Louisiana Voice

By guest columnist Paul Spillman

College football is having the off-season from hell. Not only has NIL, revenue sharing, and an endless transfer portal caused everyone from the casual fan to the occupant of the White House to demand change but recently a “visiting judge” in Lubbock, Texas has managed to do what no person, group, or legislation has until now – unite every interested party in college athletics. Visiting Judge Ken Curry ruled earlier this week Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby is eligible to play this season with only a two-game suspension after having been suspended and ruled ineligible by the NCAA for gambling on college football and on his own team.

Briefly, Sorsby began his college career at Indiana but transferred after one year to Cincinnati. He started at quarterback for Cincinnati for two years before transferring this past winter to Texas Tech. LSU also pursued Sorsby. In late April Sorsby checked himself into rehab and admitted to placing over $90,000 in bets on college football including 40 times on his own team and using various means to avoid detection. Shortly after the NCAA ruled Sorsby ineligible. But Sorsby, with the support of Texas Tech, filed suit. District Judge Phillip Hayes recused himself without comment but Hayes did his undergraduate work at Texas Tech and attended law school there. Curry was assigned the case by the 19^th Judicial Region presiding judge.

Since the infamous Black Sox Scandal throwing the 1919 World Series and the resulting ruling by the newly appointed commissioner of baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis issuing lifetime bans to players for gambling the one sacrosanct rule in sports is you do not bet on your own team. Literally no one has questioned the wisdom of that rule. Maintaining the integrity of the competition would be impossible without it.

Yet Judge Curry has found that Sorsby would suffer “irreparable harm” if ruled ineligible citing “breach of contract,” a lack of institutional support for his gambling addiction, and the necessity to play in order to make an informed decision about the NFL draft. The last is dubious at best as it is questionable whether any NFL team would sign Sorsby, much less draft him. It’s also questionable whether there has been any lack of institutional support as Sorsby went to some effort to conceal his actions.

To be fair the NCAA is not at fault in this. It is correct in ruling Sorsby ineligible. Any competition he is involved in would be suspect. Even if his team wins the contest there are a number of ways money can be made on a football game and the skepticism would be too great to overcome.

The Big 12 conference, of which Texas Tech is a member, is considering its options. Other schools, such as Nebraska, have already instructed their Athletic Directors to not schedule Texas Tech in any sport. Almost everyone with an interest in college sports is dumbfounded with this decision and opposes it. Also, this ruling has lit a fire to pass the Protect College Sports Act which would probably do nothing as far as this issue is concerned. The legislation would grant the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption, but only to rule on matters covered by the legislation. As it is currently written there is no language on gambling in the bill and student athletes would still be allowed to sue for eligibility. As previously stated Congress is a solution, but not the best solution.

The NCAA has asked for an “accelerated appeal” and a ruling from the Court of Appeals for the Seventh District of Texas is expected soon. All four justices on the appeals court who will hear the case have law degrees from Texas Tech.

Stay tuned. We’re still 80 days from kickoff.

One week it’s sheriffs who can’t seem to get their act together and are initiating fights in restaurants and the next week it’s state judges.

Wow, our elected officials just seem to have this feeling of entitlement and invulnerability when it comes to their own behavior in public places.

Actually, the fracas that landed 23^rd Judicial District Court judge Steven Trueau and two women amongst the garbage behind a Gonzales eatery occurred more than three years ago but justice can move painfully slow and the Louisiana Judiciary Commission has just now gotten around to addressing his social faux pas.

23rd JDC Judge and champion mud wrestler Steven Tureau

The judge’s encounter occurred shortly after dinner at a Gonzales steakhouse while St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith’s ambush of a political opponent happened in a Madisonville steakhouse. The lesson here would probably be to avoid alcohol when consuming steaks—or avoid steaks when consuming alcohol. Who knows?

But back to our Ascension Parish saga. The judiciary commission, which is charged with keeping—or at least attempting to keep—judges in line and to recommend discipline for those who misbehave or otherwise besmirch their robes, has set a hearing date in September to consider the charges against Tureau, who just happens to be up for re-election this year, according to The Baton Rouge Advocate.

Basically, here’s what transpired when his honor, his wife and another couple popped into a bar called Swamp Chicken Daiquiris on Feb. 12, 2023 following dinner and (apparently several) drinks at a local restaurant. Tureau, at the time, was involved in secret negotiations with the bar’s co-owner, Stephen Frederick, about a buyout of Frederic’s partner, Michelle Lee.

Apparently, Frederic was somewhat peeved that one of the bar’s licenses was about to expire and he blamed Lee for the lapse and said so to Tureau.

Tureau, apparently lubricated by drinks, made his way to confront Lee, violating the non-disclosure pact and mentioning his buying the bar. The commission said Tureau told Lee, “you were going shut her down,” whereupon Frederic began to push Tureau away from the scene.

“You weren’t supposed to say anything to Ms. Lee about the expiring license and your conversation (about the buyout negotiations),” the commission wrote, adding that video footage showed that Tureau was “angry, red-faced and spilling a bottle of what appears to be beer, and you appeared to be intoxicated.”

Frederic and several bar patrons then shoved Tureau, his wife and the other woman who had joined them out the back door where the two women “ended up on the muddy, trash-strewn ground,” along with the judge, the commission said further.

The second woman said she believed she ended up on top of Tureau while Mrs. Tureau testified that she landed in a garbage can or on top of some garbage bags and Tureau himself was “under everyone else in the dirt and the mud.”

Now, you have to admit, that’s a video we’d all love to see on YouTube.

The Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office responded to Lee’s 911 call but of course the brouhaha involved a sitting (or in this case, prone) judge so no action was taken.

Tureau, meanwhile, has denied that he intended to “invoke or exercise judicial power or influence against Ms. Lee or her business” with his threat to “shut her down.” But he at least admitted that his conduct might have been interpreted as threatening.

And of course, Tureau has lawyered up—just in case. His attorney, Dane Ciolino, said the judge has accepted responsibility for what occurred “in this isolated and brief event,” The Advocate quoted him as saying.

Who needs Netflix for entertainment in Louisiana when we have soused, angry politicians?

Editor’s Note: In keeping with LouisianaVoice’s ongoing investigation of family court abuse throughout the state of Louisiana, it was decided to run her letter here so as to best allow her to convey her frustration with her own experiences with Baton Rouge Family Court. Following is her letter, along with an attachment:

Dear Governor Landry, Attorney General Murrill, Members of the Legislature, and Members of the Press:

I am sending the attached “Duluth Model Power & Control Wheel” to the EBR Family. I adapted it to the “EBR Court Power & Control Wheel,” which is also attached, because I believe my East Baton Rouge Family Court case exposes a broader public-interest problem requiring urgent reform. The attachment also includes the six-page letter from Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Jeff Hughes who offers his own critique of the family court system.

My central allegation is that EBR Family Court and potentially other family courts across Louisiana, together with affiliated domestic-violence, custody, supervised-visitation, legal, judicial, and professional networks, have created or tolerated a structure that monetizes the coercive power of the State. Under this theory, abusive parties are empowered to purchase access to court-backed tools such as protective orders, custody restrictions, contempt threats, supervised visitation, evaluations, attorney-fee claims, delayed hearings, and control over parent-child contact, and use those tools as mechanisms of coercion to control an ex-spouse, dominate the children’s narrative, financially exhaust the family, and transfer family resources, community property, income, and future earnings to family-court-connected professionals.

But this is not only about money. Money is the engine that keeps the system going, but the deepest harm is the loss and endangerment of children and the destruction of the targeted parent. When family court monetizes coercive control, the parent-child relationship becomes something to be bought, restricted, supervised, delayed, and litigated. A court is not merely managing a case when it cuts off contact, delays hearings, forces supervised visitation, ignores motions, or allows one parent to control all access. It is shaping a child’s attachment, identity, emotional safety, and understanding of reality.

The harm compounds over time. A temporary restriction can become practical alienation. Supervised visitation can become a paid substitute for parenting. A child can be taught, directly or indirectly, that the targeted parent is dangerous, unstable, or unworthy before the truth has been independently established. Children can also be cut off from therapists, doctors, mandated reporters, family members, and support systems they need, while the targeted parent is forced to endure the living loss of children they are legally responsible for but not allowed to protect, comfort, parent, or even speak to.

The gravest risk is that false or untested abuse allegations may cause courts to place children with the actual abuser while the safe parent is restricted, discredited, or erased. Allegations involving child abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation, or child sexual-abuse material should be independently investigated by qualified law enforcement and child-protection authorities — not filtered only through paid family-court narratives, private custody litigation, and court-connected professionals.

I am asking for reform: meaningful due-process protections before parent-child contact is restricted; mandatory independent investigation of child-abuse allegations; conflict-of-interest rules for court-connected professionals; limits on paid supervised visitation as a long-term substitute for parenting; public access and transparency in family-court proceedings; review of financial incentives in custody litigation; and measurable accountability for domestic-violence and family-court programs that receive public support or operate through court authority.

I also ask that lawmakers and state officials review the overlap between EBR Family Court, the Domestic Violence Office, IRIS, the Domestic Violence Prevention Commission, supervised-visitation providers, custody evaluators, court-connected attorneys, former Judge Pamela Baker, Laurie Marien, the Governor’s Office of Women’s Policy / Louisiana Women’s Policy and Research Commission, and recent domestic-violence legislation. My concern is that this network creates a serious public-trust problem for Louisiana.

My concern is that this system and the people connected to it are making his administration and the State of Louisiana appear connected to a structure that can be weaponized for power, control, and profit.

Please review the attached document as a request for family-court reform, domestic-violence system accountability, child-protection safeguards, and public transparency. Louisiana families need a system that protects children and victims without allowing court authority to become a paid weapon of coercive control.

Respectfully,
Katherine Diamond

That story about St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith and critic Bobby Couvillion just keeps getting better.

It was a couple of weeks back (May 29, to be precise) that Smith, the high sheriff of St. Tammany Parish, decided he’d had a belly full of Couvillion’s habit of pointing out the parish’s chief law enforcement officer doesn’t seem to get much accomplished in the way of crime solving.

In our initial story, we said Smith spotted Couvillion and his wife as they sat at the bar of Keity Yount’s Steakhouse in Madisonville and ran up from behind and put Couvillion in a choke hold.

It turns out that was not entirely accurate. We’ve now learned that Smith didn’t actually see Couvillion until he was pointed out by former school board member and buddy GREGORY JULES SAURAGE  who then encouraged Smith to attack, according to investigators with the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office.

Word is that officials with the AG’s office say that after Saurage pointed out Couvillion, he pounded his fists together to suggest to Smith it was an opportunity for a take-down.

Not so, says Saurage, who says he never pounded his fists together or encouraged the attack and in fact, pulled the two apart and drove the sheriff home.

A sheriff and a former school board member wallowing around on the floor of a restaurant. That’s pure entertainment as can only be found in Louisiana politics, folks. An official who is supposed to represent the best of us and a citizen duking it out after the sheriff has tossed down a generous quantity of alcohol—allegedly encouraged by another former public official who, theoretically, at least, should lead our school kids by example.

Bear in mind, this is the same sheriff who has come up with not a single suspect in the murder of Nanette Krentel nine years ago.

Bear in mind also, this is the same thin-skinned sheriff who had a federal official arrested for the unforgivable sin of criticizing the sheriff for his lack of progress in the Krentel matter. That arrest, by the way, was made on the basis of a law that had been repealed some 40 years earlier. In other words, without probable cause.

So, bottom line, Sheriff Smith has made more arrests for the non-crime of First Amendment-protested free speech than for the murder of an individual nearly a decade ago.

And now the web of intrigue is ever-widening with the arrest of Saurage.

A killer continues to go free in St. Tammany but don’t you dare criticize Sheriff Randy Smith.