Former New Iberia Parks and Recreation Department employee Seth Boudreaux, 47, was arrested Aug. 14 for felony theft and unauthorized use of an access card, said Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Wendell Raborn.

Mayor Hilda Curry said Boudreaux’s employment was terminated before the arrest, after he drove the front wheels of a Parks and Recreation tractor into the Bayou Teche. The tractor, she said, was not damaged, but the accident led to suspicion of drug use.

“Whenever there’s any kind of suspicion (of drug use), we have to do a drug test. He didn’t, so that was grounds for termination,” she said.

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Boudreaux was later arrested for misuse of a city card, Curry said.

An access card, Raborn said, can be a credit, debit or fuel card. Felony theft is anything more than $500.

Curry said this morning the access card was a city fuel card. The amount used is still being tabulated.

According to records at the Iberia Parish Clerk of Court’s Office, Boudreaux had been arrested before. He entered a plea agreement to domestic abuse battery and battery of a police officer dating from December of 2007.

He also pled guilty to simple criminal damage to property and resisting an officer by flight. He was sentenced to six months in jail, but it was suspended and he was placed on supervised probation for two years.

This ran concurrently with another sentence for illegal possession of stolen goods, which was reduced to a misdemeanor, for which he was sentenced to six months in jail and commanded to make restitution.

His sentence was suspended.

Boudreaux, a resident of 314 Front St., is being held in the Iberia Parish Jail on $30,000 bond.

Curry said the city has a case pending against him and declined to provide more information.

“It’s a legal matter now,” she said.