Louisiana Voice

Welsh Alderman Jacob Colby Perry is the second defendant in recent weeks to prevail against the so-called SLAPP lawsuits and in so doing, may teach the plaintiffs a little economic lesson.

SLAPP is an acronym for strategic lawsuits against public participation or in a more familiar vernacular, they could simply be called frivolous or harassment lawsuits. There intent is precisely what the acronym means: to prevent critics from participating in public discourse by filing costly lawsuits against critics.

On Tuesday, 31^st Judicial District Court Judge Steve Gunnell dismissed all four defamation lawsuits against Perry and in finding the litigation to be without merit, he assessed the four plaintiffs with court costs and Perry’s attorney fees.

An affidavit filed with the court by Perry claims those attorney fees to be $16,000, or $4,000 per plaintiff which would make the idea of a SLAPP suit seem somewhat counterproductive in that it cost the plaintiffs pretty tidy sums of money and they still didn’t shut him up.

Judge Gunnell held off making a decision as to whether or not the suit should be dismissed with or without prejudice until he conducts further research on the matter. With prejudice would mean the plaintiffs would be unable to resurrect the lawsuit while a dismissal without prejudice would leave the plaintiffs open to pursue the suit at a later date.

“The legislature finds and declares that there has been a disturbing increase in lawsuits brought to chill the valid exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition for redress of grievances,” Perry said in his Memorandum of Support for the Special Motion to Strike pursuant to the state’s anti-SLAPP legislation. “The legislature finds and declares that it is in the public interest to encourage continued participation in matters of public significance, and that this participation should not be chilled through abuse of the judicial process. To this end, it is the intention of the legislature that the Article enacted pursuant to this Ace shall be construed broadly,” his memorandum said.

LouisianaVoice recently prevailed in another SLAPP suit for defamation and was also awarded attorney fees, though substantially less than Perry’s award.

Perry has openly questioned the need of a town of 3,200 residents for 18 police cars, a budget of $593,000 for patrol, $295,000 for police communications and a projected police department expenditure for the entire year of nearly $1.1 million, or nearly $114,000 in excess of the department’s budget. That amount includes a $76,120 salary for Police Chief Marcus Crochet, an amount that represents a 37.5 percent increase in his base pay. And that doesn’t count the $6,000 in annual supplemental pay from the state.

Despite the fiscal drain on the city budget, Crochet created a separate account called “Welsh Police Department Equipment & Maintenance and has diverted more than $178,000 from traffic fines into that account instead into the city’s general fund—all with the acquiescence of the mayor, one of four plaintiffs who sued Perry for DEFAMATION.

Mayor Carolyn Louviere, her daughter, Nancy Cormier; her son, William Johnson, and Crochet all filed separate defamation suits and all four used the same attorney, Ronald C. Richard of Lake Charles, to do so.

Not only that, but Perry was on the receiving end of several other negative actions:

• A recall petition was started against him while he was in Japan on military orders, serving his annual two-week training;
• Postcards were mailed to Welsh residents that depicted Perry and Andrea King, also a member of the Board of Aldermen, as “terrorists” (See story HERE) and that Perry violated campaign finance laws by failing to report income from a strip club in Texas of which he was said to be part owner and which allegedly was under federal investigation for prostitution, money laundering and drug trafficking (See story HERE);
• He was removed from the town of Welsh’s Facebook page (most likely the least offensive of the reprisals.

Each of the nuisance suits say essentially the same thing: that Perry besmirched the reputations of her honor the mayor, both of her children, and the bastion of law enforcement and fiscal prudence, Chief Crochet.

And Mayor Louviere, who inexplicably wants to build a new city hall when the town is flat broke, is currently under investigation by the Louisiana Board of Ethics, according to the Lake Charles American Press AMERICAN PRESS. She also wants to shut down a bar that just happens to be adjacent to a business owned by her son.

And her son, William Joseph Johnson, who Perry says used his mother’s office in an attempt to shut the bar down, has a story all his own.

Johnson, back in 2011, was sentenced in federal court to serve as the guest of the federal prison system for charges related to a $77,000 fraud he perpetrated against a hotel chain in Natchitoches between October 2006 and January 2007. And that wasn’t his first time to run afoul of the law.

At the time of his sentencing for the Louisiana theft, he was still wanted on several felony charges in Spokane County, Washington, after being accused of being hired as financial controller for the Davenport Hotel of Spokane under a stolen identity, giving him access to the hotel’s financial operations and then stealing from the hotel.

The only thing preventing Spokane authorities from extraditing him to Washington, Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Shane Smith said, was that “we just don’t have the funds to bring him back.” The Spokane Review, quoting court documents, said, “Police believe Johnson is a longtime con artist who has swindled expensive hotels across the country.” (Click HERE for that story.)

“William Joseph Johnson, Jr. remains on federal probation,” Perry said. “He has yet to pay back all of the restitution that he owes.

In his lawsuit against Perry, Johnson says he “has a long-standing positive reputation in his community and parish” and that he (Johnson) suffered “harm to reputation (and) mental anguish.”

In a written statement following the ruling, Perry said:

“I am very pleased with the outcome of this matter,” Perry said. “I look forward to returning to the job that the People of Welsh elected me to perform. I also applaud my experienced legal team for their outstanding work.

“The rights of citizens to engage in the decision-making of government and provide input are unique to our country. These unique values make our country great. And, more Americans

should participate in government today.

“SLAPPs infringe on the rights granted to the citizens of the United States of America. Litigation should not be used to censor, silence, and intimidate those who are only exercising their rights as an American.

I am proud to be a citizen of a state, the State of Louisiana which is one of 28 states in the United States, that has implemented Anti-SLAPP laws to protect the Constitutional rights of its citizens from frivolous lawsuits filed by lawyers overzealous for clients and publicity.”

There was no immediate word on whether or not Richard would appeal the decision on behalf of his clients.