Former state trooper Jimmy Rogers, according to his attorney Ron Richard, “probably sang the NATIONAL ANTHEM at more events in this town (Lake Charles) than anyone else.” Now Rogers is singing again but this time his singing is confirming the existence of TICKET QUOTAS in Troop D first reported by LouisianaVoice as far back as September 2015.
Senate Bill 799 of the 2008 legislative session breezed through the Senate by a 37-0 vote and the House by an 86-18 count to become ACT 479. The bill by Sen. Joe McPherson, theoretically at least, prohibited quotas for law enforcement officers. Of course, if you think that stopped the practice in small towns scattered over the state that depend on ticket revenue to balance their budgets, I have some surplus Scott Pruitt Public Servant of the Year nomination forms for you.
Rogers, who was ARRESTED on 74 criminal counts, first resigned ahead of a State Police Internal Affairs investigation, and then requested to be DISCIPLINED AND REINSTATED.
But thanks to the efforts of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, the Calcasieu Parish DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE pursued the matter and Rogers eventually pleaded guilty to two felony counts of malfeasance in office, which automatically disqualifies him from working in another police department.
But if you thought Rogers would go quietly, you would be wrong. As his law enforcement career circled the drain, he decided he would pull others down with him and his manifesto, published on Facebook, only served to validate what LouisianaVoice wrote about Troop D over a period of at least two years.
The Lake Charles AMERICAN PRESS published a story about his lengthy Facebook statement but did not publish the actual 10-paragraph bitter, self-serving post.
So, here it is in its entirety (with punctuation and spelling corrected):
My name is Jimmy Rogers. As most of you have seen on the news lately, I used to be a Louisiana State Trooper, note that I have not been a Trooper since 2015. As a result of a “VERY LIMITED” investigation into the LACE program, I was recently arrested and I pled guilty to 2 counts of malfeasance in office. I have stayed quiet for the duration of this situation. However, I feel like it is time to share my side of the story. My hope is not that you will feel sorry for me, but that it would spark an outcry for justice, an outcry for a REAL investigation. That investigation would reveal that Jimmy Rogers is only one of hundreds, if not thousands of Troopers who have done the same thing. I’m sure certain people and the guys from the LouisianaVoice and other media outlets will expect me to be angry and lash out at them. But I’m not! The public is tired of dirty cops, dirty prosecutors, a dirty system and, specifically, a dirty state police office! Ladies and gentlemen, SO AM I!
Let me start out by saying, I am GUILTY. I am guilty for participating in what is, in my opinion, a gross violation of YOUR constitutional rights. You are being taxed without your knowledge.
The District Attorney’s office dangles a few dollars in front of police officers and in turn those officers write a required amount of tickets. It is well-known that the DA only cares that you give him 2 tickets for every hour he pays for. To answer the question everyone always asks, (YES THAT IS A QUOTA)!! If you do the math, he gives the cop 1/3 and pockets the rest of the money. (The temptation to double your salary is just too hard to resist)!
John Derosier and his office have made millions of dollars on the backs of hard working, innocent Americans. I never thought of overtime this way until I married my beautiful wife only a year ago. I’ve listened to her stories of struggle as a single mother. How one ticket could literally bury a person who struggles in poverty to feed their children. They are then forced to choose between paying a ticket or a light bill! Lose your lights or be buried under tickets that continue to pile up until you have no other recourse than to sit in jail or make payments for years! Why you ask? For money!!!!
There is no requirement as to the location of these detail. The DA will lie to you and say that the LACE detail is to reduce crashes, however, police officers write the overwhelming majority of tickets in only a few “speed trap ” areas. If your reading this and you have ever received a ticket with a little pink sticker on it, I bet my next paycheck that you either received the ticket near the I-10 or I-210 bridges, I-10 between the 210 interchange and Hwy 171 or I-10 near the Pete Maneana exit to Westlake. As a matter of fact, the Trooper who “investigated me” was even known for working lace in that exact spot. However, he used a car that didn’t have a video recorder, as did most detectives and supervisors! So, I’m sure he will get away with his indiscretions.
Would you like to guess why we did that in those locations? Because it was easy. Troopers get the required amount of tickets quick, steal your money, then watch movies on the side of the road. Which is exactly what I did and what I was arrested for (and I should have been arrested for)!
A thorough and detailed investigation into EVERY Trooper in the entire state over the life of the LACE program will prove that I was far from the only offender. In fact, it is literally a common practice. A practice literally taught to me as a rookie Trooper. As a Trooper, you are taught to stop working an hour or two before shift! Every trooper worth his salt will tell you that they heard the phrase, “a good trooper is in his driveway by 3”! You better not break this rule and start making traffic stops after 3! If you did, you would be verbally reprimanded by your supervisors and your peers!
The LACE program is the program with the spotlight, however, it is absolutely not the only program in existence. Take the overtime DWI detail for instance. Did you know that the DAs office pays police officers overtime to sit at DWI checkpoints? They don’t have to even show an arrest. They get to show up and participate a little bit then go home with your money. Of course, they say they are looking for insurance and other violations, but they specifically call it the DWI detail. As many as 20 cops will show up to these details and collect money then go home without breaking a sweat!!
How about the seat belt detail?!? Bet you never heard of that one! Same story, you must get 2 seat belt tickets an hour to earn your overtime. The crappy thing, again, is, no one sits in areas high in crash statistics….they sit in Moss Bluff or Lake Charles or Westlake so they can catch you driving out of McDonald’s without your seat belt on! It’s literally the only way to even catch a seat belt violator because they are going slow enough for you to see!
I know that I risk a backlash from the DA and the “system”, but it’s worth it to me! I can imagine “my brothers in blue ” will be quite upset with me, none of whom were standing in line behind me to admit their wrong doing while I was forfeiting my rights and taking my lick!
I can only tell you that I am truly sorry for being a part of a system that has failed you! I am truly sorry for allowing greed to control my actions as a person who was supposed to protect you from people like that! Who knows, maybe they silence me! Maybe you are ok with them sacrificing me as tribute to cover up a massive injustice! Or, maybe you say enough is enough and demand real change!
I know I’ve typed a lot, and I have so much more! Maybe I will bore you more in the future! However, I urge you to share this story. Demand your constitutional rights be defended!
Louisiana Voice 
And who might we look to to enforce and prosecute violators of Act 479 now that Ex-Trooper Rogers has exposed this willful disobedience by DA’s. Sheriffs, local police, and The Louisiana State Police (LSP)?
If I had to guess, the LSP and Bienville Sheriff’s Office is currently guilty of violations of Act 479 in Bienville parish in addition to the Village of Arcadia. There needs to be an audit to see if the funds generated by these two supposed law enforcement agencies violate the “Speed Trap” limitations established by the Legislature some years back.
No more “Gotcha” policing. Let’s see real Protection and Service by our police agencies.
So, this is the “I wasn’t doing anything different from what everybody else was doing” defense. If he is candidly and accurately reporting the way the system works, the one thing he is probably wrong about is that D. A.s and cops will react or change their behavior in any way as a result of his revelations. They may ostracize him, as an individual, but they know they can continue to do whatever they want because they are the system and it is bigger than him and apparently everybody else. I do think he is to be commended for admitting his own guilt. Very few people guilty of anything do.
About that LACE crap: What Jimmy Rogers failed to mention is that the troopers who go out and write 10 to 20 tickets on District Attorney overtime, write zero while on REGULAR duty, which is the time they work for you the taxpayer. Supervisors work the regular shift never leaving the office while they’re on tax payer dime and then go make 80 plus dollars an hour issuing tickets on their day off. Troopers who work the road have no ticket quota while working regular duty but are asked to issue at least 2 tickets an hour while on LACE. Troopers who are detectives and issue no tickets at all on regular duty, get a marked unit and write ticket for overtime on their day off. Its a money-making racket for the DA’s office and the troopers. This coming from a retired trooper. This is no endorsement of Jimmy Rogers. He is a thief, a sociopath, and after following all of your previous stories is evident his friendship with Paul Brady, Chris Guillory,and Beckett Breaux, is what led to this.
Well, for those who wish to see the brighter side of someone’s life and career:
&
Thanks for the dedication, Mr. Rogers!
How nice. And let’s not forget that Hitler gave us the cute little Volkswagen car. A priest who sexually assaults an altar boy is a pedophile at the end of the day. I’m afraid all those awards can’t quite cancel out 74 criminal counts pleaded down to two criminal counts. Wrong is still wrong, I don’t care how many Boy Scout badges you earned.
And oh, by the way, did Jimmy Rogers put you up to this? I’m just wondering how it is you just happened to have all those awards in your possession to share with us?
Twenty months on, you must have realized that “the award photos” were not in LAVoice’s “possession” but merely screenshots of Jimmy’s social media page.
You and I took entirely different messages away from the pictures of his many awards, even while acknowledging they went to the wrong person.
I took these commendations to mean he was successfully following orders. He was an award winning cog in a corrupt system of gears. He was great at keeping the status quo the status quo.
As we all know, when crooked cops get busted in Louisiana all that means is the system wanted to reject him. Not for being crooked – Heavens NO. He did something underhanded, some type of backstabbing, maybe merely bad mouthing the wrong guy – whatever it was, most of us understand, his crimes were multiple times worse than what he is getting prosecuted for.
He was Trooper of the Year !! An award winning hero !!
Until he got caught.
Then he’s a scumbag. But NOT such a scumbag that anybody in the power structure offers him immunity to testify in open court about any other crimes he may know about.
The Man has successfully sunk this iceberg without exposing the rot below the surface.
I think Jimmie should burn the Professional Excellence Award because it is obvious that this award went to the wrong trooper. As far as the trooper of the year awards, one has to wonder, if he falsified all those LACE tickets, how many DWI reports did he falsify or “grossly violate the constitutional rights” of those he arrested to to get some reward? If a speeding ticket can devastate a poor family, imagine what a DWI could do. I’m sure some of those DWIs were legit, but you have to wonder how many were not. You can’t be a hero and a convicted felon at the same time. It is what Jimmie Rogers did not admit to that has me wondering.
I’m also curious as to how many “Brady days” he got for those DWI arrests. Didn’t see him admit to that.
Let’s not forget the Deadbeat Dad award, Religious hypocrite award, Stalker award, Covet thy neighbors wife award, Threats to others award. Shall I go on? People really want to praise this guy for what? Only after getting caught decides to rat out his former so-called brothers in blue and then have the audacity to bash the same system who tried to cover up and protect him when he should have been fired years ago. Dedication? I think not. He clearly lacks integrity, honor, or humility.
I believe the man has exposed what many of us know to be a fact. The underlying problem (IMO) is that the state is neglectful in funding agencies such as Indigent Defenders, Crime Lab etc. and uses the tickets to supply funding (a tax that no one voted for). No speeding ticket should be $200 to $300. The average working person cannot afford this. Additionally, a fine is a punishment, but should not force one to choose between feeding his family or paying a ticket. All of our fines (including DUI) are a money making racket for D.A,. lawyers etc.
I note that the worst violators are, in fact, the State Police, who tailgate, drive at very high speeds, cross medians,drive in left lane, and in general, abuse the very laws they are supposed to enforce. If you want to slow traffic, all you have to do is park a unit on side of the road – people will slow down. Tickets are not really necessary.The money feeds the machine.
And, a side note; the State Police Retirement System is the most abused of all the state systems. That is payback for taking care of legislators.
Zoe, you are 100% correct.
I worked for the state almost 15 years. 6 years were in the State Police Headquarter’s building. I overhead so many things that surprised me at first, but only became an everyday occurrence. Higher ranked State Police employees seemed to brag about what was going on. Over my almost 15 years of working for several different departments, I worked with some really hard workers. I also worked with everyday criminals. Do you know that if a state employee violates the law by stealing state property, using the purchase card (credit card given to employees for expenses), embellishment among others, that 99% of the time the Agency let’s that employee resign. The next thing you know, they are just working at another agency. I don’t know Jimmy Rogers, but the 1% that are prosecuted for their crime has pissed somebody off. I think that all state employees that commit a crime should not be able to just go free with their retirement still in place and able to go to work at another agency just to do the same thing.
Sounds like you both went to the same school of journalism. I would bet he has better titles for his articles.
Troll.
Mr. Zoe1070 started in the correct analysis, but didn’t quiet conclude. The failure of the Republican controlled legislature to properly fund our government is the real culprit, not Mr. Rogers. Jindal came in lying to get more money into corporate coffers and denigrated all of us “state employees” and, just think, his backers gave us Mr. Wonderful, Donald Trump. Trooper Rogers can do only what the Legislature orders. love always ron thompson