Louisiana Voice

Louisiana Voice made a couple of public records requests of Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter for records of purchases made from businesses owned by two of his deputies, purchases that would constitute a violation of state ethics laws governing public employees doing business with agencies for whom they work.

A 1995 opinion by the State Ethics Commission addresses just such a scenario (CLICK HERE). It says that the owner of Fire Apparatus Specialties, who also serves as Assistant Fire Chief of the Third District Volunteer Fire Department in Jefferson Parish, purchased equipment from his company on behalf of the fire department in violation of state ethics laws.

In all, there are more than 80 opinions by the Ethics Commission that address various schemes in which agency heads or employees sold goods and/or services to their agencies—all of which are violations of the law.

In Terrebonne Parish, Brent Hidalgo and Douglas Chauvin, Jr. are sheriff’s deputies.

Hidalgo also owns Promotek, LLC, a screen printing and embroidery company in Houma that sells specialty items like shirts, caps and mugs with company and organization names imprinted on the product.

Douglas Chauvin, III, owns First Circuit, LLC, an electrician firm in Bourg, Louisiana.

LouisianaVoice received reports that the sheriff’s department purchased all its shirts, with logos of the department, from Hidalgo’s firm and that Chauvin’s electrical company had performed work for the sheriff’s department despite prohibitions of employees or their immediate family members from doing business with an agency that employed them.

A public records request for any payments made to the two firms or to Hidalgo or Chauvin directly resulted in a response from Larpenter that said in part, “…this office has never paid anything to Brent Hidalgo or any of his family members, representatives or employees or Douglas or Doug Chauvin or any of his family members, representatives or employees.”

Fair enough, Sheriff. That seems to be a reasonable and timely response.

Except….except…well, one of your deputies says you may be back-dooring the purchases—at least insofar as Hidalgo is concerned.

The deputy, who for obvious reasons must protect his identity, says that Larpenter’s deputies are required to personally purchase any shirts they are required to wear but that they are directed to Brent Hidalgo as the vendor and that Hidalgo handles all such transactions.

That’s a pretty gray area. A 2011 Board of Ethics opinion, (read it HERE) quite clearly says, the owner of just such a specialty company who also was a member of the Covington City Council “would not be prohibited from selling products with the city logo, through his company, to city employees so long as the city employee pays for such products with his or her personal funds.”

That seems cut and dried but the key word is directed, as “directed to Brent Hidalgo.” It would seem as long as the purchases are 100 percent voluntary, Hidalgo and Larpenter would have no problem with Hidalgo’s selling shirts to deputies. But if our deputy is accurate in saying they are directed to purchase from Hidalgo, then what we would seem to have is an implied contract between Hidalgo and Larpenter.

That same 2011 opinion also says the council member would be prohibited from using the employees of the City of Covington “as a channel to enter into a transaction with his agency.”

Some may call this distinction an example of splitting hairs, but if deputies are in fact directed to Hidalgo by Larpenter, that does present an entirely different scenario than that represented in the 2011 opinion.

Perhaps the sheriff will address this in the special staff meeting he has called for tomorrow (Friday).