Lisa Ripp

Few people were interested in hearing another hood-rat junkie’s tale about a john that got too rough. “That wasn’t my story,” Lisa said. “I didn’t come up on the streets.” But she ended up there. A skinny, trick-turning addict.

Lisa grew up with an alcoholic mother, introduced to chaos at an early age. But she fought it. She went to a Christian boarding school at age 13 and stayed until she was 17. She even went to Canada as a missionary. But when she came back home in her senior year, her mother was even worse.

Lisa did her best to help, but she was eventually dragged down by the instability that defined those formative years. “It got so bad I just joined her. “I drank with her and then began to leave her.”

Lisa started using X and acid. The summer after her senior year, she made her way to El Paso with some friends and drank. “I was fine and 18,” Lisa said. “It was alcohol. Lots of it.”

Things started to look a little cleaner and brighter in 1989, when she was just 19 years old. She met a man with a great family, and they got married. They even had one daughter. He didn’t Lisa grew up with an alcoholic mother, introduced to chaos at an early age. But she fought it. She went to a Christian boarding school at age 13 and stayed until she was 17.

drink, so she didn’t drink. She so badly wanted to be part of his family, so she totally straightened up.

Lisa moved in with him on October 20, 1989. By Thanksgiving she had her first broken nose. Disillusioned and faced with the choice of an abusive husband or an out-of-control mother, Lisa was heartbroken. “I guess his fist didn’t hurt as bad as her words, so I stayed,” Lisa said. “He was just beating me all the time.”

Eventually she had enough and asked for a divorce. He refused unless she gave him custody of their daughter, and he even threatened to kill her. Scared, she signed custody over to his parents. Lisa said that act was the catalyst that created the hole she kept trying to fill afterwards with the drinking and drugs. She said, “She was the only bright spot in my life.”

Here, the story becomes one of prostitution and relationships with offshore men on a timeline obscured by substance abuse.

“I can remember it being Tuesday and then not realizing it’s like the following Thursday and not even having any idea of what had happened or where I’d been,” Lisa said. That’s because the relationships she had

at that time with men of various offshore professions--helicopter pilots, shrimpers--were founded mostly on the abuse of cocaine. “I wouldn’t pass out,” Lisa said. “I could drink all I want, and then I could do a line and it would wake me up, and I could continue on for days and days at a time.” And continue she did until she ran out of money and drugs.

She heard from friends that men who call for prostitutes usually have drugs. “You’re out screwing around anyway and partying with guys,” Lisa said. “Why not be able to party with the guys, get all the drugs and get cash on top of that?” That logic guided her decision to enter the world of prostitution, which ultimately led to the most excruciating ordeal she’d ever have to face.

Sinking deeper into addiction, Lisa started pocketing the money she was making instead of giving it to her pimps. Eventually, that made it impossible for her to work for anyone, and she got skinny and worn down. She began working for herself on the street to support her habit. Twenty dollars was her goal. “With 20 or 30 dollars, I could buy a $20 rock, a pack of cigarettes and a pint of vodka, and that would settle me for four or five hours, Lisa said.

“I can remember coming off of Tulane, and a lot of the people out there would know I’d usually have a few dollars on me,” she said. “I would literally take a beating in the street and not let that $25 go because I did not just go do what I just did for someone to take the money from me.”

It became common for drug dealers to make her eat before they sold to her because she looked so malnourished, so she didn’t think anything of it when Richard LeBeau invited her to his home. Despite warnings from another girl, she went with LeBeau. She wasn’t afraid. “He seemed just as normal as anybody else,” Lisa said. But when they got to his home, he locked the door behind her and told her she wasn’t going anywhere. “The whole expression on his face totally changed,” she said. “It was absolutely eerie.”

What follows is an 18-hour nightmare as LeBeau forced her to perform oral sex on him for what seemed like hours. She did everything from offer him money to free sexual acts on another day to just get out of there, but he wouldn’t let her go. She wracked her brain for something to say--she claimed to have once been a man; she told him she had AIDS… to no avail.

LeBeau had erectile dysfunction throughout the ordeal, so he resorted to using a plunger handle most of the time. When she screamed, he broke her jaw. He allowed her to use the bathroom, and while in there, she picked the screen off the window. When she left the bathroom, she noticed an Entergy bill with LeBeau’s name on it. She committed it to memory.

“Nobody cares about you,” he said. “Nobody’s going to even look for you. But I’m going to make sure. I’m going to cut you up and spread you all over town. “I’m going to put you out with the morning trash.”

LeBeau was a janitor at a New Orleans public school. When he started sodomizing her, she realized she couldn’t take it anymore. It was either get out or die, but no more pain. She went to the bathroom and stood on the sink to climb out the window. The sink collapsed, and she fell to the ground, sure that LeBeau would barge in. But he just made a fuss from outside the door. She still needed a way out. She noticed the plunger on the floor. She used it, (the thing that had caused her so much pain and degradation), to prop up the sink and climb through the window.

The triumph of escape was overshadowed by the humiliation Lisa faced running down the street bare and alone. People simply passed her by, chalking it up to the eccentricities of another crazed street-dweller.

Eventually, a woman on the way to a

local Laundromat stopped to give her a dress to cover up with. The people at the Laundromat let her in and called the police. Then LeBeau came around the corner. Lisa identified him, worried she was in danger, but the man at the Laundromat pointed to a shotgun and assured her that LeBeau would not come inside.

When the police arrived, Lisa gave them LeBeau’s name, fighting through the pain to speak with a broken jaw. “I remember telling them that, you know, you play in the street, you get hit by a car,” Lisa said. She was taken to the hospital, where the doctors examined her and did a rape kit. Her brain was bleeding, and her jaw was broken. The doctors wired her jaw shut and sent her on her way.

“There was no place for me to go but back on the street,” Lisa said. As she was walking two days later, a car pulled up, and Lisa decided to see if she could get any sympathy money. The man offered her $20 “just to touch it.” She agreed. After all, she needed to get high. But the man was with the NOPD. It was a crime against nature sting. Oral sex is classified as a crime against nature, which at the time of her arrest was a felony, while soliciting prostitution was only a misdemeanor. Lisa was arrested just two days after her rape for crimes against nature, even though her jaw was wired shut, making her completely incapable of performing such an act.

In jail, she was subject to more ridicule. Inmates called her “raccoon bitch,” because of her black eyes. “Even deputies were laughing at me,” Lisa said.

Lisa bonded out and immediately went out to score. She cut the wires out of her mouth by herself and got high. She was diving head-first back into the mess that nearly got her killed. But then her mother passed away, and Lisa did something she hadn’t in 15 years. She prayed. It wasn’t enough to pull her from the depths yet, but she says it was a step in the right direction.

Soon she was out to score again, despite the surge of faith she had felt. “I just wanted to die that day,” Lisa said. “I was going to put myself in a situation to either overdose or get killed.” She wrote a note that said, “When you find my body, call Charlie Cummings, my dad. Here’s his phone number. “Dad, I’m sorry.”

But before she could do any harm to herself, she was approached by two officers and arrested for outstanding warrants. To this day, she credits the officers with saving her life. Lisa’s road to recovery began while she was serving a 3-year sentence for the crime against nature and cocaine residue. During that time, she read a Recovery Bible, front to back, many times over. She made a commitment to live for Christ and used her time in prison to get clean. She was almost released early a few times. But she was sent back on technicalities. She believes she needed more time to truly better herself.

When she got out, she had to register as a sex offender and send out cards to all her neighbors, so she began contacting the D.A.’s office regularly. That’s how she found out that LeBeau had been let go. The reason? The D.A.’s office “couldn’t find the witness.” She wouldn’t have been hard to find at the time. She was in prison. “To say that they’re not going to go forward because they can’t find the witness is just bologna,” She said. “They had enough to prosecute LeBeau when they had him, and they just chose not to do it.”

After more battles with alcohol and jail, Lisa re-married and had two children. She began focusing on rebuilding her life and enjoying her family. All was well until one day she pulled up the inmate locator for the state and saw LaBeau’s face, after many years of expecting to hear about him. She just knew he was going to rape, and possibly, kill again. There he was being charged and convicted for the same thing. She too pursued justice and he was convicted as well for the 19-hour ordeal he put her through.

“The judge that saved my life, that had the wisdom to put me in jail,” Lisa said, “was the same one that would give me justice 11 years later.” Eleven years. Eleven years spent waiting on someone to listen. In that time, Lisa’s attacker was able to hurt another woman. “Would they have done something differently if I were an Old Metairie housewife?” Lisa ponders. “I have to believe that because of this, a lot of good things are happening now.

Lisa has spent many years improving the judicial protocols as they pertain to assisting victims pursuing justice. One way is through Lisa’s Rooms, comfortable areas which are set aside for witnesses and victims. She noticed that the rooms where they waited were cold, bare and unfriendly. When a child or other hurt person entered to await a court appearance, the surroundings made them feel intimidated and inhibited. The courts have allowed her to furnish rooms designated just for them, with toys and stuffed animals for children, and other amenities for adult victims. These efforts have proven to yield a higher conviction rate in the districts she has furnished and set up.

Lisa Ripp makes as different in the lives of so many people, using her trials as a means of pulling others up for the pit of addiction and abuse. Stories like hers are not uncommon, and that’s why Lisa now puts her time toward helping girls who find themselves in similar situations. She understands how easy it is to let your environment tear you down to nothing.

Lisa Ripp’s story can be heard on a previous episode of New Beginnings Radio co-hosted by Ministers Kolean W. Sanders and Sheldon Gooch https://bbsradio.com/podcast/newbeginnings-january-25-2020

Written by Sheldon Gooch September 2020