PAROLE PROJECT - Key Persons
Aaron Hauser was 17 years old when he was sent to prison with a life sentence. After 38 years, he was given a second chance when the Parole Board granted his release in March 2021. Aaron learned early on that he could either let his circumstances destroy him or commit himself to be the best person he can be.
A former Parole Project client, Aaron worked in warehouse logistics and distribution before joining the organization in early 2022. "Parole Project was instrumental in my reentry into society after so many years," he said. "I knew nothing about how to use a cell phone or the internet. Joining them now is a way to give back to the very organization which helped me so much when I needed help."
As a reentry specialist, Aaron now guides clients through the maze of tasks and obstacles they face when returning home, using the tools and resources he gained from the program and experience to help them navigate a world vastly different from the one they left decades ago.
Adreaynne Hutchison is a Staff Attorney for the Louisiana Parole Project, primarily focusing on parole and clemency hearings. She is also the supervising attorney to the Parole and Reentry Clinic at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center.
Andrew carries many titles: husband, father, college graduate, advocate, and nonprofit leader. But it was not that long ago when he carried the label "juvenile lifer."
In June 2016, Andrew became the first juvenile lifer in Louisiana to be paroled following the U.S. Supreme Court's Miller and Montgomery decisions that prohibited the mandatory sentencing of children to life without parole. It was clear that he was not the same 15-year-old who went to prison in 1997. While incarcerated Andrew completed numerous programs and college courses, served as a leader in multiple prisoner organizations, and taught self-help and reentry classes.
He co-founded Louisiana Parole Project in August 2016 to provide advocacy and reentry support to men and women who were sentenced to life or other extreme sentences and deserving of redemption. Under his leadership, the organization has expanded its scope to also offer direct legal representation, promote justice reforms, and change the narrative around second chances. Andrew earned his Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a concentration in Criminology from Louisiana State University and completed his Master of Criminology and Justice from Loyola University New Orleans, where he is now adjunct faculty. He is also a Galaxy Gives fellow and a Represent Justice Ambassador. Andrew was the 2022 recipient of Southern Center for Human Rights' Equal Justice Award.
Ashleigh began her career in reentry and paralegal services as a project coordinator for Reentry Benefiting Families in January 2016. She brings a diverse set of experiences and educational credentials to Parole Project and is well suited to take on the wide variety of duties associated with her position.
An advocate of restorative justice initiatives for victims and offenders, as well as non-carceral solutions to crime, Ashleigh is committed to defending the rights of the formerly incarcerated and providing support, encouragement, and opportunity to those transitioning back into society after prison.
Ashleigh is invested in supporting special populations of the formerly incarcerated in Louisiana including women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, registered citizens, and others who face unique challenges after release. She is exceptionally knowledgeable about the laws surrounding Louisiana's offender registry and the negative impact the ineffective post-conviction registration scheme has on successful reentry.
She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre from Western Illinois University which led to positions as program director and education coordinator for a performing arts company. There she gained extensive experience in the nonprofit sector. She also has a bachelor's degree in social work and experience as a drug and alcohol counselor and an intake specialist in a mental health hospital. After her first round of graduate school, Ashleigh began a seven-year stint as a Ph.D. student and adjunct instructor at LSU while simultaneously earning her teaching certificate and working as an educator in both public and private schools.
However, it is Ashleigh's life experience that led her to a career in reentry services. She not only understands what it means to have your entire life put into the hands of the criminal justice system, but she also knows the power and grace of a second chance.
A Baton Rouge native who lives with her husband and daughter in Mid City, Ashleigh joined the Parole Project staff in January 2018.
Channing serves as our primary liaison with the Louisiana legislature. With insight gained from more than a decade in this field, he shapes every piece of legislation we help introduce and facilitates their passage. Over his career, he has been instrumental in bridging the gap between sides with the goal of fairness, equity, and justice for all involved.
Channing joined the Parole Project staff in September 2022 after working in the Department of Public Safety and Corrections' Crime Victim Services Bureau. Prior to that position, he worked on staff for several elected officials across the state of Louisiana. Channing combines his experiences in victim representation and policy work with firsthand interactions with our clients to build a holistic view of mass incarceration's impact.
Job Titles:
- Author, President Hunters for the Hungry
Christi Cheramie, a former Parole Project client, was one of the more than 300 Louisiana juvenile lifers. She was convicted at age 16 and sentenced to life in prison before the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated mandatory life without parole for children saying that they must be given a meaningful opportunity for release.
While at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women, Christi developed a reputation for learning and leadership. She focused on education and personal development, earning six distinct horticulture certifications, including landscape contractor, before becoming a horticulture tutor/instructor and giving back to help others.
She was granted parole in January 2019 after serving 25 years. Christi completed Parole Project's residential intensive reintegration program before she began working for one of the largest plant and landscape nurseries in Baton Rouge. She joined Parole Project in August 2019 as a reentry specialist working with our clients to help them navigate the process of life after prison.
Christi sees her incarceration experience as a life-refining process and is grateful to be in a position to be a symbol of hope and redemption to those who are still incarcerated.
Job Titles:
- Chancellor Southern University Law School, Retired / Judge Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeals, Retired
Job Titles:
- Attorney
- Forgotten Men Initiative Attorney
Jane Hogan is an attorney from Hammond, Louisiana who specializes in criminal post-trial procedures that include post-conviction petitions and parole and clemency hearings. She earned her Juris Doctorate from LSU Law Center. After working as a public defender in Lafayette, Louisiana, she joined the LSU Law Center Parole and Reentry Clinic as an adjunct professor and supervising attorney.
Jane is one of the state's most experienced parole and clemency attorneys, having participated in the representation of approximately 100 clients before the board. She joined Parole Project in 2019.
Parole Project Legal Director Jill Pasquarella is a state and national leader in ending juvenile life without parole and other long sentences for youth. She has led efforts in Louisiana to provide release mechanisms for children serving extreme sentences.
Prior to joining Parole Project, Jill was the director of the Campaign to End Extreme Sentences for Youth at the Louisiana Center for Children's Rights and a supervising attorney at the Orleans Public Defenders. She is the recipient of the Lucy McGough Juvenile Justice Award from the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys for her work ending life sentences for children.
Jill graduated cum laude from Georgetown Law where she was a member of the Public Interest Law Scholar program. Prior to her legal career, she was a human rights and humanitarian aid professional working in Uganda and Nicaragua. Jill received awards for her international and academic work from Barnard College of Columbia University where she graduated magna cum laude with a degree in religion and human rights.
John is responsible for maintaining Parole Project's branding, producing content, and positioning our organization and clients to earn media coverage. His skill set includes narrative storytelling, traditional public relations efforts, social media management, graphic design, and video production. John is passionate about sharing human experiences and uses his talents to showcase our clients' success stories.
John joined the Parole Project staff in August 2022 after graduating with a public relations degree from LSU's Manship School of Mass Communication. He brings experience from working with other nonprofit organizations in Baton Rouge and Dallas, creating strategic communications campaigns for Louisiana businesses, and working as a freelance media producer for musicians and companies.
John Paul Funes serves as the Business and Industry Liaison for Parole Project. He has served in business and volunteer leadership positions throughout his career. Unfortunately, his greatest failure is what he is best known for. In 2019, he was sentenced to 33 months at FCC Terre Haute (a federal prison in Indiana) for one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering.
Prior to his incarceration, John Paul served as President/CEO of Our Lady of the Lake (OLOL) Foundation for 11 years. His primary focus at OLOL Foundation was raising funds to build a freestanding Children's Hospital in Baton Rouge. Previously, he served as the Administrator of OLOL Children's Hospital. He served on the National Diversity Advisory Board at Louisiana State University as well as on the Center for Planning Excellence Board of Directors. Additionally, he was a Board Member of the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge and a member of the Kiwanis Club of Baton Rouge. He served for nine years on the Board of Directors for Special Olympics Louisiana and for ten years as the Volunteer Director for the Special Olympics Indoor Games in Baton Rouge. In 2012, he was awarded the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Unsung Hero Award by the Louisiana State University Office of Equity, Diversity and Community Outreach.
He holds a master's degree in healthcare administration and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Houston and a bachelor's degree in political science from Louisiana State University. He is married to Ann Jewell Funes of New Roads, LA and they have three children; Victoria, Patrick, and Kate. The Funes family attends St. Aloysius Catholic Church.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director, Client Services
Kelly Garrett has actively advocated for criminal justice reform and restorative justice in Louisiana, working with various organizations within local communities and policy leaders to affect change. Her commitment to reform and restorative justice stems from her experiences working with formerly incarcerated people and loved ones.
Prior to joining Parole Project, Kelly was a policy coordinator with VOTE (Voice of the Experienced) where she worked to pass key legislation aimed at reducing Louisiana's incarceration rate, removing barriers to successful reentry, and protecting basic human and civil rights of those who are currently and formerly incarcerated.
As a loved one of an incarcerated person, Kelly understands the importance of support during and after incarceration. Having helped prepare her fiancé for clemency and parole hearings, she has an intimate knowledge of the parole and pardon process.
Kelly is a graduate of LSU and brings extensive corporate and business experience to her role as deputy director of client services. She is motivated by each client to help the next man or woman reach their full potential after incarceration.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director, Advocacy and Development
An award-winning journalist, Kerry's path began as a communication and journalism major at LSU and Nicholls State University where he cut his teeth in both print and radio news. He began working with Parole Project in 2017 as a volunteer to assist with media relations. He joined the staff as communications director in January 2018 and was named deputy director in July of that year.
Kerry was chosen as a Represent Justice Ambassador in 2019. The national organization turns stories of hope and redemption into action for justice reform. Kerry continues to produce as a freelance journalist. In 2019, he was a contributing author on "The Meaning of Life," a book about the nation's overuse of life without parole sentences.
In April 1990, Kerry was sentenced to life in prison for a crime he, his family, the victim's family, and the investigating detective maintained he did not commit. Three days before Christmas 2016, Governor John Bel Edwards signed his commutation recommendation and Kerry was immediately released.
Five years into his incarceration he was hired as a staff writer for the nationally-acclaimed Angolite magazine and was named editor in 2001. Under his direction, the magazine's reporting on the death penalty earned national recognition with the Thurgood Marshall Journalism Award in 2007. In 2011, Kerry won the PASS Award for Journalism (now called the Media for a Just Society Award) from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency for the magazine's coverage of juvenile life without parole sentences. The magazine also won three APEX Awards of Excellence for Magazine and Journal Writing and was a finalist for several other national journalism awards. Kerry's 2011-2012 three-part series on the history of women in the Louisiana penal system received critical acclaim. Taking on subjects like human trafficking; aging, Alzheimer's and dementia in prison; sentencing; pardons and parole policy; and more, the magazine became a resource for many top criminal justice and law programs in the country.
Job Titles:
- Education Program Consultant
Lloyd Jarrow is a former client who joined Parole Project's staff in July 2021 as a reentry specialist. Arrested two months after his 17th birthday and subsequently sentenced to life in prison, Lloyd was granted parole in 2019 after being incarcerated for 25 years. He is one of the thousands nationally who were sentenced to die in prison for offenses committed as children, but were given second chance opportunities when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life without parole for persons under age 18 was unconstitutional and that they should have a "meaningful opportunity for release."
When he entered prison, Lloyd was reading and writing at a fourth-grade level. But the shy, insecure boy whose primary youth education was shaped in the streets of his crime and drug-plagued neighborhood, transformed himself through a fierce determination. He refused to let his circumstances define the person he wanted to be and knew he could be. Today, Lloyd is an advocate for second chances through his work with Parole Project and as part of the Nantucket Project's American Neighbor documentary "Courageous Conversation."
Indelibly shaped by what he calls the most important experience of his incarceration, providing end-of-life care to patients in the prison hospital as a hospice volunteer, Lloyd developed a deep capacity for empathy and gratitude that carries over into his work with the men and women he helps as they rebuild their lives.
"Being a reentry specialist with Parole Project is the best job that I have ever had. Helping others is the ultimate life purpose."
Louis Cruz is a former Parole Project client who joined our staff in 2022 as our resident coordinator. Known to his friends as "Big Lou," he manages Parole Project's eight transitional homes, responsible for maintaining resident logs, facility upkeep, assisting with transportation, and ensuring compliance with house rules.
After more than 40 years in prison, Louis received his second chance when his life sentence was commuted and he was subsequently released on parole. During his incarceration, he held several highly responsible jobs and also started a volunteer program at a local hospital to help raise funds for the pediatric department. He continues to volunteer by curating one-of-a-kind handcrafted items that are sold in the hospital's gift shop to benefit the children.
Job Titles:
- Community Engagement Coordinator / Louisiana Parole Project Community
Louisiana Parole Project Community Engagement Coordinator Matthew Pineda brings a special kind of enthusiasm to work with him each day, harboring high hopes and great expectations for the clients he assists with their transition from prison to modern society.
Job Titles:
- Community Engagement Coordinator / Louisiana Parole Project Community
Engagement Coordinator Matthew Pineda brings a special kind of enthusiasm to work with him each day, harboring high hopes and great expectations for the clients he assists with their transition from prison to modern society.
It is a journey he knows well, having served 35 years on a life sentence that he received at age 16. While in prison Matthew earned over 80 credit hours in a specialized business degree program through Ohio University and International Correspondence Schools. He also completed vocational certifications in welding and residential carpentry.
Matthew earned a Distinguished Toastmaster designation from Toastmasters International and spent 12 years as a member of Jaycees receiving its highest honor given to a member, a JCI (Junior Chamber International) Senatorship granting him a lifetime membership. He served as a 12-step study group facilitator, is a certified substance abuse peer counselor for Celebrate Recovery, and is an RCIA Catholic Catechism facilitator.
He attributes his growth, maturity, and his freedom to his faith in God. With a strong religious upbringing and lots of support from his family during his incarceration, Matthew believes that none of his accomplishments and achievements would be possible had it not been for his God-given talents and experiences inside the Department of Corrections.
Meagan Snedigar earned her Master of Social Work from Louisiana State University. A nontraditional student, she earned her first degree in philosophy and religious studies from LSU in 2013. After some time away from school, she reentered the academic world to explore her passion for helping people. Since then, Meagan has been a community leader advocating for victims of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. In 2018, Meagan was the keynote speaker for the Louisiana Coalition of Domestic Violence and Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault's Purple and Teal Reception, an event that recognizes domestic and sexual violence survivors and those who work to support them.
After earning her bachelor's degree in social work from LSU, Meagan accepted an internship with the mental health team at Louisiana State Penitentiary. This experience changed her life and inspired a new passion: helping justice-impacted individuals who have been negatively affected by mass incarceration.
Meagan began working with Parole Project as a student intern in 2021 and became instrumental in developing our social work program and policies. Meagan is committed to giving back to her community and to social justice efforts here in Louisiana. When she is not fighting for the cause, Meagan unwinds by reading books, writing poetry, and watching horror movies.
Meghan Gavin graduated from Louisiana State University in May 2021 with a bachelor's degree in psychology and a minor in social work.
In September 2020, a member of Parole Project's staff was invited to guest lecture during one of her social work classes. That experience inspired her to learn more about our mission. Meghan began volunteering on a weekly basis soon after, tutoring clients in essential technology and professional skills that included how to use cell phones and laptops, write resumes, and fill out job applications.
Meghan joined Parole Project in January 2022 as our administrative manager while continuing her education in graduate school. She earned a master's degree in leadership and human resource development from LSU in August 2022.
Job Titles:
- Certified Public Accountant
Neha Nimmagudda is Parole Project's senior investigator. A licensed private investigator and mitigation specialist, she has extensive investigatory experience in civil rights and criminal cases. Neha has conducted defense investigations on capital and other felony cases in both state and federal proceedings.
Ron joined Parole Project's staff as a reentry specialist in June 2023, just a few months after his release from prison. A former client, Ron relishes the new experiences he gains each day as he helps others transition back into society.
Ron was sentenced to life without parole at the age of 19. While in prison he became a sign language interpreter, braille transcriber, and leader in Angola's faith community. After 33 years, he received his second chance through a commutation. He is a graduate of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary earning a bachelor's degree in Christian Ministry and a master's degree in Pastoral Ministry. He is also currently pursuing a Master of Divinity degree from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Ronnie Olivier Client Advocate Ronald is the client advocate for the Employment Enhancement Program and is responsible for identifying potentially eligible clients as future employees. His work is helping dedicated individuals find gainful employment opportunities and prepare to join the workforce after their release from prison. Coordinating with the Department of Corrections, Ronald interviews individuals who already have discharge dates and connects them with job opportunities. By helping them find stable employment before they are released, he is helping to ensure they have the best chance for success with their second chance. Prior to joining our staff in April 2023, Ronald was the Director of Chaplains at the Mississippi State Penitentiary for three years. He also served as Chaplains Clerk at Louisiana State Penitentiary during his 27 years of incarceration. Ronald became a Parole Project client after his release in November 2018 and now uses his experience to guide others toward successful careers and lives.
Partner; Haynie and Associates, Government Relations Consulting
Sidney oversees the maintenance of our residential properties and provides transportation for clients to and from the Redemption Homes for errands, appointments, and classes at our office. He helps teach them how to navigate Baton Rouge and manage everyday responsibilities. Sidney's favorite part of his day is getting to know the clients on a personal level as they drive across Baton Rouge and grow through the program.
Sidney experienced nearly 43 years of incarceration before receiving a commutation from Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2022. While he was a client, he realized he was not fully prepared for the transition back into society. He relies on his experience to provide guidance and additional assistance to the men and women in our program.
Job Titles:
- Project Manager
- Project Manager for Parole Project 's Employment Enhancement Program
As the project manager for Parole Project's Employment Enhancement Program, Tim assists individuals in rebuilding their lives after incarceration - a mission he deeply understands. In this role, he is responsible for advancing the program's goal of providing soon-to-be-released incarcerated people with employment opportunities. Tim supervises the relationships between Parole Project staff, employers, and individuals who may be eligible for the program and works with employers and officials at the local, state, and federal levels to create partnerships that benefit Louisiana businesses and returning citizens. Tim's leadership helps ensure that communities, businesses, and formerly incarcerated individuals can all benefit from second chance opportunities.
Shortly after starting college, Tim was given a 20-year sentence. During his incarceration, Tim channeled his energy into self-improvement. He honed his skills in education and leadership - finding an unexpected passion for helping others. Following his release in 2015, Tim leveraged his experiences to make a positive impact in various roles. He has served as the vice president of the East Baton Rouge Reentry Court Services Executive Board and worked closely with State Representative C. Denise Marcelle as a legislative assistant. Additionally, he contributed his talents as a legal assistant to attorney Gail Horne Ray and even took on the role of investigator for the East Baton Rouge Office of the Public Defender. Tim's dedication and resilience exemplify the potential for positive change - proving that individuals can forge a new path and offer hope to others.