WOMAN WHO SAYS SHE WAS FRAMED IS PAROLED

ST. GABRIEL, La. - After 20 years in prison for a crime she says she did not
commit, one-time drug addict and informant Cheryle Beridon has a chance at
freedom, and a job lined up back home.

She was still in the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women on Monday,
waiting for space to open in a halfway house.

When she leaves, it's likely to be halfway across the state or more from her
home in Houma - most LCIW inmates go either to Lake Charles or Monroe,
prison officials said.

For six months, until Nov. 19, she will hold a work-release job during the
day and live at the halfway house at night under state supervision.

Under terms of her parole, she must join Alcoholics Anonymous, take regular
drug tests and stay away from places that serve alcohol.

"It's kind of like putting your foot in the water and seeing if it's hot,"
Parole Board Chairman Fred Clark said during Ms. Beridon's parole hearing
Friday.

If she makes a mistake, she will be sent back to prison. But, she said she
doesn't expect that to happen.

"She said she can do six months standing on her head," her younger brother,
Steven Hayes, said after the family got to talk with her.

Ms. Beridon's parole will last until May 29, 2024 -- the end of her 45-year
sentence for selling $125 worth of heroin to a confidential informant in
fall 1977.

Parole Board members told Ms. Beridon their decision was not about whether
she sold the drug or whether, as she claimed, she was framed by Norval
Rhodes, who was district attorney in 1977.

It is only about whether she can adapt to life outside prison, they said.

Ms. Beridon has contended since her arrest that Mr. Rhodes framed her
because their affair had soured.

Mr. Rhodes, who left office in 1984 and now lives in the Florida Keys, has
denied the allegations.

In an interview Friday with The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, he again denied
either having an affair with Ms. Beridon or framing her.

"I was a prosecuting attorney for years, and this is what you face along the
way," he told the newspaper. "The mere fact that she raises the allegation
doesn't mean it's true."

Mr. Rhodes and his Baton Rouge attorney, Dennis Whalen, compiled an
inch-thick pile of transcripts, statements and court records about Ms.
Beridon's arrests for the Parole Board and the public.

They prove that the prosecution was fair, Mr. Rhodes said. "The record
speaks fact, and there's nothing more I can add to that," he said.

Mr. Whalen said the transcripts show Ms. Beridon's story has changed over
time.

"Her story seems to improve with age," Mr. Whalen said. He would not
elaborate.

Mr. Whalen was at the prison but was not in the room during Friday's
hearing. He complained later that he was sent to the prison chapel until Ms.
Beridon's hearing was over.

Ms. Beridon said she used to be a heroin addict but did not sell the drug.

Her case took a new course in late 1997 when Jerome Boykin, president of the
Terrebonne Parish chapter of the NAACP, offered to help. Then Chris
Williams, a bail bondsman who had been an investigator under Mr. Rhodes,
broke a 20-year silence and corroborated portions of her story before the
state Pardon Board in March.

That and other testimony convinced the Pardon Board and Gov. Mike Foster to
commute Ms. Beridon's sentence to 45 years.

Mr. Williams did not attend Friday's hearing. In the past two weeks, he has
been arrested several times after allegedly making a series of violent
threats against an ex-lover, two employees of an east Houma daiquiri shop
and various local and federal law enforcement agencies.

Mr. Boykin said he felt vindicated by the Parole Board's decision. He said
when he first started working on her case, many people told him that Mr.
Rhodes had too many powerful friends for Ms. Beridon ever to go free.

"It's a victory, and it really feels good," he said. "All that hard work, it
paid off for her."

The three board members said they didn't want to release Ms. Beridon
outright, citing the more than 200 disciplinary write-ups she got in prison.

"I would think you would approach prison life trying to prove your innocence
instead of being defiant," C.A. Lowe told her.

"I was innocent, I was 24, and I didn't realize that getting into trouble
would interfere with getting out," Ms. Beridon answered. "I know I'm in
total control now. I'm rehabilitated in every way I can be rehabilitated.

"I ask you to consider giving me a second chance at life. Unless you give me
a chance to show you, I can't show you."

Once her term at the halfway house is over, she plans to take a job as a
receptionist for Houma attorney Kevin Thompson, who represented her Friday
before the Parole Board.

She said she also hopes to talk to youth groups and counsel them against
abusing drugs as she did through most of her pre-jail life.