Ex-Convict a Shooting Victim, Autopsy Finds

Orange County sheriff’s deputies are investigating the shooting of Lambert Fontenot, 57, whose body was found near the Ortega Highway on Wednesday.

Deputies began searching for Fontenot’s body at 2 p.m. Wednesday after they received an anonymous telephone call, said sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Dick Olson. The body was found several hours later about 12 miles east of the I-5 freeway near Cleveland National Forest, Olson said. An autopsy showed that the victim, who was identified later as Fontenot, died from several gunshot wounds to the head.

In 1975, Fontenot was named in federal search warrants issued for a raid on what FBI agents described as a $50-million-a-year bookmaking operation. Agents seized gambling records, bookmaking paraphernalia and more than $10,000 in cash from two dozen homes and businesses in the raids.

Court records indicate that Fontenot was convicted for loan sharking in 1975 on evidence taken in the raid. The disposition of Fontenot’s appeal of that conviction is unknown.

Fontenot also was convicted of armed robbery in Los Angeles in 1957 and sentenced to five years to life imprisonment. He was paroled in Los Angeles in April, 1960, and ended his probation in October, 1964.

In March of 1968, Fontenot was charged with conspiracy to distribute obscene materials in Los Angeles County and sentenced to three years’ probation.

Fontenot’s criminal record also includes a 1954 arrest by Los Angeles police on a gambling charge as well as three arrests in Burbank and Los Angeles County for armed robbery between 1954 and 1957. Court records show no disposition of those cases.

Orange County deputies are looking for Fontenot’s tan four-door 1979 Volvo with California license plate 1GWT790. They requested that any sightings of the car be reported to them at (714) 834-3000.