A couple of weeks ago, we received a comment from a reader identifying himself only as “The Truth Man” who proceeded to go on a 128-word tirade against another reader who called himself the “Dental Genie” and gloating over the outcome of the lawsuit of Dr. Randall Schaffer against the Louisiana State Dentistry Board.
Normally, it is the policy of LouisianaVoice to protect the identities of those commenting on our stories. We take the position that if they do not wish to divulge their real names, there must be a legitimate reason. Often, that reason is that the writer is a state employee who would fear for his job should his name be revealed.
But when the writer turns out to be the former director of the state board that was being sued by Dr. Randall Schaffer and when that writer attempts to color the results of the legal action in the board’s favor, we take the position that he is waiving his anonymity. He is, after all, a very public figure, retired or not.
Barry Ogden, former director of the Louisiana Board of Dentistry, was referring to Schaffer’s lawsuit against the board after the board turned on him for blowing the whistle on a defective joint replacement device for temporomandibular jaw (TMJ) sufferers by the head of the LSU School of Dentistry’s Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department in the mid-1980s. https://louisianavoice.com/2014/03/11/from-protecting-their-own-to-persecution-of-a-whistleblower-its-all-part-of-the-bureaucratic-shuffle-by-state-dental-board/
Schaffer who was a resident at LSU at the time, became aware of the negative effects to patients receiving the implants and when he was named as a witness and consultant in the class action cases that ensued, the Board of Dentistry immediately launched an investigation and ultimately revoked his license to practice dentistry.
Schaffer sued the board and moved to Iowa where he worked as a consultant and expert witness in legal matters involving dental malpractice. His case wound its way slowly through the courts, as legal cases always do, running up tremendous costs in the process. Meanwhile, Schaffer was forced to undergo bypass surgery and the combination of medical problems and legal costs left him with no choice but to allow his case to abandon.
Thus, he did not “lose” his case; it was dismissed because of the aforementioned reasons. “I simply could not afford to keep feeding the (legal) beast,” Schaffer said. “It has cost me more than $100,000 and it broke me.”
Ogden’s misleading and less than gracious rant led to several email exchanges between LouisianaVoice and Ogden. We first reminded him that the dismissal of Dr. Randall Schaffer’s case was not based on the merits of the case, but upon extenuating circumstances—money and health. We also reminded him that there are other lawsuits pending against the board and that state agencies have—and are continuing to—investigate tactics by the board and its contract investigator Camp Morrison, who inexplicably was given free office space in the Dental Board’s suite, paid for by taxpayers.
“Are you going to print my comment or not?” Ogden replied. “You obviously have made up your mind about me. Everything I said is true and public. Is your blog blocking what you don’t want to hear? I hope you will give myself and the other defendants a fair and balanced report after we prevail in court.”
We promised to publish his comment, but in context with the facts of the Schaffer case and Ogden’s 400-page deposition in another pending legal matter (Dr. Ryan Haygood). “The Schaffer case does not end the legal actions against the Louisiana Board of Dentistry,” we wrote, adding that as long as we were now communicating (we couldn’t get a comment from the board in our original story), “please explain how it is that the private investigator (Morrison) who is (or was) under contract to the board had the luxury of having an office in your office suite.”
Rather than answer that question, Ogden wrote back, “I cannot authorize you to publish my comment until I see how you plan to edit it and in what context. Are you on a witch hunt against the board or are you willing to publish non-biased comments? I do not wish for my comments to be changed. However, you may delete the final sentence admonishing you to know your subject before commenting. Further, do you require that I will only have my comments published if I allow you to controvert them with your own commentary?”
Well, yeah, when we feel it appropriate to clarify certain claims we do reserve that right.
We then asked him to please answer a few simply questions, to wit:
- Why do you send in people posing as patients with the express purpose of setting these dentists up?
- How is it that many of the dentists penalized with the board just happen to be in competition with board members?
- How do you justify levying a fine of say, $2,000 and when the dentist refuses, you suddenly hand him a bill for $100,000?
- How can you justify the board serving as accuser, prosecutor and judge? That makes it impossible for a dentist to receive a fair hearing.
- When the U.S. Constitution says that everyone accused of wrongdoing is innocent until proven guilty, how is it that a dentist first learns of his “guilt” upon receiving notification of his fine?
We wrote that we had other questions, but unless he could address those satisfactorily, we could see no reason for further discussion. “You answer these and we can talk further,” we said.
“All I was attempting to do in my first comment,” he replied, “was to set the record straight, as I have been fed up with the lies being said about the board and, in fact, all the horse manure thrown at us by you which you believed from the start… Now you wish me fill in the blanks in your next story which you have probably already written. I see no use in further communication, especially on matters in litigation. You are attempting to take advantage of me knowing I cannot answer your questions.
“Therefore, please do not print any of my comments, and let’s call it a day.”
Sorry, Mr. Ogden. That’s just not the way it works. You opened this dialog with your April 3 email to us in which you taunted us about the dismissal of Dr. Schaffer’s case—without revealing the real reasons for the dismissal—and advising us to keep our mouths shut. You offered your remarks as a comment to our story and even asked if we intended to print it before apparently having a change of heart and asking that it not be printed.
Sorry again, but when you want something to be off the record, you preface it that way—up front. You don’t come back after the fact and ask that your ill-advised remarks not be printed.
Accordingly, here is the original comment by Barry Ogden, retired director of the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry (verbatim, as he requested):
- For all of you who believe the fairy tale told by the dental genie, please be advised that ALL lawsuits filed on Dr. Shaffer’s behalf have been DISMISSED. I guess now you have to complain that both state and federal judges are as corrupted as the dental board. Further, how can anyone make a legitimate comment without looking at both sides? You can obtain a copy of the decision revoking Dr. Shaffer’s license from the dental board. It’s a public record. You may also look up all the lawsuits he has filed in state court and federal court in New Orleans to get the true picture. You know the old saying it is better to keep your mouth shut if you don’t know what you are talking about.
Next, we will examine how the board attempted to revoke the medical license of a New Orleans surgeon who has never even practiced dentistry using highly questionable investigative methods and employing tactics can only be described as extortion.
Louisiana Voice 
First, thank GOD for Tom Aswell!!! Not only is he the ONLY media source I’ve seen who is willing to expose the corruption so rampant within these boards and commissions, but he has the tenacity not to back down from them!!
I want to say just a couple of things. Tom and I went to the Board of Dentistry a little over a year ago to scan records of dentists’ files. As Tom and I drove back, I said, “Well, I’ve never seen anything like this. Compared to the Dentistry Board, the Auctioneer Licensing Board is starting to look like Saints!” Now, most any reader on this blog knows how I feel about the LALB, so for me to make that statement about the Dentistry Board is saying plenty!! I copied one dentist’s file who was being held responsible for paying for all the costs of a so-called “hearing” and they totaled, if my memory serves me correctly (Tom has all the files – I was just serving as a second scanner operator) around $84,000!! He was having to pay board members’ hotel rooms for hearings and tons of other associated costs, the board’s legal fees, etc. It was un-freaking-believable!!
Second, on this whole issue of the same attorney serving as general counsel and prosecuting attorney, anyone can ask any CPA (of which I’m an inactive certificate holder) if that is a good internal control setup, and they’ll tell you, “Not no, but hell no!” Well, I observed that to be the case at the LALB, and I raised the issue and even asked for guidance from the AG’s Office on the setup and, in my letter, I referenced the Board of Dentistry and a court case as establishing that the practice was far less than desirable (other court cases with similar issues being litigated include the State Board of Ethics and the State Board of Cosmetology). Well, guess what? The LALB decided it would conduct a formal hearing against my auction license for the mere fact I raised the issue!! Now, the last time I checked, we DO have First Amendment Rights, but apparently the LALB contends otherwise!! Now, as I’ve said, I like to video tape these things but otherwise NOBODY would believe me!! Well, here’s a direct link for that webpage of my own so-called “hearing” merely for bringing up the issue, and anyone is welcome to watch the brief videos wherein I reference the Dentistry Board and the other two boards regarding my assertion that it is an utterly HORRIBLE setup:
http://www.auctioneer-la.org/problems_robert_burns_91212_dual.htm
No matter how many times my attorney, Robert Loren Kleinpeter, kept telling the LALB that the LALB had no jurisdiction WHATSOEVER for pursuing ANY of the allegations they were lodging against me, the Board would NOT listen!! Here is a 3-minute video of him doing so: https://youtu.be/7eemxBW9WSg.
Amazingly, in the above video, one board member, Ms. Darlene Jacobs-Levy, an attorney with 44 years of legal experience, said she agreed with Kleinpeter and urged the AG’s Administrative Law Judge, Michael Vallan, to issue a directed verdict. I’m now firmly convinced that AG Caldwell was actually behind having the Board pursue me in the first place!! What evidence do I have? The fact that, in November of 2011, one of his attorneys, Rodney Ramsey, had concrete evidence that the LALB’s Executive Director was TO BE investigated by the Legislative Auditor’s Office for payroll fraud. Instead of the AG’s office taking any action whatsoever against her payroll fraud or the LALB members for openly permitting her to engage in the payroll fraud, what did Caldwell do? He brings in an administrative law judge who was only too willing to cram their corruption down my throat!!
Even though I knew an active criminal investigation was TO BE conducted on Ms. Edmonds’s activities (it ultimately WAS conducted by the Inspector General’s Office), I had to sit there and endure this garbage that the board was stating that I was issuing “false and misleading reports” entailing Ms. Edmonds: https://youtu.be/PBWdy8yMOqs. The IG’s Office subsequently issued a report saying she has engaged in payroll fraud, yet AG Caldwell’s Office worked hand-in-hand with the LALB to pursue me for my role in reporting it to the Legislative Auditor’s Office! As I said, Rodney Ramsey with the AG’s Office KNEW of an upcoming investigation of Ms. Edmonds in November of 2011, yet AG Caldwell’s Office advised the Board to hire Larry S. Bankston and the VERY FIRST thing he did (I have his billings to confirm it) was to begin pursuit of my auction license for the Dow/Edmonds matters!!
Lastly, I attended a trial of the Amite River Basin Commission just over a year ago. It lasted about two weeks. One of the witnesses was Daryl Purpera, Louisiana Legislative Auditor, a gentleman for whom I have the utmost of respect. He and I talked at length prior to him taking the witness stand, and I told him that Tom and I had just returned from copying tons of records from the Board of Dentistry, and this is a VERBATIM QUOTE that Mr. Purpera made to me: “That Dentistry Board has had serious, serious problems for decades!”
So, if Mr. Ogden contends Tom is “biased” and only presenting “one side of the story,” then it would be interesting to know how he would characterize Mr. Purpera’s assessment of that particular board. He darn sure is not a person lacking in objectivity!
I don’t think the average citizen has the slightest clue just what a bunch of Gestapo, Mafia-like enforcers many of these boards and commissions are. The LAST thing they’re concerned with is protecting the public! All they are doing is raising prices on all of us by engaging in their activities, seeking to drive competition out of business, and the costs of all this litigation has to be passed on to consumers. Thank God that at least one reporter, Tom Aswell, is willing to shed light on these detestable entities!!
Thanks, Tom!!!!!!
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And the board office at One Canal Place should be ablaze. I wouldn’t want to be on that ship when it finally goes down.
For an attorney, that Ogden seems to know very little about the law.
I’m honored to be the subject of Ogden’s diatribe. It’s my opinion that things are far worse than anyone ever expected. Thanks for bringing these scoundrels to light, Tom. You are truly making a difference!
I’m betting on someone going to jail when it’s all said and done.
According to the writings in this volume of The Louisiana Voice, it seems quite obvious that Barry Ogden aka “The Truth Man” really does not know his “truthful” ass from a hole in the ground. This certainly sheds a scandalous light of the Louisiana Board of Dentistry. Thank-you for informing the public that such corrupt nonsense exists among seemingly respectable people.
That’s what is so shocking, Verisimilitude! In sharp contrast to obtaining an auction license which, except for the $1,400 or so to attend auction school (there is not even a requirement for HS diploma or GED), is pretty darn easy to obtain, a person can’t just fall out of bed one day and decide to be a dentist!
You would think that these people would have more respect for their profession and the work colleagues did to obtain a license. Obviously not! Furthermore, there is no free money! All these fines required to keep this Mafia-like, Gestapo machine operating on Canal Boulevard have to be paid by some source somewhere. What is that source? All of the dentists in this state have to pass those extortion actions against them on to us the public! So when we’ve been visiting our dentists, it’s like there’s an implicit charge in our bill upon checkout that covers the costs of these dastardly acts!
It is readily apparent that the Dentistry Board has engaged in rampant illegal activity designed to increase the market share of its members by driving competing dentists living within close proximity to board members out of business.
Regarding Dental Genie’s comment about someone going to jail before it’s all said and done, folk SHOULD have been in jail a long time ago. Nevertheless, we better all HOPE that any investigation is Federal in nature. If it’s left up to AG Buddy Caldwell, you can FORGET his office having any interest in investigation corruption by a state agency. He won’t hesitate to grandstand on spending our money on fruitless opposition to gay marriage which is inevitably going to become the law across the U. S. by way of an upcoming Supreme Court ruling. He does that because he figures it will gain him votes. He doesn’t give two flying flips about how badly the public may be screwed by these Gestapo agencies but instead figures pursuing them may cost him some support among “politically-connected” folk (as evidenced by Jindal having appointed them to these boards). THAT is why this kind of garbage has been permitted to continue unabated for such an extended time.
Gee Whiz One would think Mr. Ogden would be smarter than to get into a debate with Tom Aswell who buys ink by the barrel. Apparently he’s not the sharpest pencil in the box.
Such blatant malfeasance going on for years is unacceptable. Applauding Mr. Aswell for making this public. Let’s hope there is vindication for the board’s victims in the near future.
Thank GOD for Tom! These people need to have justice served upon them swiftly and with great force! Keep shaking the tree and see how many more monkeys fall out!
Tom has been fighting against corruption and for the dentist and against dental board from last 2 years. He has many more well investigated stories of dental board corruption in his archives. The big problem is the dentists in Louisiana are not with Tom. Every one is covering their back and making the beast more blood thirsty. The LDA and Local dental board run Operation Lip Seal, Theirs is an unspoken oath to be members of the local dental association. The eligibility criteria to be a local dental board member is the Dentist has to ignore the board. the dentists have to bend their back and open their safe. Obey the dental board mafia. Support the same mafia every decade. The Dental Board Mafia indirectly supported by Booby Jindal and the Governor’s office is ignoring the facts. Bobby Jindal and his office do not read anything on corruption and never read Tom’s articles. The Dental Board Mafia’s primary Goal is to extort the dentist in the name of public protection and distribution of the wealth. The Dental Board members are indirect beneficiaries as the fear gets them unlimited referrals with no advertisement cost to get the patients.
We have been fighting with the board for many years and we have learned that when you are in a fight with board, you are alone. If anyone has been planning a class action lawsuit count me in. You can get my information from Tom.
It’s easy for Barry Ogden to sit back and talk smack while the state pays for the legal bills to clean up his mess. When he loses, the state needs to come back on him for reimbursement.