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Archive for December, 2017

More twists and turns in LSP investigation indicate trooper’s ex-wife may have violated HIPAA regulations despite denials

Posted in Courts, Lawsuits, State Police on December 21, 2017| 11 Comments »

The sorry saga of State Police Lt. Robert Burns and his accessing of data on his ex-wife and a couple of her gentlemen friends has degenerated into a messy tangle of he-said, she-said back-and-forth claims that in turn has generated an unusual volume of comments on the original LouisianaVoice STORY.

The central theme of those comments revolves around claims that Burns’ ex-wife, Carmen Hawkins had illegally accessed medical records at her place of employment, Our Lady of the Lake Medical Center in Baton Rouge. Like student records and attorney-client communications, medical records are considered sacrosanct, protected at all costs from scrutiny and/or dissemination by unauthorized personnel. Violation of HIPAA privacy rules are punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000 under criminal statutes and fines of up to $25,000 per violation under civil codes. Employee disciplinary actions include suspension and/or termination.

Hawkins vehemently denied those claims and even went to far as to include those denials in a lawsuit filed against Burnes and Louisiana State Police (LSP).

Without delving further into the disciplinary action taken against Burns, which has already been discussed thoroughly, and without speculating on the merits of Hawkins’ lawsuit against Burns and his employer, it has been decided to let the LSP investigative report on Burns speak for itself as it regards claims of HIPAA violations on Hawkins’ part.

In that LSP report, Hawkins advised investigators that OLOL “investigated the allegation, which showed there was no evidence of her doing this.”

She repeated her claim of innocence in her LAWSUIT, saying Burns impugned her professional reputation and “included the false allegation that (Hawkins) had accessed confidential, personal health information…” She said those claims “resulted in the termination of (her) employment and have prevented her from obtaining comparable, alternative employment.”

But the LSP investigation did not end with her protestations of innocence:

“Investigators spoke with the Chief Compliance Officer at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital, (redacted), who acknowledged they received a complaint and advised that at no time was there any misrepresentation that the person filing the complaint acted in an official capacity. (redacted) said their investigation confirmed, without a doubt, that the team member in question violated their polices, as well as HIPAA privacy regulations.”

The report noted that the OLOL spokesperson did not identify either party—the complainant or the hospital employee—by name but it went on to say that investigators “concluded that if Lt. Burns was the person who filed the complaint, he exercised his right to file a complaint against (redacted) and his actions did not rise to a level that violated any LSP policies.

If Hawkins is innocent of HIPAA infractions as she claims, it is interesting to note that she did not name Our Lady of the Lake as a defendant in her lawsuit.

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Sen. John Kennedy, aka ‘The Chameleon,’ sinks judicial nominees, conjures up memories of Kristofferson classic

Posted in Congress, Education, Governor's Office, Judges, Media, Politicians, Senate on December 19, 2017| 6 Comments »

Sometimes you just have to give the devil his due.

I have hammered John Kennedy pretty hard on his record and on his campaign for and his performance in the U.S. Senate, particularly in regard to his unquestioning subservience to his lord and master, Donald Trump.

But recently, in the words of my grandfather, he kicked over the traces (it’s a term about plowing the good earth with an insubordinate mule, for the more unsophisticated among you) regarding the Trumpster’s court nominees.

It was both a long time coming and something of a shock to see Kennedy undergo the delicate medical transplant procedure that involved replacing jelly with a spine—he certainly displayed no symptoms of having a backbone regarding the Republican shell game called tax reform or of challenging any of the other administration agenda items.

But his questioning of Federal Election Commission Chairman Matthew Spencer Peterson, one of Trump’s nominees for a federal judgeship, showed just how shallow Peterson is and how slipshod Trump’s aides are in vetting nominees for lifetime positions on the federal bench. In short, they made it almost too easy for Kennedy.

If I had to sum up Peterson’s performance in a single sentence it would be this:

Based on his lack of knowledge of the most basic principles of law, he should return to his alma mater and demand a refund.

The questioning by Kennedy and Peterson’s feeble responses were at once comical and painful.

I have never set foot in a law school class but after working as a sub-mediocre claims adjuster for the Louisiana Office of Risk Management for 20 years, even I know that the Daubert Standard is used by judges to qualify expert witnesses during trial.

Even I know that a Motion in Limine is a legal maneuver (more commonly employed by the defense counsel and always discussed outside the presence of a jury) to bar certain evidence from admission in trial.

Peterson drew a blank on both questions as he did when Kennedy asked if he had ever actually tried either a civil or criminal case at the state or federal court level. He did say that he “may have” participated in a handful of depositions early on in his legal career—that is, if you can legitimately call his experience an actual career.

Kennedy, who has a knack for mouthing nonsense like “I’d rather drink week killer,” actually had a jewel during an interview with New Orleans TV station WWL when he said, “Just because you’ve seen My Cousin Vinny doesn’t qualify you to be a federal judge.” In the words of Larry the Cable Guy, that’s funny, I don’t care who you are.

Fortunately, but too late to avoid abject humiliation, The White House withdrew Peterson’s name for consideration but not before he managed to turn insult into further self-inflicted injury when he said, “I had hoped my nearly two decades of public service might carry more weight than my two worst minutes on television.”

John Sachs of Ruston summed that remark up rather succinctly: “A garbage collector is performing public service but that doesn’t qualify him to serve as a federal judge.”

For your entertainment, here is a VIDEO of that exchange between Kennedy and Peterson that is certain to instill unshakable confidence in the Trump administration, especially among all those nasty critics in the media who harbor unreasonable expectations of real leadership from our POTUS—or at least sporadic signs of lucidity.

Of course, all that leaves unanswered the burning question of what prompted Kennedy’s sudden display of intestinal fortitude. After all, he had shown all the aggression of a three-day-old kitten when questioning Betsy DeVos during her confirmation hearings for Secretary of Education.

As a footnote, perhaps it should be noted that Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also pulled two other nominees for district court judgeships. It turns out that one nominee, Brett Talley, was a horror book author who has taken part in ghost-hunting activities but never tried a case. Worse, he posted a message board comment in 2011 defending the Ku Klux Klan. Jeff Mateer, who had been nominated for a judgeship in Texas, is on record as advocating discrimination against the LGBT community and as calling transgender proof that “Satan’s plan is working.” Kennedy also had opposed the nominations of both Talley and Mateer.

As to his motivation for torpedoing Peterson, the Washington Post on Tuesday had a lengthy analysis of how this particular testy little scenario played out.

It turns out it may have been as much revenge against White House Counsel Don McGahn on Kennedy’s part as for any philosophical principle or anything having to do with qualifications. Talley is married to McGahn’s chief of staff, so Kennedy’s smack down dug his spurs in a little deeper.

It all started about three weeks ago, wrote Post reporter James Hohmann, when Kennedy first made known his dissatisfaction with the manner in which the White House was ignoring his concerns about the less-than-stellar qualifications of some of Trump’s judicial nominees.

Kennedy was more than a little miffed when Trump refused to nominate Kyle Schonekas, Kennedy’s first choice for U.S. attorney in New Orleans. McGahn, you see, oversees that process.

And then, Kennedy has complained that he was never consulted prior to Trump’s selection of Kyle Duncan for a 5th Circuit judgeship in New Orleans.

It didn’t help smooth the trouble waters when White House spokesman Hogan Gidley (whoever that is) said last Friday that Kennedy humiliated Peterson because he, Kennedy, is one of “the president’s opponents” and was “trying to distract from the record-setting success the president has had on judicial nominations.” Now, anyone with any memory of that ugly 2016 senatorial election, will vividly remember Kennedy blatantly running as an unabashed Trump supporter, so any suggestion that he is Trump’s opponent is typical balderdash from the Trump White House.

Finally, wrote Hohmann (and this is key), Kennedy wants to be Louisiana’s next governor and he feels his sudden flash of independence might boost his chances. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that Trump’s approval rating is around 34 percent, which is below even that of Bobby Jindal just before he left office (officially left in January 2016, that is; in reality, he left shortly after his re-election in 2011). Kennedy can read the tea leaves and he’s certainly aware that Trump’s star is in descending mode.

And there you have it: the underlying reasons for Kennedy’s emerging from the shadows as a freshman senator to dare show up Donald Trump on the national stage as a demonstration to the folks back home that he is his own man.

While State Treasurer, he took on Bobby Jindal, a governor from his own party, by repeating his mantra that the state did not have a revenue problem, it had a spending problem. In Washington, where he could just as easily be lost in the crowd, he has elbowed his way to the front in order to face down a president from his own party by challenging the credentials of judicial nominees.

Kennedy, in summation, can be best described by quoting from The Pilgrim, a wonderfully poetic Kris Kristofferson song:

He’s a walking contradiction,

Partly truth and partly fiction,

Taking every wrong direction

On his lonely way back home.

There’s a lot of wrong directions

On that lonely way back home.

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Even as Gov. Edwards appoints his sexual harassment task force, BR woman says Edmonson once sexually molested her

Posted in Corruption, Crime, Governor's Office, State Police on December 15, 2017| 23 Comments »

As more and more high-profile stories about sexual harassment begin to emerge, a Baton Rouge woman has come forward to say she was sexually assaulted by former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson more than three decades ago.

The woman, who identified herself to LouisianaVoice, has asked that her identity be held in confidence because the sensitivity of her occupation and to shield her teenage children from embarrassment and possible peer intimidation.

She said her husband knows about the incident but the rest of her family does not.

She said her motive in coming forward is not to get attention for herself. Instead, she said, she wants to expose him because her experience with Edmonson has been “a bitter pill” she has lived with for 35 years and that she knows “how he operates.”

“I want you to know what a fraud and phony he is,” she said, adding that she watched him as he rose through the ranks of Louisiana State Police (LSP) over the years. “I cannot imagine I am the only person who has been in a similar situation with him.” She said acquaintances of hers who also know Edmonson have told her how “handsy and flirtatious he is.”

Coincidentally, her revelations come on the same day that Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the appointment of members of his Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Policy Task Force which is charged with the responsibility of reviewing the sexual harassment and discrimination policies of each state agency within the executive branch.

The woman said she was 19 at the time and Edmonson was “probably 25 or 26.” She said her parent’s home was in the same neighborhood as Edmonson’s parents’ home. “I know the family well,” she said. I have known them since I was about in seventh grade.”

She said her family was visiting the Edmonsons and Mike Edmonson asked if she would like to ride to New Orleans with him. “I was very reluctant because I really didn’t know him that well and because of my being 19, he seemed like an ‘older man.’ Another person at the gathering sort of talked me into going, so I went. I’m thinking, ‘Well, I’ll be in good hands because he’s a policeman.’ How naïve I was.”

She said Edmonson took her to Pat O’Brien’s in the French Quarter and bought her Hurricanes with “extra shots.”

“I was probably 5-foot-two and may 115 pounds at the time, so you can imagine the effect this had. After I was completely wasted, he brought me back to his car and headed for home.”

She said Edmonson was not driving his personal vehicle, but a State Police patrol car at the time. She said he had the emergency lights on the entire trip to Baton Rouge.

“But he didn’t bring me back to my parent’s house,” she said. Instead, she said he took her to his home which at the time was in a subdivision north of I-12, just off Millerville Road.

“So, he had me, wasted, in his bed, and (he) proceeded to take off my clothes,” she said. “I was petrified and humiliated (and) I can remember just hugging myself in a ball so that he would leave me alone. He succeeded in getting some of my clothes off, but I guess it got to be too much trouble and eventually, (he) just left me alone.

“The more I think back on this, especially having a teenage daughter of my own now, the more I see how predatory this was. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“I’m still afraid of him, though, because he still has powerful friends. But real men, good men, do not ply women with alcohol to try to take advantage of them.”

LouisianaVoice sent an email to Edmonson in an effort to afford him an opportunity to respond to the woman’s allegations but he did not respond to the email.

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Edmonson predictably tries to spin LSP audit release as Gov. Edwards, like Lady Macbeth, tries in vain to remove the spot

Posted in Audit Reports, Auditor, Corruption, Ethics, Governor's Office, Media, Public Records, State Police, Transparency on December 14, 2017| 16 Comments »

Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera has released the investigative audit of Louisiana State Police (LSP) pursuant to receiving an undated letter from former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson in which Edmonson said he felt “constrained” to notify Purpera to release the audit to the State Senate.

At the same time, Edmonson said he would submit his official response to the audit’s “various contentions” by Jan. 15, 2018.

Edmonson, in his rambling, grammar mistake-laden letter, continued to cling to the claim that the audit was released prematurely by Purpera’s office.

Simultaneous to the release of the audit, Gov. John Bel Edwards released a curious two-paragraph statement of his own concerning the findings of the audit report. In his statement, Edwards managed to avoid mentioning Edmonson by name, referring to him instead as LSP’s “previous leader.”

“I have welcomed this investigation from the beginning and instructed the Louisiana State Police to fully cooperate,” Edwards said. “The Legislative Auditor’s report uncovered some troubling findings and serious problems with past abuses of power from its previous leader who left his post in March. I believe that public servants must always hold themselves to the highest ethical standards,” the governor said. “That being said, our men and women of the State Police are honorable public servants who do a tremendous job protecting the citizens of Louisiana, often under very dangerous circumstances. Through the leadership of Col. Kevin Reeves (Edmonson’s successor), who took the helm of this department in March of this year, the department has already taken significant steps to restore public trust and accountability. Col. Reeves is one of the finest individuals I’ve had the pleasure of working with, and I am confident that he is already leading the State Police in a new, positive direction.”

Well, Gov. Edwards, I’m sorry, but you don’t get off that easily.

You have been governor now just a couple of weeks shy of two years. I have been writing about Mike Edmonson since June 2014, beginning with that bill amendment sneaked into the legislature on the last day of the 2014 session which would have given Edmonson an illegal boost to his retirement of about $100,000 per year. You voted for that amendment but then, to your credit, called for an investigation when the ruse was exposed by LouisianaVoice.

That story, which LouisianaVoice was first to break, put you and every other member of the Louisiana Legislature on notice of just what Edmonson was capable of. You knew from that day forward that despite his denials, he had encouraged Sen. Neil Riser to slip that amendment into the bill.

But LouisianaVoice didn’t stop there. We kept writing stories about Edmonson’s mismanagement:

  • About his promotion of a supervisor who was hooked on prescription drugs;
  • About his promotion of a trooper who tried to sneak an underaged woman (not his wife) into a Mississippi casino;
  • About his lack of disciplinary action when a trooper had sex (twice) with a woman in his patrol vehicle while on duty;
  • About a trooper who was allowed over an extended period of time to work a fraction of his shift before going home and going to bed;
  • About how he lied to the State Police Commission about the creation of a lieutenant colonel position for a specific member of his inner circle;
  • About how he lied when he said the raises he pushed through for State Troopers would not benefit him or the command officers immediately under him (they did);

There were dozens more such stories published by LouisianaVoice.

Yes, Governor, I wrote consistently about Mike Edmonson for the year before you were elected and for the two-plus years since. You knew what the problems were. Still, you re-appointed him.

You even danced the old bureaucratic shuffle on that issue when I emailed you on Oct. 27, 2015, following your election:

“Please tell me your intentions as to the re-appointment of Mike Edmonson.”

Your response:

“I don’t intend one way or the other.”

But you did intend. You already knew, thanks to your endorsement by the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association, that you had no choice other than to re-appoint him.

Edmonson himself told the Baton Rouge Advocate that you told him on the night of the election, at a party at the Hotel Monteleone, “that he had never even considered another candidate for superintendent.”

But you did have a choice. You had the West Point Honor Code to fall back on. You could have done the right thing and cut Edmonson loose because you already knew he was a liability.

Still, you re-appointed him. The Sheriffs’ Association endorsement meant a lot, didn’t it?

So please, Governor, don’t try to take the high road on this issue. The auditor’s report did not uncover a single problem that had not already been publicized on LouisianaVoice.

For three years.

And now, like Lady Macbeth, you’re trying to get the spot out. But it won’t wash.

But enough of that. Back to Mike Edmonson’s letter.

“As you of all people know,” he wrote to Purpera, “the protocol used…is to provide the recipient (of an audit), whether it is an individual, a public board, or another public body, with a confidential draft report to afford the responding party and opportunity to address the statements in the draft report before it is publicly disseminated.

“For inexplicable reasons, the confidential draft report regarding me and the Louisiana State Police was leaked to the media and the contents of the draft then was (sic) disseminated to media outlets throughout the State—all before I could respond to the various contentions (sic). Realizing the inherent unfairness to me, the residents of our State, as well as respect for the normal procedures, I trust your office has begun an investigation into this improper conduct and will soon report your findings.

“…Given the publication of large segments of a preliminary commentary, and the apparent breach of normal practices that seems to have disclosed the entirety of the confidential draft report, I am now constrained (sic) to notify you that you can release the report and provide your report to the Louisiana State Senate this week. I, in turn, will promptly deliver my response feeling confident the residents of this State will not prematurely reach conclusions until all of the facts are presented. That is the way the process works, that is the only impartial and objective approach, and I strongly believe that is what our fellow citizens expect.”

First of all, Mike, the contents of the audit were not disseminated to “media outlets throughout the state.” Two media outlets had it and they were news partners—the Baton Rouge Advocate and WWL-TV in New Orleans. That was it. Not throughout the state. Not even throughout Baton Rouge.

Second, there were only two copies of the audit. One went to LSP and the other to Edmonson. And the one to Edmonson was the only one with a cover letter to Edmonson himself—and that was the one that was released. WWL-TV even flashed a copy of that COVER LETTER on screen when it aired its story about the audit.

Ergo, there is only one way that audit could have been leaked: from Mike Edmonson himself or someone acting on his behalf. The motive could only be what Edmonson expressed in his letter: to allow him to claim he was treated unfairly and that his defense has been compromised by the prejudicial release of the audit before he could respond.

Unsurprisingly, when LouisianaVoice first called attention to WWL’s posting a copy of that cover letter, the station promptly took the story down. But screen shots of the letter were captured by viewers who apparently anticipated just such a move.

oOo

Editor’s Note: There’s a lot going on with this audit that cannot be covered in a single story. For example, Reeves and several of the troopers involved in that San Diego trip have responded to the audit in writing. One of those responses was 16 pages in length.

Plus, there was a meeting Thursday of the Legislative Audit Advisory Committee which had some interesting exchanges.

LouisianaVoice will be taking these on in separate stories over the coming days.

 

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HIPAA, LSP, DPS, WBRZ, with a little MYOB thrown into the mix, and you have a salacious, confusing, interesting lawsuit

Posted in Corruption, Crime, Ethics, Lawsuits, Media, Public Records, State Police, TV News on December 13, 2017| 43 Comments »

Controversy surrounding that preliminary default judgment levied against a Baton Rouge television station just won’t go away and now a second lawsuit has been filed naming the plaintiff in the first lawsuit and his employer, Louisiana State Police (LSP), as defendants.

And just to make matters a bit more confusing, the name of that defendant (and the plaintiff in the litigation against WBRZ-TV) is the same name—but not the same person—as an occasional writer for LouisianaVoice.

Throw in illegal background searches and claims of violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a police officer posing as a police officer, and a nasty divorce, and you’ve got the ingredients for a salacious story that would send a counsellor scrambling for the cabinet where the hard liquor is stashed.

Got it? Didn’t think so. Okay then, let’s review:

Back in October, 21st Judicial District Court Judge Doug Hughes signed a $2.5 million preliminary default judgment against WBRZ after the TV station failed to answer a defamation LAWSUIT against it and its investigative reporter Chris Nakamoto filed by State Trooper Robert Burns of Livingston Parish—a different person altogether than the Robert Burns who periodically writes for LouisianaVoice.

Nakamoto had reported a story about a 64-hour suspension imposed on Burns by LSP following an Internal Affairs investigation into his conducting 52 illegal computer searches on his ex-wife, one Carmen Hawkins, her current fiancé and a former boyfriend over a period of nearly three years—from November 2013 to October 2016.

Nakamoto’s story was taken exclusively from public records he obtained from LSP, so there should have been no question as to the story’s legitimacy. Had the station’s attorney filed an answer, the suit in all probability, would have been dismissed with prejudice, meaning the dismissal would be final. By failing to answer, WBRZ attorney Stephen Babcock of Baton Rouge left Judge Hughes no choice but to enter the preliminary default. That judgment, of course is now under appeal, if somewhat belatedly, and is likely to be reversed.

Burns, in appealing his suspension, said on 46 of those 52 searches, he was conducting a search of his own license plate and that the “spin-off” searches of his wife were a result of “unintended inquiries generated by an automated system.”

IA didn’t buy that explanation, especially since “spin-of” searches generated by an “automated system” couldn’t explain away the two searches on his former wife’s current fiancé and the four searches on her ex-boyfriend. Those searches, besides vehicle and driver’s license records, also included computerized criminal histories on the two men.

Moreover, Burns subsequently disseminated some of the information (we’ll get to that shortly) and then texted his ex-wife to request that she not report his actions because he “could get fired for doing so.”

The searches, according to a letter to him from LSP, were for “non-law enforcement purposes, in violation of department policy and federal law.”

Hughes signed the preliminary JUDGMENT on Sept. 28. On Oct. 19, the day after the LouisianaVoice STORY, Carmen Hawkins weighed in with her own LAWSUIT against the Department of Public Safety (DPS), LSP, and Burns and this is where things really get dicey.

She claims in her petition that she had her vehicle in an auto body shop in Walker when her ex-husband, Burns, appeared at the shop “in uniform and identifying himself as acting under the color of law and within his capacity as an employee of…Louisiana State Police, and proceeded to ask questions about plaintiff’s vehicle and the circumstances surrounding it(s) needing repair.”

Some time following his visit to the repair shop, she says in her lawsuit, Burns appeared at the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Department “dressed in uniform and identifying himself as acting under the color of law and within his capacity as an employee of…Louisiana State Police (and) proceeded without probable cause to request that a warrant be issued” for her arrest “on allegations he knew to be false or which were based upon reckless disregard for the truth.”

She was then arrested at her home by sheriff’s deputies but “immediately release when the reason for her arrest was discovered,” she said. But that was far from the end of the matter.

In her petition, she says Burns then “published false and defamatory communications” to her employer, “which communications impugned plaintiff’s professional reputation and included the false allegation that plaintiff had accessed confidential, personal health (HIPAA) information.”

Unauthorized access and dissemination of confidential patient information is a violation of HIPAA regulations.

She said Burns’ claims were false and that it resulted in the termination of her employment.

LouisianaVoice sources have indicated Hawkins’ former employer was Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge and that she has since obtained employment at another Baton Rouge hospital.

She says little about the alleged HIPAA violations but does say in her lawsuit that her ex-husband’s access to LSP databases had been permitted “by the customs and regular practice” of LSP and former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson, who she said was believed to have had “actual knowledge that its employees, including…Robert Burns, who were not listed as authorized users, could and were engaging in violations of department policy and state and federal law by using the databases…”

Her attorney, Jonathan Mitchell of Baton Rouge, is asking that DPS, LSP and Burns be held liable in solido (jointly) for damages and losses sustained by his client.

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