding general characteristics that would explain delays in reporting, recantations and omission of details. The panel also noted Fontenot did not request an admonition or request a mistrial during Turner’s questioning.

As to the prospective jurors, the appeals panel cited the argument lacked any merit because Fontenot’s defense counsel exercised only eight of the 12 peremptory challenges it was given when selecting jurors “thus, we are not required to reach the issue of whether the trial judge erroneously denied the challenges for cause that are the subject of this assignment of error.”