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VIDALIA, La. — A former employee of Noah’s Ark Daycare who pleaded guilty to six felony counts of cruelty to juveniles in 2022 was resentenced last week after Louisiana Court of Appeal Third Circuit Judge Kent Savoie ordered her previous sentences be vacated.

Julieanne Perales was one of the four daycare workers — including the owner Lysa Richardson — sentenced in the case that closed the Vidalia Noah’s Ark Daycare.

The defense argued that Perales’s previous attorney Kevin Colbert had a conflict of interest and rendered incorrect advice to Perales that led her to enter a plea that she wouldn’t have made otherwise.

While the appellate court affirmed Perales’s convictions, the court did find because of an error in wording, the “sentences are indeterminate and, as such, they must be vacated and the case remanded to the trial court for resentencing.”

By court transcript, it is clear that Seventh Judicial Circuit Division A Judge Kathy Johnson had intended to sentence Perales to a total of nine years for the six counts of cruelty to juveniles, but Johnson had ordered three years on each count and that three of the six counts run concurrent with each other and the remaining three run consecutive. This would’ve made the total sentence 12 years and not nine.

To correct this at re-sentencing, Johnson instead ordered one and one-half years of hard labor on each of the six counts to run consecutively, still making it a sentence of nine years total.

Johnson sentenced Perales again on Wednesday, July 17.

Perales was first served with 11 counts of cruelty to juveniles on Feb. 23, 2022, which stemmed from an October 2021 investigation by Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office of a 14-month-old child who was struck at the daycare.

The case was later turned over to Louisiana State Police because of a conflict of interest as Concordia Parish Sheriff David Hedrick said his son attended the daycare.

Officials seized surveillance footage that revealed more than 80 instances of abuse at the center. Footage of children being slapped, kicked and hit with wooden paint sticks and being dragged by the hair and arms was shown to the courtroom during the sentencing hearings.

On June 22, 2022, Perales pleaded guilty to six counts. She was sentenced along with Richardson and Bridget Delaughter on Sept. 7. Another former daycare employee Taylor Ragonesi, who at the time was 23 weeks pregnant and suffering from severe Crohn’s Disease, was not sentenced to jail time but instead sentenced to three years of probation and anger management classes.

After sentencing, Perales with her new attorney filed a motion to withdraw her guilty plea and set aside sentencing. She claimed that she would not have pleaded guilty to the charges had she not been promised that she would receive a probated sentence because she had recently given birth to her son and wanted to avoid jail time.

Colbert and Assistant District Attorney Austin Lipsey both testified that no such promises were made, court records show.

Perales further alleged that Colbert did not advise her of any conflict of representation because he was also serving as the attorney for two of her codefendants.

When denying Perales’s motion to withdraw her guilty plea, Johnson said her claims were “a bunch of baloney” and “she’s grasping for straws.”

Savoie ruled that Perales’s previous sentences be vacated and remanded her case to the trial court for re-sentencing.