Louisiana Voice

An anonymous whistleblower complaint alleging falsification of student academic records and graduation eligibility at Haughton High School in Bossier Parish has been forwarded by email to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor Michael Waguespack and to Louisiana Department of Education Superintendent Cade Brumley. The sender copied LouisianaVoice with the complaint.

The complaint, while citing specific actions on the part of administrative personnel at the school, does not identify anyone by name. The letter’s author self-identified only as a “concerned employee,” presumably of the Bossier Parish School Board.

“On or about May 14, 2026 (two days prior to graduation), six senior transcripts at Haughton High School were reportedly deemed to be academically ineligible for graduation due to missing coursework and unmet graduation requirements,” the complaint says.

“Following those findings, it is my understanding and belief that counseling staff, with approval and direction from school administration, altered official student records in order to make certain students eligible for graduation,” the three-page letter says, adding that the actions were “allegedly carried out with the knowledge and approval of Haughton High School administration.”

The conduct, according to the letter, reportedly included:

• Changing grades and course classifications;
• Adding credits and coursework after students had already been deemed ineligible;
• Entering grades for courses students did not actually take;
• Creating transcript entries for courses not offered at Haughton High School;
• Fabricating grades and coursework for classes not actually attended or completed…

One specific example involved the addition of “Speech II” to a student transcript despite the fact that Haughton High School does not offer that course within its curriculum and the student allegedly never took the class. Another example included credit for a science not offered at Haughton High and changing another science grade from a “C” to an “A” to make the student immediately eligible for graduation. 

One of the individuals involved had reportedly been previously disciplined for changing grades in the past, raising serious concerns regarding repeated misconduct and lack of internal controls, the letter says.

“There is also widespread concern among employees that [one of those involved] was specifically moved into the senior counselor position, by higher-level parish administration this year, because she was willing to facilitate actions designed to artificially improve graduation statistics and school performance metrics,” it says. “Employees further believe Haughton administration gave counseling staff the ‘green light’ to manipulate records in order to protect graduation rates and school achievement scores.”

The letter’s author said one individual “did not even possess her own system passcode or access credentials until May 2026. “This raises significant questions regarding how mid-term grades, transcript modifications, or other academic record entries may have been submitted prior to that date, including whether another employee’s credentials or administrative access were utilized. It also raises concerns regarding whether another individual may have been performing work, entering grades, or modifying records … prior to her receiving official system access credentials.”

If substantiated, it said, the actions may constitute:

• Fraudulent alteration of official public records;
• False reporting to state education authorities;
• Unauthorized access or misuse of academic record systems;
• Violations of Louisiana Department of Education graduation standards;
• Potential misuse of state and federal funding tied to accountability metrics and graduation performance.

“The implications are substantial. Artificially inflating graduation rates, school achievement scores, and academic performance metrics impacts state accountability reporting, public trust, school rankings, and potentially the allocation of taxpayer-funded state and federal education resources.

“This conduct undermines every legitimate diploma earned by students who completed graduation requirements honestly and damages confidence in the integrity of Bossier Parish Schools.”

The letter’s author requested:

1. An immediate independent investigation into all transcript and graduation-status changes made at Haughton High School during the 2025–2026 school year;
2. Preservation of all electronic records, transcript audit logs, emails, login records, and internal communications;
3. A forensic review of all course additions, grade changes, counselor access logs, administrative approvals, and user credential activity;
4. Verification that all courses appearing on affected transcripts were legitimately offered and completed;
5. A review of prior disciplinary findings involving transcript or grade manipulation by counseling staff;
6. Protection for employees who report misconduct or cooperate with investigators under applicable Louisiana whistleblower protections.

“This complaint is submitted in good faith and in the interest of protecting the integrity of public education, academic records, and taxpayer-funded educational programs,” it concluded.

LouisianaVoice contacted both the Legislative Auditor’s office and the Louisiana Department of Education to determine if the emails had been received and if any official action was planned on the claims. The auditor’s office’s legal affairs representative said they respond to inquiries about complaints only to the complaintant. The Education Department has not responded as of this writing.

The year was 1993 and the empire of high-roller financier Steven Hoffenberg, built on an elaborate $500 million Ponzi scheme rivaled only by that of Bernie Madoff, lay in ruins, thanks to the efforts of the late John Hays, the chain-smoking, whiskey-drinking publisher of Ruston’s Morning Paper, a free-distribution shopper thrown in 25,000 driveways every Wednesday night.

Hays, in 1976, started his tabloid publication that offered a weekly map of garage sales in the area as the result of a running battle he had with Ruston’s Mayor—and cousin—Johnny Perritt, and after Tom Kelly, publisher of the larger daily newspaper where I cut my own journalistic teeth, The Ruston Daily Leader, rejected one of Hays’s letters to the editor in which he desired to protest a local tax issue. By necessity, we were early adversaries but in the end, we were destined to become close personal and professional friends.

By the time Hoffenberg came along with his TOWERS FINANCIAL CORP. investment scheme, Hays had already exposed a couple other smaller Ponzi Schemes: the so-called Pine Tree Caper and the $55 million ALIC Investment scam, shutting them down in their tracks.

Hoffenberg ended up being sentenced to 20 years in prison—he actually served 18 of those, unusual in today’s system of jurisprudence—and was ordered to pay a $1 million fine and $463 million in restitution to his victims. Following his 2013 release, he settled a civil suit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $60 million.

It’s not as though Hoffenberg didn’t have friends in high places: he did. Among those who went to bat for him were Ben Barnes, a business ally of former Texas Gov. John Connally; Thomas B. Evans Jr., a former co-chairman of the Republican National Committee in Louisiana; Victoria Reggie, the daughter of a prominent state judge and the future wife of Ted Kennedy; Mickey Kantor, who would go on to serve as President Clinton’s trade representative; Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud and one JEFFREY EPSTEIN, who he described as the “mastermind” behind the fraud of an insurance bond scheme and the “technician” of a Wall Street stock manipulation scheme.

Hoffenberg claimed in court documents that Epstein was intimately involved in the Ponzi scheme. Epstein left Towers Financial before its collapse and was never charged for his involvement.

That’s probably because Hoffenberg did not turn evidence against Epstein in the beginning, claiming—perhaps even fearing—that Epstein “had traction” with the U.S. Department of Justice. “You cannot grasp the magnitude of [Epstein’s] controlling effect,” he said of his one-time partner. He said Epstein had worked up a “detailed plan” to turn Towers Financial into a major player in funding money products around the world and to do so “illegally.”

From discovery of the Towers Investment scam through sentencing of Hoffenberg, Hays never let up. He kept relentless pressure on Hoffenberg and SEC regulators alike. The small-town editor Hays made such an impression on the professional news reporters that The New York Times published a two-page profile on him on April 4, 1993.

Hays CEASED PUBLICATION of the Morning Paper a decade later, in July 2013, ending 37 years of hard-hitting, informative journalism, when his cancer spread, weakening him to the point he could no longer pursue his craft. He DIED in August 2014. Wife Susan moved back to Austin, Texas, whence they had originally come way back in the 1970s, to be near their daughter.

It was with feelings of nostalgia mixed with sadness that I learned this week that the Ruston City Council is considering condemning John and Susan’s former home in Ruston. The house that John built himself—he was a contractor in a previous life—has not been lived in since Susan left 12 years ago and has fallen into disrepair.

As I reminisced about those heady days when journalism was real and the rewards tangible and the media trustworthy, I couldn’t help but wonder what new scandal, what other scam, he might have uncovered had he lived and continued publishing what was derisively called “that rag” in its earliest days of existence but which would doggedly persevere to gain the respect of a staid but reputable publication like The New York Times.

Maybe it was a rag, and maybe it was launched out of spite. But John Hays and his Morning Paper in time became synonymous with no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners journalism. He showed us what real news reporting could be—consequences and threats of advertising boycotts be damned—when you don’t have a corporate board looking over your shoulder and calling the shots. It’s an approach all media would do well to revisit today.

Who is Rock Bordelon?

Bordelon, of Bossier City, holds an LPN license, owns major interests in three subdivisions in Indiana, a hunting lodge in Texas, an ATV park, an outdoors reality TV show, a private plane, a ranch in Colorado, 15 HOSPITALS in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi, seven home health companies, eight rehab centers, at least 40 clinics and treatment centers scattered all over Louisiana (though some of those appear to exist only on paper).

He also hobnobs with Donald Trump Jr. and singer Ted Nugent and has poured tons of cash into the campaigns of Louisiana politicians, primarily Republicans—all while accumulating tax liens, lawsuits unpaid vendors and a mountain of debt.

Truth is, in Ruston alone, he purchased the GREEN CLINIC but didn’t get around to paying the group of doctors he owed about $70,000 each in the transaction for about a year and even then, the doctors were forced to hire an attorney to do a little arm-twisting. Several doctors have since left the clinic and at the 70-bed North Louisiana Medical Center, also in Ruston, there is sufficient staffing for only about 10 patients—but occupancy rate is only about 25 percent anyway—because of a wholesale exodus of employees. Meanwhile vendors go unpaid to the tune of some $31 MILLION.

Willis Knighton, a hospital based out of Shreveport, is currently building a facility along I-20 to fill the void being created by NLMC’s deficiencies.

Besides facing trial for false Medicare billing, Bordelon’s company, Allegiance Health Management (it SETTLED the Medicare claim against four of its hospitals in 2018 for $1.7 million), is facing IRS tax liens at its hospitals in MINDEN ($2.4 million), RUSTON ($2.7 million) and an eye-popping $17.7 MILLION in connection with its Acadian Medical Center in Eunice.

Altogether, the IRS claimed last October that six Allegiance facilities in Louisiana combined to owe more than $34 million.

Bordelon attributes his financial woes to changes in Medicare payments instituted in Washington, but at least one newspaper, The Leader in the Arkansas counties of North Pulaski, Lonoke and White was BRUTALLY BLUNT in proclaiming “The sleazy chief executive” [Bordelon] drove Jacksonville’s North Metro Medical Center “into the ground.”

On the other hand, it could be a matter of growing too much too quickly—a classic case of over-extension.

That’s being generous. One person whose job it is to investigate Medicare/Medicaid fraud in states other than Louisiana, said he was unfamiliar with Bordelon or his company but said, “Look for the existence of rehab centers. That’s one of the ways fraud is perpetrated by operators. That’s usually a red flag,” he said.

He could be right. A spot check of a couple of Bordelon’s facilities indicated at least some of his entities might exist in name only.

A Ruston clinic, for example, has a clinic that ostensibly houses a geriatric psychiatric treatment facility. It is supposedly located on the top floor of the old Health South Building across from Green Clinic. The only problem is, the entire building—including the top floor—is unoccupied.

Then there’s Allegiance Home Health of West Central Louisiana whose address is given on its web site as 3177 U.S. 71 in Campti, Louisiana. The big problem there is that address appears to be an empty lot.

Doctors who left or retired from Green Clinic subsequent to its purchase by Bordelon and Allegiance include:

• Dr James R. McWhorter
• Dr. Magee
• Dr. Tonya Slusher
• Dr. Candace Moak
• Dr. Kenneth-Metoyer
• Dr. Rochelle Robicheaux-Metoyer
• Dr. Tommy Smith
• Dr. Paul Novakovich
• Dr. Joshua Mandrell
• Dr. David Osafo
• Dr. Shane Phillips
• Dr. William Sanders
• Dr. Charles Tanner (deceased)
• Dr. Jeffrey Weeks
• Dr. Dionne Nolan

It’s no secret that the natives around Ruston are getting restless, more than a little impatient with the turn of events at NLMC. An online forum, Ruston Rants, lends sufficient evidence of that sentiment.

One resident wrote, “Allegiance has killed Green Clinic Northside,” adding the ownership “is slowly killing the old Green Clinic. There are barely any doctors in the main clinic and the surgery center isn’t much better with staffing.”

Bordelon took it upon himself to respond, saying that both NLMC and the clinics were being “tweaked. Healthcare has been broken in Ruston for many decades, that’s not new.”

By Paul Spillman, guest columnist

Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby has spared college football a disaster of near biblical proportions by declaring for the NFL supplemental draft and foregoing the final year of college eligibility he recently won in an injunction against the NCAA. That injunction issued by visiting judge Ken Curry in a Lubbock, TX courtroom prevented the NCAA from ruling Sorsby ineligible for the 2026 season for gambling on college football and on his own team.

Sorsby’s decision to enter the supplemental draft diverts a crisis college athletics did not want and was not prepared for. Removing those who gamble on their own team to protect the integrity of competition has been a guiding principle in all of sport for more than a century. By issuing an injunction preventing the NCAA from enforcing that rule the court threatened the integrity of all sports at every level and took dead aim at the NCAA as a rule enforcing body.

The fallout included hypocrites getting exposed, a pissing contest between two state Attorneys General, congressional grandstanding, and nearly every interested party giving themselves an infarction in outrage. Not to mention providing an occasion for a few cheap shots at LSU.

In the immediate aftermath of the injunction Texas Tech booster and main money-man Cody Campbell was quick to defend the Red Raiders and the ruling, even taking a shot at LSU saying if this had happened here no one would care. It’s important to note Campbell is close to Senator Ted Cruz and is the driving force behind the pooling of media rights in college athletics. College football fans may recall during the 2025 season commercials that ran during every college game warning of a coming crisis and the need to address it. Vague and ominous it referred to no specific issue nor was attributed to any group. Those commercials were paid for by Cody Campbell who apparently believed himself to be a savior of college athletics. Until the Sorsby mess exposed his hypocrisy.

But hypocrite boosters weren’t the only self-serving parties to get in on the action. Texas Attorney General and candidate for Senate Ken Paxton sent a letter to the Big 12 conference office shortly after the ruling warning the conference of legal action if it sanctioned Texas Tech. Not to be outdone Oklahoma Attorney General and candidate for governor Gentner Drummond fired off a letter to conference officials the next day threatening legal action if the Big 12 didn’t sanction Texas Tech and laying out the legal argument for the conference’s authority to do so and offering the services of its office against Paxton. This provided as good an example as any of why college athletics should loathe any involvement by any politician of any stripe. Politicians have their own agenda which they are utterly devoted to. Issues like governing college athletics are pieces to be used in pursuing their own agendas, not something to be addressed for its own sake. The issues facing college athletics won’t be solved by politicians because politicians don’t solve problems. They use them to further their own agendas.

That’s especially true of Congressional politicians. Ted Cruz is pushing the Protect College Sports Act as a solution, claiming the bill grants the NCAA an antitrust exemption and thus prevents rulings such as the Sorsby injunction. But Cruz didn’t become a US Senator by being truthful. He knows good and well this injunction does not prevent the NCAA from enforcing a rule due to antitrust violation. The ruling grants the NCAA authority to enforce rules but declared the punishment was too great for the crime, imposing its own two-game suspension on Sorsby instead of permanent ineligibility. That’s not the same as saying the NCAA doesn’t have the authority to enforce rules. Nor would the Protect College Sports Act prevent student athletes from suing to regain eligibility, providing any other judge an opportunity to overrule the NCAA. But few expect a US Senator to give a straight, honest answer to any question.

Nor was Cruz the only yapping dog. Our own Steve Scalise mucked up the debate claiming he could have passed the SCORE act in the House before congressional realignment swept the nation and proved that politics is a blood sport. Scalise made the rounds to right-wing media outlets hitting only the points that drive right-wingers crazy and gaslighting everyone. Scalise said, “One thing that a lot of schools and student athletes told us is they don’t want to be forced into being employees of the school and then ultimately being unionized. And that’s one of the big differences between the House and Senate bill that’s got to get fixed.” In all the debate over legislation, public comments, and this recent scandal not one word has been spoken publicly about unionization. An internet search will bear out that truth.

Other than Texas Tech officials and fans, the general consensus was it would be a disaster for college football had Sorsby suited up this fall. Some schools would have refused to play Texas Tech and the conference would surely have attempted at least to impose sanctions. Curry’s ruling granting Sorsby an injunction provided days-worth of content for talking heads, podcasters, and You Tube content creators and all of it was negative, with a few more shots at LSU. One podcaster noted LSU had pursued Sorsby before he committed to Texas Tech and that details of LSU’s offer to Sorsby had been leaked online. He speculated on the circus LSU would be right now had Sorsby signed with the Tigers, with Lane Kiffin as head coach and the governor inserting himself into the fray. That he’s probably correct gives that cheap shot a little extra “oomph.”

So what happens now? There is tremendous pressure to pass the Protect College Sports Act more so that Congress is seen to be doing something than to actually address the issues. As detailed previously the legislation grants the “voluntary” pooling of media rights if 75% of member institutions vote for it. But if the bill becomes law, it will be the catalyst for the Big Ten, the SEC, Notre Dame, and whoever else wants to come along to break away from the relic that is the NCAA, an organization the courts no longer have any respect for and that has outlived its usefulness. None of those schools are going to share their lucrative media deals with anyone else.

The logic is simple. If Notre Dame, at any time over the last 100 years, had wanted to share media revenue it could have joined the conference of its choice. And still could right this moment. But it hasn’t. It has remained a football independent because it can. Notre Dame is simply not going to share media revenue. Nor will the Big Ten and the SEC agree to an exception for Notre Dame but not for themselves. Those schools will break away, form a super-conference, adapt to the modern world in ways that allow them to enforce rules, and leave the NCAA to die of natural causes.

But all of that is in some future season. Today college athletics is thankful to enter the 2026 academic year with the ugliness of the Sorsby scandal in the rear-view mirror and clear roads ahead. For a week or two, anyway.