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Archive for April, 2017

LSP, Picou agree on resignation in payroll fraud matter; attorney blames entire affair on ‘irresponsible’ reporting

Posted in Commissions, Corruption, Crime, Ethics, State Police on April 13, 2017| 20 Comments »

Little more than a year ago, on February 15, 2016, Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) case worker Kimberly Lee of Calhoun in Ouachita Parish was ARRESTED and booked into jail with bond set at $25,000.

Her crime? She was accused of falsifying entries in her case records showing she had made home visits to foster children when she hadn’t. Her agency had undergone massive budget cuts and the cuts, combined with more children entering foster care, meant an impossible caseload. That, in turn, had prompted a Shreveport DCFS supervisor to tell caseworkers that they could make “drive-by” visits to foster homes, which meant talking to the foster parents in their driveways. Policy says that workers will see both the child and the foster parent in the home, interviewing each separately.

On Thursday, the Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC), showing all the backbone of a jellyfish, accepted an agreement reached between Louisiana State Police (LSP) attorneys and former trooper Ronald Picou’s attorney Jill Craft of Baton Rouge.

That agreement called for LSP to rescind its letter of termination in exchange for Picou’s “resignation” for the same offense as Ms. Lee—except where her time sheet falsification was over a relative short time period, Picou’s went on for years.

And where Ms. Lee’s responsibility called for the oversight of the well-being of foster children (certainly a serious responsibility), Picou’s was for the general safety and protection of Louisiana citizens.

Nor was his caseload overly burdensome. He simply went home and went to bed after only two or three hours on his 12-hour shifts.

Craft, addressing the LSPC as if she were arguing a legal case, complete with the obligatory rhetoric, said her client was making a sacrifice for the benefit of his family and his “brothers in blue,” that he loved working “as a dedicated law enforcement officer for the better part of a decade,” and that a lot of “irresponsible reporting” had been done about Picou.

Funny, but when LouisianaVoice did a story about one of her clients winning a big court case, she never breathed a word about “irresponsible” reporting. Guess it depends on whose ox is being gored, eh counselor?

So, bottom line, Picou was allowed to walk away from his transgressions a free man. Unemployed at least for the time being, but free to accept another job in law enforcement for some city or town—or even another state agency as was the case of one terminated State Trooper who ended up policing for Pinecrest State School in Pineville.

“Irresponsible” are the actions of a man who ran a daytime construction business so he would cut his shift short by eight or nine hours so he could go home and sleep so he would be fresh when he did his day job.

“Irresponsible” are the tacit approvals given his actions by his supervisors at LSP Troop D in Lake Charles—Troop D Commander Capt. Chris Guillory and Picou’s immediate supervisor, Lt. Paul Brady.

“Irresponsible” are the sham investigations conducted first by Guillory and then by LSP Internal Affairs until LouisianaVoice published its “irresponsible” stories—backed up by Picou’s very own radio logs that repeatedly showed no activity after the first few hours of his shift. Only then did LSP conduct any semblance of a real investigation and subsequently gave Picou his walking papers. Of course he appealed his firing, which was the basis of Thursday’s scheduled hearing by LSPC until commissioners were informed of, and asked to approve, the settlement agreement. Commissioners went into executive session all of 12 minutes to discuss the proposed agreement before accepting it unanimously—and without comment.

Asked if the agreement precluded Picou’s ever working again as a police officer for another agency, commission Chairman T.J. Doss said the commission had no authority over that matter. Asked if commissioners, who had the power to accept or reject the agreement, could not have insisted on a clause in the agreement to that effect, member Eulis Simien, an attorney, reiterated the position that the commission had no authority over Picou’s future employment.

But the commission did have the authority to accept or reject the agreement. And while the commission has no enforcement authority, it certainly could have refused to rubber stamp the agreement until that wording was included.

The LSPC has evolved into a running joke with the resignations of five of seven commissioners within the past year and the forced resignation of former Executive Director Cathy Derbonne.

Only last month the commission rejected the appeal—with only member Calvin Braxton voting no—of a State Trooper who provided substantial evidence to back up his claim that he was harassed and ultimately suspended by supervisors in Troop F after he issued a traffic ticket to the teenage driver of a vehicle in which the son of Troop Commander Tommy Lewis was a passenger. For whatever reason, the commission apparently saw no reason to call in witnesses or to take statements from those involved.

The powers that be wanted the trooper punished and that was that.

On Thursday, it was determined that a Trooper who took an oath of office to serve and protect and to uphold the Constitution but who instead committed payroll fraud should be allowed to resign and walk away.

Does the term double standard carry any meaning anymore?

Perhaps it would be irresponsible to ask that.

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We’ve learned a thing or two; those ‘good hands’ and ‘good neighbors’ aren’t really good and they aren’t ‘on your side’

Posted in Business, Corruption, Ethics, Fraud, Lawsuits on April 11, 2017| 13 Comments »

Allstate Insurance only wants its good hands on your wallet.

State Farm isn’t such a good neighbor, after all—especially in your time of greatest need.

Farmers has seen a thing or two and has learned a thing or two—about low-balling claims.

Nationwide isn’t on anyone’s side, no matter what Peyton Manning says.

And lest one think that political grandstanding by some members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation is a viable substitute for effective representation and an avenue to disaster recovery…think again.

U.S. Rep. Garrett Graves, apparently hoping to bolster his 2019 gubernatorial campaign, has issued a series misleading, mistaken and inappropriate claims about the disbursement of recovery funds.

His claim that his House colleagues are questioning what the state did with $438 million in recovery funds was absurd because, simply put, the money had never actually been received.

And he knows it. The claim was grandstanding in its purest form and made only in the interest of political capital to be gained. Flood victims in his district would be far better served by a more positive use of his office.

Sometimes you have to wonder why, when these guys are elected, they can’t just do their damned job.

Of course U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, also said to be casting a solicitous eye toward the governor’s mansion, couldn’t help offering, as is his custom, yet another of his trite homilies when he described the governor’s handling of the flood recovery contract as a “Three Stooges-like performance.” http://www.theadvocate.com/louisiana_flood_2016/article_a41326a0-1326-11e7-8805-574e2f9c803c.html

And the contract to administer the anticipated $1.6 billion in federal recovery funds was a major embarrassment because of the involvement of attorney Larry Bankston in trying to disqualify the low bidder when his son was employed by a firm affiliated with one of the losing bidders. http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_aae4b7aa-101f-11e7-924b-037340aec399.html

Edwards must feel as if he’s being pecked to death by a duck.

Greater good could be achieved for all by taking the higher ground to enlightenment (to borrow a phrase employed by The Cincinnati Enquirer in describing a debate between William Howard Taft and former Democratic Secretary of State Richard Olney in the 1904 presidential race between Theodore Roosevelt and Alton B. Parker) instead of acting like a bunch of kids in a schoolyard fight.

People have been suffering for eight months now and they want to get back into their homes. They don’t need cheap campaign rhetoric; they want real answers.

And to compound their frustration, they now know they cannot look to their insurers for relief, either, thanks to lessons learned from Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike. http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2017/03/thousands_to_receive_small_pay.html

Thanks to a tactic affectionately known as Delay, Deny, Defend, introduced to Allstate and State Farm by McKinsey and Co. just in time for Hurricane Katrina, policyholders learned that insurers would rather fight than pay up. For every claimant who stuck it out and won a big award from his insurer, hundreds did just what the companies anticipated: they caved in and took settlements of pennies on the dollar simply because they didn’t have the resources to fight back.

http://www.delaydenydefend.com/excerpt/

Less than a week following the devastation of Katrina, Nationwide, on September 4, 2005, instructed its claims adjusters that “if loss is caused by both flood and wind, there is no coverage,” according to Mississippi Gulf Coast U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor.

Nine days later, on September 13, Taylor said State Farm instructed its adjusters that “where wind acts concurrently with flooding to cause damage to the insured property, coverage for the loss exists only under flood coverage.”

On-site damage assessment by engineer Jerome Quintero of Rimkus Consulting Group, contracted by Allstate to handle claims, said there was “insufficient physical evidence to determine the proportion of wind versus storm surge that destroyed (a) structure.”

That was in June 2006. But on November 4, Quintero’s conclusion of “insufficient physical evidence” was altered to read “Storm surge and waves destroyed the residence” by Rimkus staff who never visited the site. Quintero’s name was signed to the revised report without his knowledge, Taylor said.

So, in just those three examples, we have Nationwide, State Farm and Allstate implicitly telling their adjusters to blame Hurricane Katrina’s damage on water alone, thereby passing an inflated $23 billion bill on to American taxpayers.

Did we say inflated? Well, yes. As if that were not enough, Allstate devised a clever way of enriching itself while passing the cost of those claims on to the taxpayer-funded National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

Documents obtained by LouisianaVoice show that Allstate, which had an arrangement with NFIP under which it paid Allstate for handling flood claims, took full advantage of that position to protect its own financial interests.

If Allstate found itself on the hook for wind damages, it would use one formula for paying claimants but if it determined the damages were caused by flooding, a second, separate formula was employed. The difference was eye-opening, to say the least.

The formulae varied, depending upon location and on whether or not Allstate deemed damage to be from wind or flooding.

In one location for which LouisianaVoice was provided documentation, for example, if damage was from wind, Allstate paid 83 cents per foot for removal and replacement of drywall (sheetrock). If it was determined to be flood damage, that same dry wall removal and replacement—paid for by American taxpayers—was $1.53 per foot, a difference of 70 cents per foot. Painting that drywall cost Allstate 35 cents per foot if the damaged was caused by wind but cost NFIP (taxpayers) 58 cents per foot if it was determined to be flood damage.

For an average 2,000-square-foot home, that is an extra cost of $1,747 that’s passed on to taxpayers for the drywall and an additional $1,148 for painting—a total overcharge of $2,895.

Assuming Allstate handled 20 percent of total claims for Katrina and Rita in Louisiana and Wilma in Florida, the company would have handled some 48,000 claims, costing the federal government as much as $645 million in inflated claims costs, including overhead and profit, which are also calculated into each claim.

In Ocean Springs, Mississippi, the costs of removal and replacement of drywall was 50 cents per foot for wind damage and $1.12 per foot for flood damage. Painting was 26 cents per foot for wind and 83 cents for flood.

To remove and replace electrical outlets, the cost difference was even starker. For wind damage, the cost was $45.62 but if the damage was caused by flooding, Allstate reported a cost of $219.27 to NFIP.

Kermith Sonnier of Oberlin, Louisiana, is a public claims adjuster and provides the source of much of the information cited here. Company adjusters work for insurance companies and their work is generally geared toward saving the company every dime they can by low-balling claims or by denying them outright.

A public claims adjuster is independent who works only for claimants and Sonnier has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money doing just that.

Sonnier, with 38 years’ experience, was once a company adjuster for Farmers Insurance—until he learned a thing or two about the company.

He enjoyed an impeccable reputation in the claims adjustment industry, having worked the Exxon-Valdez claim in 1989, which until the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, was the worst oil spill in history.

In 1994, he was hired by Pilot which was under contract to Farmers to work claims stemming from the Northridge earthquake in California that year. But beginning in 1996, he said, Farmers began pressuring him to lower his loss estimates. He refused because he saw no grounds to do so and Farmers terminated him in 1997 despite a spotless work record. It gave as its reasons that it was reducing its work force even though it continued to hire other adjusters.

He sued for wrongful termination and won a stunning $10 million judgment against Farmers.

http://slabbed.org/2010/11/15/adjusters-special-employees-not-contractors-farmers-lost-10-4-million-wrongful-termination-case-filed-by-you-wont-believe-who/

He, along with other experts in the field of insurance claims, will be working closely with LouisianaVoice in the coming weeks as we explore how those goods hands people, those good neighbors and those who purport to know a thing or two and who claim to be on your side will, when the chips are down, will do everything legally possible—and sometimes things not legal—to minimize or even deny your claim altogether.

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Remnants of Edmonson influence linger in scheduled appeal of fired Troop D trooper Ronald Picou before LSPC Thursday

Posted in Commissions, Corruption, Ethics, State Police on April 10, 2017| 12 Comments »

Col. Mike Edmonson is gone. The good troopers in the Louisiana State Police (LSP) can breathe a sigh of relief. Although gone from LSP in quick fashion and in a manner that is not altogether typical of an honorable retirement, he leaves LSP with some cleaning up to do.

Trooper Ronald Picou was terminated from Troop D for numerous violations of LSP policy. The investigation was initiated by LSP after LouisianaVoice published an article about Picou (https://louisianavoice.com/2015/09/11/gift-cards-for-tickets-payroll-chicanery-quotas-short-shifts-the-norm-in-troop-d-troopers-express-dismay-at-problems/).

Picou ended up being terminated for things like sleeping on duty, lying, and performing tasks in his patrol vehicle while on duty for his private business.

In 2013, by anonymous letter to Internal Affairs from another active member of LSP, Picou was reported for being absent from duty (Payroll Fraud). According to sources who worked with Picou and who audited radio logs, Picou wrote citations for the first 1-3 hours of his 12 hour night shifts and on average, less than half of his 12-hour day shifts. He was reportedly receiving over half of his paycheck in this manner for the better part of a decade.

IA passed that investigation on to the now discredited former Troop D commander, Chris Guillory. Guillory found Picou did nothing wrong in an investigation that seemed more focused on finding whistleblowers.

Picou knew then his fellow Troopers did not approve of his activities. He had to make a choice. Guillory’s clearance of Picou emboldened him to reportedly continue his activities while under the immediate supervision of two of Guillory’s friends, Jim Jacobsen and Paul Brady. Picou’s absences went unchecked until troopers reached out to LouisianaVoice.

In an effort to confirm the reports, LouisianaVoice sent a public records request for Picou’s time sheets and the radio logs to conduct an audit. Realizing what the records would divulge, IA attempted to defuse the issue by finally initiating an investigation.

Picou was still absenting himself from duty which could have been investigated with a simple surveillance operation or a departmental vehicle tracking device. Instead, they notified Guillory who reportedly went on the warpath. Picou was finally terminated. The evidence found in the internal investigation was overwhelming.

IA found 50 days of zero activity although Picou was paid for the entire shift. IA ignored virtually every other day where Picou had some activity at the beginning of the shift but nothing after two or three hours. Sources who conducted radio log audits reported there was much more time of inactivity than that identified by IA.

IA did not document nor did IA investigators even bother to interview Picou for an explanation of his absence from duty. Seriously? What kind of Inspector Clouseau investigation is that?

LSP stacked on the violations. Not for payroll fraud but for things like not remaining logged on to his computer for the entire shift, lying, and sleeping on duty.

By nothing short of investigative blindness or influence by Edmonson, the investigation did not find Picou violated the law. The elements of the offense were met based on the information in the investigation file.

Picou got what he deserved in his termination but we believe he should have been arrested for his public payroll fraud as was a Department of Children and Family Services inspector who was accused of falsifying her time sheets. https://louisianavoice.com/2016/03/13/dcfs-funding-slashed-necessitating-driveway-visits-but-overworked-caseworker-is-arrested-for-falsifying-records/

Can you see a double standard here?

Because of his obvious egregious behavior, Picou posed a liability and had to be sacrificed. Why did LSP ignore the criminal aspect of the investigation? Because they could not pursue the payroll fraud without also pursuing some of the Troop D clique: Chris Guillory, Paul Brady, and Jim Jacobsen.

Jacobsen and Brady supervised Picou during his constant absences while hard-working Troopers had to pull his weight. According to sources, Picou would not help other Troopers.

At a time where law enforcement is getting more and more dangerous, this is an ultimate betrayal of his brothers and sisters in blue. Brady and Jacobsen were either incompetent supervisors or they had to approve of Picou’s actions. Guillory further approved based on his joke of an investigation in 2013.

LSP produced no documentation indicating they investigated obvious supervision deficiencies by Jacobsen, Brady, or Guillory.

Payroll fraud applies to those who steal time and who allow others to steal time. If they knew he was doing it and they damn well should have, they are criminally culpable as well. We believe Edmonson, true to form, protected his friends and ignored that aspect of the investigation. According to our public records requests, none of those responsible to the taxpayers for supervising Picou were punished.

This is old news. Why are we bringing it up now? Picou has a hearing scheduled with the Louisiana State Police Commission to appeal his termination on Thursday, April 13.

Picou, represented by Baton Rouge attorney Jill Craft, can claim he was doing just what he was told to do by his supervisors and that would appear to be the truth. We are told Picou received positive performance evaluations for his work while he was violating the policies for which he was terminated and for non-performance of his duties—payroll violations for which LSP failed to cite as reasons for his termination.

They kept the investigation limited to policy violations to protect Edmonson’s friends. We wonder if Picou will remain loyal to those friends while trying to get his job back.

LSP now has a new commander and we are told he is an admirable leader. This will be one of the first tests of his leadership. The stench of Guillory remains. Guillory was finally removed under a cloud of controversy where there were numerous disciplinary actions, a termination, a sudden resignation, and now multiple lawsuits.

His punishment for his dismal failure to effectively lead Troop D? A bigger command as the head of the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division (CVED). We are told this is a position in Baton Rouge. Captain Guillory lives in Sulphur. That is three hours of authorized travel, one way, six hours both ways. We see this as a ceremonious hole for Guillory who has documented issues with prescription drugs.

Will LSP continue to stand behind Guillory, Brady, and Jacobsen? Will it cower to the will of Edmonson and actually allow Picou the chance to once again put on the badge of a Louisiana State Trooper? We believe Picou returning to the ranks of LSP would be a slap in the face to every Trooper and Law Enforcement Officer who has donned the uniform and sworn to protect and serve their communities.

We further believe it is time for LSP to properly investigate Picou and those who allowed him to betray his badge, fellow officers, and the people of Louisiana.

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Another Jindal ‘reform’ fails legal smell test as Baton Rouge Judge strikes down changes to Workers Compensation laws

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Courts, Ethics, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Legislature, Legislators, Office of Workers' Comp, Politicians on April 4, 2017| 9 Comments »

Bobby Jindal and former Director of the Louisiana Office of Workers Compensation (OWC) Wes Hataway are gone but a court decision late last month could represent a legal smack down of the way workers’ compensation claims have been handled since July 13, 2011, Jindal’s third year in the governor’s office.

The ruling by 19th Judicial District Judge Don Johnson takes direct aim at a law pushed through the Louisiana Legislature and which set up new medical treatment guidelines for injured workers which plaintiffs said violated the due process clauses of the state and federal constitutions.

In his WRITTEN REASONS FOR JUDGMENT, Judge Johnson struck down provisions which:

  • Stipulated that when a carrier/self-insured employer fails to return LWC forms within the five business days it is deemed to have denied such request for authorization;
  • Provided an automatic “tacit denial” of medical treatment;
  • Allowed OWC to enforce variances from medical treatment guidelines;
  • Denied treatment not covered by medical treatment guidelines;
  • Allowed the OWC a workers compensation carrier to arbitrarily submit—and the OWC medical director to accept—any information it desires without notifying the injured worker of the “evidence.”

The suit was brought against the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) in 2013 by attorney Janice Hebert Barber and several physicians and injured workers who were denied benefits under the new law. Baton Rouge attorney J. Arthur Smith III represented each of the plaintiffs. Also named as defendants were LWC Secretary Curt Eysink, Hataway, and former OWC Medical Director Dr. Christopher Rich.

Barber said the regulations also discriminate against injured workers in that:

  • Medical benefits were denied to injured workers because their physicians could not return calls from Rich’s staff as quickly as they liked;
  • One request for medical treatment was denied because the injured worker’s attorney submitted too many pages of records to Rich;
  • Another request for treatment was denied because the case itself was 12 years old;
  • Numerous requests for treatment were denied because Rich claimed they were submitted by “bad doctors” who were “bad” only because they were too favorable to their patients, in Rich’s opinion;
  • Requests for medical procedures were denied on the basis of who owned the medical equipment which would be utilized for the procedure;
  • As of December 2012, Medical Director Rich had approved only 14 percent of all requests for medical treatment of injured workers in cases where compensability had already been determined;
  • Rich had denied requests for medical treatment in cases in which he never even spoke to the claimants;
  • Hataway repeatedly engaged in ex parte communications with attorneys and others representing workers compensation insurance carriers and self-insured employers;
  • Hataway and his staff repeatedly expressed the Jindal administration’s “positions” on issues to be litigated by workers compensation judges to the judges themselves.

Barber said in her lawsuit that the new regulations had “enriched workers’ compensation insurance carriers and has harmed injured workers in Louisiana.” She claimed that under the new regulations, the Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Corporation (LWCC), the state’s largest workers’ compensation carrier, more than doubled premium dividend payments to Louisiana employers than were paid the year before the new law went into effect.

When Jindal named his four nominees to the University Medical Center Management Corp. Board back in March of 2010, he not only was looking after some of his more generous campaign contributors, but he also placed one of them in a position of potential conflict of interest.

At the time of his appointment as medical director, Dr. Christopher Rich of Alexandria currently held three separate contracts with the state totaling more than $3.3 million and he had already run into ethical problems with one of those contracts.

Rich also was named by Jindal as one of four nominees for the proposed billion-dollar University Medical Center that was to serve as a replacement for the 70-year-old facility that was closed after its basement was flooded during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Like many of Jindal’s high-profile appointees, Rich, his wife Vickie and business partner Dr. Mark Dodson, also of Alexandria, combined to contribute $9,500 to Jindal’s campaigns in 2007, 2010 and 2011.

Rich had a $516,646 contract to serve as Medical Director of the Office of Workers’ Compensation (OWC) Administration that called on him to approve or disapprove medical treatments and procedures for the Office of Workers’ Compensation.

That contract is actually to Chrickie Investments, a company owned by him and his wife.

In 2009, the Louisiana Legislature passed a law which changed the process for determining whether or not medical treatment was “medically necessary.” If a workers’ comp insurance company denies a treatment request, the denial is referred to the OWC medical director, in this case, Rich.

Though the law was passed in 2009, problems with implementing the rules to enforce the new law delayed the actual enactment date of the law until July 13, 2011.

Rich testified before the House Labor Committee that he was “denying 80 percent” of all treatment requested.

At the same time he was contracted to be the sole determiner of all medical treatment for Louisiana’s injured workers, he and Dodson were partners in Louisiana Ortho Services which held a $2.3 million contract to provide orthopedic services for the state, specifically Huey P. Long Medical Center.

Huey P. Long Medical Center (HLMC) at the time was one of 10 state hospitals that made up the LSU Health Care System which is administered by the LSU Board of Supervisors which also oversees the University Medical Center Management Board on which Rich sits. HLMC was subsequently shut down by the Jindal administration.

Because he also owned an interest in Central Louisiana Surgical Hospital which also provided medical treatment to injured workers, the question of his eligibility to make decisions on medical treatment which could financially impact the hospital as well as Mid-State came before the Louisiana Board of Governmental Ethics on separate occasions.

In March 2011, the ethics board ruled that Rich was prohibited, in his capacity as Medical Director of the Office of Workers’ Compensation, from participation in any matter involving Central Louisiana Surgical Hospital.

In January 2012, however, a second opinion said there was no conflict since he had terminated his relationship with Mid-State—only six months since the state had awarded Louisiana Ortho, that $2.3 million contract. Though he no longer is affiliated with Mid-State, he remains a partner in Louisiana Ortho with Dodson who in turn remains as a partner with Mid-State. The timing and the connections, to say the least, are curious.

Rich and Dodson also were partners in a company called ACTIVEMED, Inc., which held a $523,000 contract to provide orthopedic medical services to Northwestern State University student athletes.

Activemed also provided secondary insurance, also known as a preferred provider network (PPN) for two Louisiana university college sports teams and athletes. Basically, the athletes’ primary health insurance is the first payor for sports-related injuries. Then, if the student treats with an Activemed provider and they are enrolled with Activemed, then Activemed picks up the tab for the remainder of the treatment.

This means that Drs. Rich and Dodson had direct control over which doctors Activemed refers injured students to and if those same doctors happen to treat any Louisiana workers’ compensation patients, there existed a potential conflict of interest for Rich.

Activemed’s internet web page contains no list of medical providers, nor is Activemed listed under the Louisiana Department of Insurance either as an insurance company, a third party administrator (TPA), or an adjusting company.

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Retired State Trooper expelled from LSTA membership for asking questions is solicited by same LSTA for contribution

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Ethics, Finances, State Police on April 3, 2017| 72 Comments »

The Louisiana State Troopers Association (LSTA) must really be hurting financially.

First, there was the flak about the illegal campaign contributions LSTA’s board decided to launder through the private bank account of its Executive Director David Young that brought unwanted attention to the association.

Then there was the persistent objections to that decision by several retired state troopers who are members of the association but, like the rest of the LSTA membership, were never consulted on the decision to involve the group in partisan politics.

Their objections became such an annoyance that four of the retirees, men who dedicated their entire working life to protecting the public and trying to make our highways safer, were voted out of the association. Just booted out. No thank-you, no going away party. Nothing except a letter saying they were no longer welcome as members of the brotherhood.

Eventually, the State Ethics Commission investigated the illegal contributions—illegal because state classified employees are forbidden from participating in partisan politics or for contributing to political campaigns—and levied a $5,000 fine against the association.

On the heels of that action the FBI served subpoenas on 18 members of the association, directing them to appear before a federal grand jury investigating association activities. That grand jury convenes on April 13.

As all this was going on, many State Troopers were victims of the floods that plagued Louisiana during 2016 and the LSTA generously pledged $1,000 to members who were adversely affected by the floods.

Included on its WEB PAGE is the following statement:

“We are committed to improved pay and benefits; to assure a better working environment; to provide support when needed; and to increase the quality of life for our members. We also strive to improve the public services provided by our members to our community.”

Somehow, though, the retiree members, those who likely needed help the most, were overlooked when those $1,000 checks went out. Several retirees have contacted LouisianaVoice to say they never received any help from the association.

Obviously, LSTA is short of funds. Why else would it, instead of helping out those retirees who were flooded (among them excommunicated member Leon “Bucky” Millet), reach out to them instead for contributions?

That’s right. Millet, a retiree who was booted out for protesting too much and who had his home flooded, recently received a solicitation letter from LSTA.

The letter which went out over LSTA President James O’Quinn’s signature, noted that the association uses contributions “to persuade government (apparently through campaign contributions) to provide better and safer conditions for our troopers. We use it to support community oriented programs that serve to enhance positive relationships between troopers and the communities they serve.”

The letter contained no mention of how contributions are also used for elaborate parties and to pay for travel all over the country for members to attend such work-related events as the Washington Mardi Gras.

“Because we’re grateful to those who are grateful for us, we like to recognize our donors with gifts. For our spring fundraising campaign, we have our much-requested official LSTA Field Cap. We also have our new 2017 window stickers, our wonderful spring vacation drawing and special recognition for our high-end donors.”

We’re pretty sure that a long-standing member who was expelled for asking legitimate questions would love to affix that sticker to his windshield and cruise on down the road wearing his official LSTA Field Cap.

Ending its solicitation on a personal note, the letter said, “Please consider a donation, Mr. Millet. We could use it.”

Yes. No doubt, the association may even use some of those contributions for legal fees.

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