What do Louis Ackal and Jerry Larpenter have in common?
Well, among other things:
They’re both sheriffs of parishes they run with dictatorial methods—Ackal in Iberia Parish and Larpenter in Terrebonne;
Neither will hesitate to take whatever actions they deem necessary to silence any voice of dissent—from pulling off a RAID of a critic’s home in Terrebonne to turning DOGS loose on defenseless inmates of the Iberia Parish jail;
And both reportedly have the same legal counsel.
But the similarities go even further.
An Ackal critic who had the audacity to initiate a recall effort against the sheriff found himself ARRESTED for manslaughter after a single-vehicle accident in which he was not even involved. (Those bogus charges, brought by a cooperative district attorney, were very quietly dropped after LouisianaVoice’s story of the heavy-handed techniques.)
Larpenter, meanwhile, has taken a step to make it very costly for his critic (the one whose home he raided) to obtain what anywhere else would be routine public records—records that he or anyone else is legally entitled to see.
Wayne Anderson’s home was raided and his computers seized by Larpenter after Anderson posted internet blogs critical of Larpenter. That raid was quickly ruled unconstitutional by the federal courts and the Andersons sued and won a substantial monetary settlement from Larpenter believed to be in the neighborhood of $250,000.
Anderson submitted his request that included, among other things, all invoices and copies of checks paid to the Dood Law Firm, Seth Dodd, William Dodd, Bill Dodd, “or any Dodd,” from Jan. 1, 2016 through the present date.
Dodd is the legal counsel for Larpenter and, according to unconfirmed reports, also represents Ackal.
Soon after submitted his request, Anderson received an electronic communication from Richard McCormack, an attorney with the New Orleans firm of Irwin Fritchie Urquhart & Moore. McCormack informed Anderson that his firm had been “retained by the sheriff to coordinate the sheriff’s response to your public records request.”
As one with considerable experience in requesting and obtaining public records on behalf of LouisianaVoice, I can say that I find it quite unusual that the good sheriff would find it necessary to retain a high-priced legal team not to ascertain what is and what is not public record, but simply to “coordinate the sheriff’s response” when a clerical employee would be fully capable of performing such duties.
I’m just guessing here, but I would estimate their rate to be in the neighborhood of $300 per hour—and don’t think for one scintilla of a nano-second that they will put just one attorney on this project when they could put two or three and really run up the tab. From what we hear, the firm has two of its attorneys working on a way to make a routine public records request punitive.
And just what is Bill Dodd’s function, anyway? (Every time I hear that name, I think of Earl Long’s reference to another Bill Dodd during his 1959 gubernatorial campaign, the current Bill Dodd’s father, as “Big, bad, bald Bill Dodd.”)
As near as I can make out, his job was harassment, if reports coming out of Terrebonne are true. Dodd says emphatically that they are not.
When the Andersons asked the sheriff’s insurance company who issued their settlement check, things went south in a hurry. The Andersons say no one from the insurance company ever appeared on the court record on the sheriff’s behalf, leading them to believe Larpenter may have misled the insurance company about their claim.
Soon after they made their inquiry, they said Dodd called one of the couple’s supervisor and threatened to sue for tortuous interference and damage to his reputation.
Dodd, contacted by LouisianaVoice adamantly denied that. “I haven’t threatened to sue anybody,” he said. “I’ve been practicing law long enough that I don’t have to threaten to sue anyone, I just sue ‘em.”
C’mon, Dodd, you ain’t talking to someone who just fell off a turnip truck. There’s not a lawyer alive who won’t “threaten” to sue if a threat can achieve his purpose. The “threat” to sue is one of the most dependable arrows in an attorney’s quiver. I only wish I knew the number of times I’ve been “threatened” with a lawsuit if I published a story. Only twice have they followed through with an actual lawsuit and on both occasions, I prevailed.
Another big factor in both sheriffs’ success in maintaining a death grip on their jobs is a local press that seems reluctant to take them on. The Daily Iberian has denied that is less than aggressive in covering the exploits of Ackal but readers have expressed a general lack of in-depth coverage by the paper.
Unfortunately, the threads linking Ackal and Larpenter are the rule, not the exception. Those threads are strong, they link more than just these two sheriffs and that link runs straight through the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association.
I have just completed the manuscript for what I feel is a revealing book about Louisiana’s sheriffs and the muscle they flex in Louisiana politics.
The working title of the book is Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption.
It will probably be about a year before the book is actually published. I will keep you abreast of the schedule as I know more.
Great job, Tom.
I’m looking forward to the book, and continued progress toward public-records accountability.
Someone may have to tell the high-priced lawyers that courts have ruled against agencies refusing to make electronic records available in electronic form. They must have forgotten how to do research.
While I have resided in Terrebonne Parish for 55 years, I have seen the political corruption come and go. I think though if we were to hand out awards for the criminal activities of La. Sheriffs and DA’s, the list would be extremely long and exhausting. One parish over is Lafourche where we have the infamous Craig Weber, who even with many citatiions of Ethics Violations, and his golden boy CAM who prosecutes cases knowing a person is not guilty, no one questions or demands accountability. Avoyelles Parish is, historically one of the most corrupt parishes, as well as Caddo and well if you listened to the legislative hearings, you know that Calcasieu is run by people that have totally disgraceful and absolutely no ethics. It amazes me to have heard JBE say that our politicians here in La. are no worse than anywhere else. HELLO!!! Does he live here or is he just out of touch with Reality? We truly do have “A GOOD OLE BOYS SYSTEM, WITH THE BEST POLITICIANS MONEY CAN BUY”.
Miss Janet Q. Tyler, JBE speaks highly of our politicians for his future re-election. He can’t be elected to another term in Office without the backing of the corrupt Louisiana State Sheriffs Association. After all this is Louisiana, and in politics here “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours” !