It’s been more than a year since Troy Hebert showed up at State Civil Service hearing over his firing of former Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) agent Brett Tingle with five taxpayer-paid attorneys in tow.
That was the hearing from which Hebert tried unsuccessfully to bar LouisianaVoice only to be told a public hearing meant that it was…well, public. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/07/10/civil-service-hearing-for-fired-atc-agent-continued-to-sept-after-settlement-talks-break-down-troy-didnt-want-us-there/
It was during the proceedings that fateful day (July 10, 2015) that Hebert, then the ATC Director but now a minor (and boy, do we mean minor) no-show (as in the polls) candidate for the U.S. Senate, made such a big production of releasing the contents of private cell phone text messages by Tingle. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/09/27/troy-hebert-may-have-violated-state-constitution-in-releasing-contents-of-private-text-messages-in-effort-to-discredit-agent/
It was a move (mis)calculated to embarrass Tingle publicly and to weaken his appeal before the Civil Service hearing officer.
On Tuesday, Sept. 13, however, it was Hebert, Bobby Jindal’s fair-haired boy, who was dealt a little embarrassment. file:///C:/Users/Tom/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/Content.Outlook/CKN53EOO/2016%2009%2013%2032%20Order_Mo%20to%20Dismiss%20(003).pdf
U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles of Louisiana’s Middle District in Baton Rouge ruled that the privacy of Tingle’s cell phone was protected under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Fourth+Amendment and under Article I § 5 of the Louisiana Constitution. Louisiana courts have established that Article I § 5 provides greater protection of privacy rights than the Fourth Amendment. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/09/27/troy-hebert-may-have-violated-state-constitution-in-releasing-contents-of-private-text-messages-in-effort-to-discredit-agent/
At the same time Judge deGravelles, while dismissing some parts of Tingle’s lawsuit, left intact the most serious of the claims when he ruled that Hebert may have defamed Tingle on three separate accounts by:
- Releasing the contents of the text messages;
- Implying publicly that Tingle was in some way involved in the theft and burning of Hebert’s state vehicle when he said, if a person would “connect the dots,” it would be easy to determine who vandalized the vehicle;
- Making statements about Tingle in his termination letter and in news releases.
deGravelle’s defamation ruling opens the door to Tingle’s seeking substantial monetary damages.
Because Tingle’s lawsuit is against Hebert personally and not the state, Hebert would be solely liable for any damage award if found liable.
Reached at his home Tuesday night, Tingle said he had not had a chance to read the six-page ruling but he had discussed it with his attorney, J. Arthur Smith, III. “I’m delighted at what I’ve heard,” he said.
Hebert has been the subject of several stories by LouisianaVoice over the past few years—ever since his appointment to succeed Murphy Painter as ATC head when the Jindal administration attempted to frame Painter on trumped up charges when he wouldn’t play ball with Stephen Waguespack and the rest of Jindal’s junior varsity team. https://louisianavoice.com/2014/10/24/another-embarrassment-for-jindal-ex-atc-commissioner-murphy-painter-wins-defamation-suit-against-his-accuser/
Besides his bizarre behavior in person-to-person dealings with his agents, he also has been known to assign a female agent to undercover drug enforcement in New Orleans bars and then to assign her to uniformed patrol at the same establishments the following week, a move that could have endangered her life.
He also transferred a black agent from New Orleans to Shreveport on a full time basis with less than a full day’s notice, supposedly as a way to force the agent’s resignation and was said to have confided in one of his white agents that he intended to force blacks out of the agency.
And then there was this story that LouisianaVoice broke last January: https://louisianavoice.com/2016/01/26/fbi-said-investigating-troy-hebert-for-using-office-to-extort-sex-from-woman-in-exchange-for-fixing-licensing-problems/
All in all, it’s not been a very good year for Troy Hebert who, in the last poll we saw, polled exactly 0%. You’d think that with 24 candidates in the race to succeed U.S. Sen David Vitter, Hebert would pull at least 1% just by accident.
Shoot, even our former governor, ol’ what’s his name, did better than that in his comical run for the Republican presidential nomination.
But for what it’s worth, Troy, if it came down to a choice between you and David Duke, we’d be out campaigning for you. Thankfully, however, it looks as though it may be between the two of you for 24th place.
Louisiana Voice 
I would have enjoyed seeing Little Troy having to stand for Judge deGravelles as he made his staff do when he entered the room.
Also, since Hebert has been found guilty, doesn’t he now have to personally pay his cadre of Lawyers? If so, keep your eye on that serpent as he will surely try and find a way, as did Kristy Nichols, to have the State pay the legal tab for his/her personal guilt.
The comedic value of this legend in his own mind would be priceless were it not for the trail of damaged people he leaves in his wake. Our redemption lies in the fact that he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of holding an office of any consequence again. I haven’t seen anything like him since, well, Swindall or A.G. Jeff Landry.
As has already been said, this man damaged and ruined lives.
Finally he will be held accountable for his incoherent and childish actions.
I am sure the appellate court will uphold the ruling.
Where was state civil service when this was going on? This man and others were put thru hell and had to rely on court actions, with its costs and time delays, to get a chance for justice. With such an obvious case of abuse of power, you thing civil service would have acted in the employee’s behalf. Instead they were likely complicit.
Tom,
The link to the 9/13/16 opinion in your article doesn’t work so I went to the court database myself (www.pacer.gov Middle District, LA for anyone interested) to look it up and it appears that your article is GROSSLY inaccurate and that you yourself may be bordering on defamation…
I see from the court filings that you and Mr. Tingle share an attorney so maybe that’s where you received your information and just took his word on it rather than exercising the due diligence expected of a “journalist” prior to writing this story???? Or, perhaps you were just so blinded by your overt hatred for Troy Hebert that you jumped the gun (understandable, but not justifiable from someone holding himself out as a credible journalist)???? Or, maybe you are just completely ignorant of how the court process works and didn’t take the time to google it before writing this story????? The last scenario that I can possibly think of to explain this obnoxiously inaccurate story is that you were being intentionally deceptive when you wrote the story in a “(mis)calculated move” (as you say) to sir the emotions and responses that you clearly desire in an attempt to bolster the allegations presented by your attorney/friend. I truly hope the latter is not the case.
From what I can tell, the 9/13/16 order (“Order on Motion for Partial Dismissal”) was only on a Motion to Dismiss parts of Mr. Tingle’s case that was filed by the State. It further appears Judge deGravelles did in fact DISMISS many of the claims filed by Mr. Tingle. NOWHERE do I see that the Judge ruled that Hebert defamed Tingle (and I’m pretty sure that decision would have to be made by a jury after a complete trial).
From how I read it, the Judge merely ruled that Tingle has presented enough allegations that “if true” would potentially allow SOME of his claims (i.e. those that weren’t dismissed outright) to proceed to trial (which seems to be a pretty low bar to meet from what I have read online about this type of motion as this seems to be a very preliminary matter that happens even before potential witnesses are interviewed… “A “motion to dismiss” asks the court to decide that a claim, even if true as stated, is not one for which the law offers a legal remedy” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_in_United_States_law).
So, did I miss something here or are you just wrong?
Its pretty scary (and a bit concerning) that your readers who have commented before me would just believe what you say without even remotely attempting to verify for themselves the accuracy of your “story”. The first sign to me that something may not be right is when you “posted” a link that wasn’t actually a link in support of your assertions and then again when you referenced contacting Mr. Tingle, but made no reference to any effort to contact the other party to this case (an action which certainly suggested a bias to me – isn’t it journalism 101 to seek both sides of the story before going to print?). I guess people just read and hear what they want to hear rather than actually looking for the truth – sad, but not surprising….
I am by no means attempting to defend Hebert here, but it is very aggravating to see something published by someone that many hold out to be a “reliable” source of information only to discover that it could not be further from the truth (and it took me all of 5min of online searching to figure that out).
Thanks for pointing out my misread of the ruling. I have made changes to more accurately reflect the content of the ruling.
You should probably change your headline too because I do not think that the judge ruled that the agent’s privacy rights were violated…