NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – Former New Orleans police captain Billy Ceravolo has hired a defense attorney. Tanya Picou Faia enrolled as his lawyer Friday.
Faia told WGNO outside the courthouse that she has good faith security video will show her client’s whereabouts the night Will Smith was shot, and she is not expecting any criminal allegations against him.
In court, Faia requested security footage from the Windsor Court Hotel on April 9 from 11:20 p.m. to 11:45 p.m.
That motion was denied. It’s also the first time the Windsor Court Hotel has been brought up during this case.
Ceravolo was seen in Facebook photos with Will Smith at Sake Cafe shortly before the deadly shooting on April 9 and was later seen on the scene where Smith was shot and killed, according to witnesses.
Ceravolo has a connection to the gunman. Cardell Hayes has been booked with second-degree murder in Smith’s death. Ceravolo was one of the NOPD officers tied to the case in the death of Anthony Hayes, Cardell’s father.
Attorneys close to that case say a lawsuit was recently settled for a “large” sum of money. Anthony Hayes was shot and killed by police in December 2005.
Cardell Hayes’s attorney John Fuller has said he plans on serving Ceravolo a subpoena, which means Ceravolo would testify at Hayes’s preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday, April 28 at 10 a.m.
Earlier this week, the NOPD announced that they had removed Ceravolo from their reserves division.
Cardell Hayes has not been indicted yet. The District Attorney’s Office has 120 days after Cardell Hayes’s arrest to obtain an indictment. WGNO Legal Analyst Craig Mordock details what all of these developments mean in the video above.
