Will Smith dined with defendant in lawsuit filed by alleged murderer hours before death

The man accused of murdering former Saints Pro Bowler Will Smith once filed a lawsuit against the city of New Orleans, and Smith dined with one of the defendants in that suit hours before his death.

Cardell Hayes, who has been charged with second degree murder, was the plaintiff in a high-profile case against the city centering around the death of Hayes’s father at the hands of the police, according to Ramon Vargas and John Simerman of the New Orleans Advocate and WWL. His father, Anthony, was said to be mentally unstable and holding a pocket knife while arguing with a store employee when officers shot him in a December 2005 incident. Cardell Hayes argued that police should have used non-lethal force to subdue his father. The litigation was settled in 2011, with Hayes receiving a “substantial” amount of money, according to the attorney who represented Hayes.

One of the officers named as a defendant in the case was now-retired captain Billy Ceravolo, who dined with Smith and former Saints running back Pierre Thomas just hours before Smith was murdered.

Ceravolo told the newspaper that he was not at the scene of the shooting and wasn’t aware that he was named in the suit. It should be noted that there is no indication as of this moment that there is any link between the shooting and the fact that Smith and Ceravolo dined together, and no specific motive has yet been determined aside from road rage.