A nine-year veteran of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office was fired and arrested Monday night after authorities say he strangled his girlfriend and then crashed his marked patrol unit while fleeing an apartment complex parking lot in Harvey. Kyle Nugent, 34, was booked with domestic abuse battery, operating a vehicle while impaired, hit-and-run driving, and reckless operation of a vehicle, and he is being held at the parish jail ahead of a court hearing scheduled for Thursday.
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said Nugent, who had served as a deputy for nine years before his termination, strangled his girlfriend before getting behind the wheel of his department-issued vehicle and committing a hit-and-run in the apartment complex parking lot, according to WDSU. As reported by WWL-TV, the charges stem from a parking lot crash involving his marked unit, combining a domestic violence incident inside an apartment with an alleged drunk-driving flight in a government vehicle. Nugent was terminated from JPSO following the arrest.
The strangulation allegation carries significant weight under state law. Louisiana Revised Statute 14:35.3 classifies domestic abuse battery involving intentional impeding of normal breathing or blood circulation as a felony offense that carries mandatory imprisonment at hard labor for up to three years, according to the Louisiana State Legislature. Separately, state law addressing impaired hit-and-run driving, Louisiana Revised Statute 14:100, imposes a mandatory fine of up to $500 and 10 days to six months of imprisonment when alcohol consumption contributed to the crash, even in cases without serious injury.
Part of a String of JPSO Discipline Cases
Nugent's arrest lands amid a run of high-profile discipline actions inside the sheriff's office under Sheriff Joseph Lopinto, who has led JPSO since 2017 after previously serving as a state legislator, narcotics detective, and chief criminal deputy, per Biz New Orleans. Just two weeks before Nugent's arrest, Lopinto fired a deputy over misuse of the parish's Flock Safety license plate camera system, which an internal audit found he had used thousands of times to track his ex-fiancée.
That termination followed the February firing of deputy James Keen, who was arrested on malfeasance in office charges after investigators determined he stole $160 from a residence during a welfare check in Metairie. Keen was booked into the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna before posting bond, the same facility where deputies arrested on criminal charges within the parish are processed. And in April 2025, JPSO opened an Internal Affairs investigation after video surfaced showing a deputy striking a suspect during an arrest in Harvey — the same West Bank municipality where Nugent was taken into custody Monday night.
Domestic Violence Reports Have Been Rising Locally
The Nugent case also lands against a backdrop of shifting crime trends in the parish. Department statistics reported by NOLA.com showed that while major reported crimes in unincorporated Jefferson Parish fell 12 percent in 2021 to a historical low, assault and domestic battery reports climbed 14 percent over the same period. That divergence underscores the kind of case now facing Nugent, in which a domestic violence allegation carries some of the heaviest statutory penalties even as broader crime figures have trended downward.
The investigation into Nugent remains ongoing, and it is not yet clear what condition his girlfriend was in following the alleged strangulation or how much damage his patrol unit caused in the parking lot crash. Nugent is due in court Thursday, and JPSO has not indicated whether additional oversight measures are planned following the string of recent deputy arrests and terminations.
