NEW ORLEANS – The U.S. Marshals Service captured a fugitive convicted sex offender today in the French Quarter.
Ray Lester Colbert has been on the run since 2015 for failing to register as a sex offender in Jefferson Parish.
Colbert was profiled in the annual Operation Boo-Dat Halloween roundup of sex offenders, but he managed to remain in hiding throughout the operation, even as several of his family members were arrested for assisting him, according to the U.S. Marshals Task Force.
Colbert was found in the 1000 block of St. Philip Street living with a relative after a tip led investigators to the location.
He was arrested and booked for the outstanding Jefferson Parish warrant for failure to register as a sex offender, an additional charge of failing to register in Orleans Parish, and he was also charged with unlawful presence of a convicted sex offender since the home he lived in was near a preschool and middle school, according to the U.S. Marshal Task Force.