Hello Everyone,
Its been a while since I've posted here but have always gotten great advice and opinions so here I am again to hopefully get some ideas or advice. I know enough about certain aspects of law to have done fairly well for myself in small claims court and successfully defending myself in Federal Court at The United States District Court , Western District of Louisiana, Lafayette Division (Case #CV04-0179) and dismissed with prejudice with no money awarded to the Plaintiff.
I live in a small and quite town in Broussard and just bought a very nice $350,000 home in a nice subdivision. Here is what I’m looking into now. A few weeks ago while I was out of town on a business trip my house was broken into via the back door with a crowbar at 0048 hours in the morning of October 14th. Both of my vehicles were parked at my home as I flew out of town for this trip. These criminals knew I wasn’t home as they were tipped off by the only person who knew I was out of town. The thugs ran through my house with security alarms blaring, grabbed a handgun valued a about $983 and then kicked in my master bedroom closet door stealing about $1200 in cash and quickly fled. The only thing they left behind for evidence was a “blue crowbar” by the back door with a “grinded mark” put there for identification. Although only about $2,200 in articles were take and about $500 in damage done to my home. The most disturbing is to know criminals invaded my home, my private space and sanctuary. Now I have trouble sleeping and have a lot of anger and stress over what they did.
I have given the local police the names of the suspects and all contact information for them along with motive and how they did it. Unfortunately these 2 criminals are my nephews who both have records and have been in trouble with the law their entire life. They are my brother’s sons. I am not getting much help from the detective on this case because although they believe that these suspects committed the crime, they say they don’t have enough evidence yet to prosecute but I think I have enough circumstantial evidence to sue these thugs civilly. One thing is that my brother at first hearing about this burglary and the crowbar used claimed he has a blue crowbar with a grinded mark on it and that he saw his sons loading it in their car among other tools for a “job” they had to do. These two thugs left their house at 2400 hours on October 13th and didn’t return until two hours later at 0200 hours on October 14th and they no longer had the crowbar. My house was burglarized at 0048 house on October 14th or approximately 50 minutes after they left their house. A girlfriend I know that lives next door to them ran out and warned them that I was sending cops to question them and they jumped in their car to take off but also looked at the girl and said “you ratted us out huh bitch” then they sped away and hid for days. I have a voice mail that I gave to the police from my brother describing the blue crowbar but once he found out I was going to press charges, he denied the crowbar was his. These thugs have stolen from many people in the family and one is currently in jail for stabbing someone last week and will eventually hurt someone seriously. I have a lot of other circumstantial evidence and once I can subpoena phone records and other documents, I know I can win this case. I also have more circumstantial evidence but I’m trying to shorten this up. I will have a preponderance of evidence that they more likely conspired, planned and executed this crime.
My question is if I want to pursue this civilly, would it be better to do it in Louisiana State Court or in District Court. I own several Law Books such as the complete volume of Louisiana Civil Code, Louisiana Civil Code of Procedure, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Rules of The District Court. Also if anyone can point me to some of the LA articles that I may utilize to pursue a cause of action under and that relief be granted under such, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance to any and all advice !!!
