Ex-mayor Misty Roberts released from prison after serving 90-day sentence for sex with teenager at pool party
Former mayor Misty Roberts has been released from prison after serving 90 days in jail as part of a suspended 10-year sentence for having sex with a 16-year-old boy at a pool party.
Roberts, 44, was freed on Monday after a judge last week rejected prosecutors’ request for a harsher sentence.
As part of the sentence, she was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, $300 in prosecution costs and must stay away from the victim and his family.
Roberts, who was elected as the first female mayor of DeRidder in 2018, was found guilty in March of indecent behavior and carnal knowledge of a minor.
Her roughly three-month sentence was met with outrage by locals, who expected more serious consequences.
‘When it comes to children, we should use the fullest extent of the law. There are no excuses when it comes to our children,’ DeRidder resident Kari McGee told KALB.
The Tier 1 registered sex offender was given a week-long trial where a court heard how Roberts threw a wild 2024 pool party where she drank heavily, stripped into a skimpy orange bikini and pounced on her son’s best friend.
The disgraced mayor was busted by her own teenage kids who peered through a crack in a window and caught a glimpse of the ‘lewd and lascivious’ romp.
Misty Roberts, 44, the former mayor of DeRidder, Louisiana, was released from prison after 90 days. Roberts is pictured arriving to court to court in June before she was sentenced
Roberts was found guilty of indecent behavior and carnal knowledge of a minor in March
Defense attorney Adam Johnson admitted a snatched photo of Roberts straddling the 16-year-old victim was a ‘real bad look’ but said there was no proof of a sex crime.
However, jurors took less than an hour to convict the blonde divorcee of violating the teen boy, who told the court: ‘While it was happening, I couldn’t feel my body.’
Roberts was elected the first female mayor of DeRidder, population 9,800, in 2018 and won a second term in 2022.
She was still in office when she hosted the July 20, 2024 birthday party that led to her downfall.
Prosecutors said Roberts supplied alcohol, behaved flirtatiously with her son’s friend and later led him to a spare room, where the encounter took place.
Another child took a photo on a cell phone.
‘A lewd and lascivious picture is worth a thousand words, and that was what was uncovered,’ prosecutor Charles Robinson told jurors.
Roberts is seen alongside her estranged husband Duncan Clanton and two kids
During the trial, Roberts’, who was elected as the first female mayor of DeRidder in 2018, son testified after his mom was caught in bed with one of his friends
Roberts resigned days before her August 2024 arrest.
Her attorney blamed the ex-mayor’s behavior on her 2022 divorce and alcohol abuse.
‘It would not have happened without alcohol,’ Johnson said. ‘Trying to be the cool parent in a divorce is stupid.’
Their two children have lived with ex-husband Duncan Clanton since December 2024, according to court filings.
Last November, Roberts’s brother Brandon Lee Roberts, 40, was sentenced to 32 years in prison for raping two young women, one of whom was 13 when the abuse began.
