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Archive for February, 2019

Clay Higgins didn’t even need ’15 minutes of fame’ to make idiot of self at Cohen congressional testimony Wednesday

Posted in House, Senate, Politicians on February 27, 2019| 17 Comments »

Watching former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, it was impossible to ignore the grandstanding by Democrats out for blood and Republicans just as determined to protect the damaged goods personified in Donald Trump.

But it was the brief appearance of 3rd District U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins that provided a brief moment of unintended comedy.

During his five minutes in attempting to defend Trump from Cohen’s bombshell charges, Higgins managed to allude to “the many arrests” he had made in his law enforcement career.

Following is an excerpt from a chapter on Higgins included in my manuscript for Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption, a book about corrupt sheriffs and law enforcement officers of Louisiana that puts that law enforcement record in perspective:

If ever there was a living caricature of the Barney Fife character from the old Andy Griffith Show, it would have to be Clay Higgins, aka the self-anointed “Cajun John Wayne,” a Dirty Harry wannabe.

Originally a patrolman and a member of the Opelousas Police Department’s SWAT team, Higgins, a former used car salesman, resigned from the OPD on May 18, 2007, in lieu of accepting disciplinary action from Police Chief Perry Gallow.

“Pfc. Clay Higgins used unnecessary force on a subject during the execution of a warrant and later gave false statements during an internal investigation. Although he later recanted his story and admitted to striking a suspect in handcuffs and later releasing him …” read the minutes of the Opelousas Police Department’s Discipline Review Board concerning the March 14, 2007, incident.

Among the actions that had been recommended by the review board:

  • Demotion from Patrolman First Class to Patrolman;
  • Reassignment to a patrol shift for more direct supervision and training;
  • Immediate removal from the SWAT Team;
  • 160 hours suspension from duty without pay.

Rather than be subjected to the disciplinary action, Higgins turned in his equipment and resigned, although his version of events varies somewhat with the official account.

The incident in question occurred, he said, when he and fellow SWAT Team members were guarding the perimeter of a drug bust and a car breached the perimeter. The driver claimed to have cash in the suspected drug house and wanted to retrieve it, according to Higgins. The man was detained and handcuffed, Higgins claimed, and threatened the officers and Higgins slapped a cigarette out of the man’s mouth.

The man, who was subsequently released, filed a complaint and Higgins admittedly lied about slapping the man but later confessed to slapping him. While awaiting a determination of his punishment, he said he jokingly referred to Gallow as a peacock. “I decided right then, on that day, that my career was over at OPD—that I would never, ever recover from this peacock thing. He was infuriated by it. So, because of that I went into the chief’s office the following week and I turned in my badge and my gear and I resigned.”

That’s not the way it happened, according to Captain Craig Thomas, who headed up Internal Affairs for the OPD. He said Higgins lied in saying that the driver of the vehicle, Andre Richard, committed a battery upon Higgins and that Higgins only came forward to tell the truth after learning that Sergeant Bill Ortego did not go along with the story told by Higgins and another officer. Ortego said that he, Higgins and a third officer were standing outside the home where the warrant was being executed when a young black man pulled up in a red vehicle, got out and approached the three officers, but did not breach a perimeter as claimed by Higgins because “there was no perimeter set up for Richard to see,” Thomas said. “He was parked in the street.”

When Higgins walked to the driver’s side of the vehicle and started looking in the car through the open door, Richard attempted to close the door while Higgins was still standing in the doorway, at which time Higgins and the second officer threw Richard to the ground, Ortego wrote in his statement. Ortego made it clear that the driver had not placed his hands on Higgins before trying to close his car door.

Once the man was on the ground, Higgins asked for handcuffs and when the cuffs were on, Higgins grabbed him by the hair and told him to contact his lawyer, Ortego said, adding that the two officers began searching Richard’s vehicle, which they did not have permission to do, and noted that Ortego himself and Lieutenant Craig Leblanc, who was also present, helped the man off the ground, at which time Richard told Higgins, “It’s all right, everybody got to die someday.” Higgins took it as an implied threat and it really pissed Higgins off, prompting him to remove the cuffs and push the man onto the car, then put his hand around his neck before slapping him in the face and telling him to leave, according to Ortego’s statement. Higgins then pulled the cigarette out of Richard’s mouth and pushed him toward his vehicle, Ortego said.

Following his departure from the OPD, Higgins next showed up as a public information officer for the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office. His career there took an even more bizarre turn and established him as something of a pseudo folk hero in what he perceived as the mold of some kind of super cop, or better yet, the reincarnation of John Wayne himself. But his blatant—and oddly comical—self-parody bathed him more in the light of Deputy Fife than the Duke.

While employed by the SLP Sheriff’s Office, Higgins took it upon himself to make a series of macho videos of himself in full battle garb and armed to the teeth. With a full contingent of law enforcement personnel, armaments and a police dog standing alertly in the background, Higgins embarked on a rant against thugs, gang members, and assorted criminals, promising them there was no safe haven for them as long as he was on the job.

The videos gained him instant notoriety on YouTube, garnering thousands of hits. That only encouraged Higgins to branch out and to begin offering commemorative cups, caps and T-shirts to an adoring public. Soon, he was appearing as a paid guest on talk shows, giving paid speeches and doing paid advertisements, all of which naturally, in today’s media-dominated society, morphed into a TV reality show. Saying he had his reasons for preferring payment in cash, he charged $1500 for a television production, a thousand dollars for a radio production and one hundred fifty dollars an hour in travel time and another thousand for a photo session.

It also prompted swift action on the part of St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz. After Higgins’s forced resignation, Guidroz said, “Clay Higgins formed a personal business venture to raise money by selling mugs, T-shirts and other trinkets using department badge and uniform.” Explaining that using the sheriff’s office to promote his businesses was against departmental policy, Guidroz said, “I reined Higgins in.” He said that Higgins needed to take his own advice to not be disrespectful and to “follow the law.” Guidroz said he never authorized Higgins to appear on mugs, T-shirts or any other paraphernalia.

The personal business to which Guidroz referred, Captain Higgins Gear Company, LLC, was incorporated on October 15, 2015.

Guidroz related an incident in which Higgins requested extra body armor and an AR-15. He also asked to take the sheriff’s department decals off his car because, Higgins said, “My wife is home alone a lot and I don’t want them (those he had targeted in his videos) to see that I’m a policeman living in this area with the decals on my car.”

Guidroz said he told Higgins, “No, and I’ll tell you why: You put a target on fifty-five other deputies in this parish that have marked units. By calling these guys (gang members) out on the street, claiming to be a bad-ass, you put that target on them. Why should I grant you that request to unmark your car?”

As his supersized ego continued to grow, so, too, did his dream of a TV reality show in which he would out-Seagal actor Steven Seagal who at one time had his own TV reality cop show in which he did ride-alongs with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department. Higgins, expanding on that theme, actually envisioned himself popping in on various police department SWAT teams around the country and inviting himself to raids where he would personally arrest perps and then exact confessions from them during on-camera interrogations. Left unexplained was just how he intended to convince local police departments to allow him to swoop in and claim the glory after what may have been months of investigation and surveillance on their part.

Only after he left the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office was it learned that Higgins had not paid federal income taxes for several years, and his salary there was being garnished by the IRS. Moreover, it was also learned belatedly that Higgins was being sued by one of his ex-wives for one hundred thousand dollars after falling behind on child support payments a decade earlier.

Higgins, who denied an accusation by another ex-wife (not the one who sued him for child support) that he put a gun to her head during an argument in 1991, landed on his feet, this time as a reserve deputy for Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope who was himself indicted by a grand jury in August of 2016.

Meanwhile, Higgins was seeking the seat previously held by Rep. Charles Boustany who ran and lost in his race for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the retiring David Vitter. Higgins, running as an unabashed supporter of Donald Trump, was pitted in the runoff against Scott Angelle, a member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission who finished third in a four-man race for Louisiana Governor in 2015. In the November primary, Angelle led with 29 percent of the vote to Higgins’s 26 percent. But in the December 10 runoff, Higgins, with 77,671 votes (56 percent), swamped Angelle, who pulled but 60,762 (44 percent). After having lost two major races within a year’s time, Angelle was likely through running for elective office though Trump later hired him to head up the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

Days before his runoff victory, Higgins was taped by ex-wife Rosemary Rothkamm-Hambrice as they discussed his delinquent child support payments. “…I really don’t know how much we should talk about this on the phone,” Higgins said. “I’m just learning really about campaign laws but there’s going to be a lot of money floating around…”

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When it comes to meting out discipline for lawyer misdeeds, consistency is a foreign term to the Louisiana Supreme Court

Posted in Boards, Courts, Ethics, Judges on February 27, 2019| 2 Comments »

When comparing the exorbitant fines meted out by the State Board of Dentistry and the State Board of Medical Examiners with the manner in which the Louisiana Supreme Court disciplines wayward attorneys, one comes away wondering if there are two sets of standards of justice in Louisiana—one for attorneys and another for everyone else.

For that matter, it sometimes seems as though there are two standards for attorneys—or at least a good argument for glaring inconsistencies.

Take, for example, the cases of Arthur Gilmore, Jr. of Monroe and E. Eric Guirard of Baton Rouge.

Gilmore, a former Monroe city council member, was convicted of violations of the federal Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act in 2013 and subsequently served a 24-month prison sentence in South Dakota. A co-defendant, fellow council member Robert “Red” Stevens pleaded guilty in May 2013 to accepting cash bribe payments and was sentenced to 20 months in prison.

The sentence was below sentencing guidelines. The presiding judge wrote that the government’s main witness “engaged in an ongoing program of planned enticement to provoke (Gilmore) into agreeing to bribes in exchange for perceived favors from his position with the Monroe City Council. Because of that, the guidelines, in my opinion, may overstate the relative seriousness of (Gilmore’s) actions and the application of an equitable sentence.”

In other words, because he was tempted to take the bribe, the gravity of the acceptance of same and the violation of his oath of office and the betrayal of the trust bestowed upon him by voters is somehow mitigated.

The two were accused of accepting bribe payments from an FBI informant in exchange for their assistance with matters pending before the city council in 2008 and 2009.

The Louisiana Supreme Court finally got around to DISBARRING Gilmore in 2016—three years after his conviction. The disbarment was made retroactive to 2013.

Though Gilmore expressed remorse for his actions, the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board found that permanent disbarment was the appropriate action.

But “permanent” is a somewhat relative term, it seems.

Last month Gilmore petitioned the Supreme Court for readmission to the practice of law and “permanent” became temporary when the court’s disciplinary board recommended that he be readmitted to practice, subject to a three-year probationary period.

The Office of Disciplinary Council (ODC) objected to his readmission and three board members dissented, recommended that readmission be denied.

The objection and dissensions notwithstanding, the hearing committee approved Gilmore’s immediate READMISSION to practice law.

Justice Scott J. Crichton wrote in his dissent that Gilmore, “as an official elected government official, committed a serious felony crime involving racketeering and extracting bribes. In my view, he has not proven in his application for readmission that he has the requisite honesty and integrity to practice law, and I would deny readmission.”

GUIRARD received the same punishment in 2009 for what would appear to most to be a far less serious infraction—paying bonuses to non-lawyer case managers employed by his firm to help settle cases, a practice he discontinued five years before his disbarment.

The Supreme Court ruled that by paying two case workers to settle nearly 500 cases, Guirard “harmed their clients” by depriving them of individualized and professional case analysis while somehow overlooking larger firms who seemed to operate on an assembly-line basis—trying to sign up as many clients as possible as quickly as possible.

“We recognize a dishonest or selfish motive, a pattern of misconduct…in the practice of law,” the court wrote in its unanimous opinion.

Six years after he was disbarred, in March 2015, a year before Gilmore’s disbarment, Guirard was READMITTED to the bar.

Identical punishment for a far less egregious transgression.

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DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office subject of second investigative audit in five years; latest examines abuses of LACE program

Posted in Audit Reports, Auditor, Corruption, Ethics, Fraud, Lawsuits on February 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

The hits keep on coming.

The long-awaited investigative audit of the DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office’s Local Agency Compensated Enforcement (LACE) program is finally out after considerable legal wrangling between the Legislative Auditor and the sheriff’s office that, apparently, still is not over.

But the bottom line is the sheriff’s office took yet another hit just five years after an earlier INVESTIGATIVE AUDIT revealed that a former deputy’s private company had run half-a-million dollars in background checks through the sheriff’s office.

The latest AUDIT is far less damaging but nevertheless illustrates a pattern of lax oversight of the LACE program by former Sheriff Rodney Arbuckle who abruptly RESIGNED last March 16 in anticipation of the latest audit.

Thanks to the Haynesville Shale, Arbuckle had been able to administer a payroll of $11.2 million, three times that of neighboring Sabine Parish and $3.3 million more than Natchitoches Parish, which has nearly twice the population as DeSoto.

All of which circles back to the current audit that shows that 23 deputies were paid more than $15,000 for 335 hours of LACE details they may not have worked in the five-month period of January 1 to June 2, 2017.

Although $15,000 is not a particularly mind-boggling amount, even for such a short period of time, interviews with three former deputies reflected a deliberate policy by the department that encourage an atmosphere of payroll fraud and malfeasance.

That, in itself, was most probably the root cause of the Sheriff Jayson Richardson’s decision to employ legal efforts to prevent the Legislative Auditor’s office from gaining access to the department’s personnel records even though it created the appearance that the sheriff’s office may have been attempting to hide embarrassing or incriminating information.

“During the course of our audit, a Legislative subpoena was issued for personnel files of the current Sheriff, Jayson Richardson, and 12 former and current DPSO deputies,” the report reads. “The Sheriff contested the subpoena by means of a declaratory judgment filed in DeSoto Parish.” Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera filed an exception of venue but in a classic example of home cooking, a local court ruled against the auditor’s office. Purpera then filed an Exception of Non-Joinder of Proper Parties (an omission of one or more persons who should have been made a plaintiff or defendant). Again, there was an adverse ruling by the court which ruled that the Louisiana Legislature was not a necessary party in the matter in a determined effort to protect Richardson’s office. The LLA requested supervisory writs from the Second Circuit, which were granted on February 14, 2019. Following decisions from the courts of review, a trial on the merits will proceed before the trial court. “We may issue a supplemental report after the litigation is concluded,” the report said,” the report said.

“The DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office (DPSO) has participated in DeSoto Parish’s Local Agency Compensated Enforcement (LACE) program to enhance traffic safety and generate revenue for many years,” the report said. “The LACE program is administered by the District Attorney (DA) for the 42nd Judicial District. The Criminal Court Fund reimbursed DPSO $45.00 per hour for off-duty deputies (i.e., deputies working at times other than their regularly-scheduled work hours) to write tickets and also reimbursed DPSO $10 per hour for operating costs and wear and tear on DPSO’s vehicles for the hours worked through February 2017. However, there was no written contract or agreement between the DA and DPSO to conduct LACE details.

“DA Gary Evans told us he relied on DPSO to manage the LACE program when he began his first term as district attorney in January 2015; however, two years later, he learned other DAs managed their own LACE programs and used pretrial diversion (PTD) programs to fund them. This prompted DA Evans to create a PTD program for LACE traffic citations and discontinue participation in the LACE program funded by the Criminal Court Fund in March 2017.

“DPSO participated in the DA’s new LACE program from March 23, 2017 to June 2, 2017. A dispute arose as to whether the Criminal Court Fund or the DA should pay DPSO $107,140 for LACE details worked in March, April, and May 2017. Former Sheriff Rodney Arbuckle told us that he paid his deputies for LACE details they worked and was entitled to reimbursement from the DA, who was now diverting LACE tickets. The DA countered that DPSO did not perform all services as invoiced and that he does not owe DPSO reimbursement. The DA did not reimburse DPSO and DPSO stopped working LACE details on June 2, 2017.”

The reported noted that the 42nd Judicial District Criminal Court Fund reimbursed participating law enforcement agencies for the time spent on LACE details through March 2017 when Evans created a pre-trial diversion (PTD) program for LACE traffic citation and discontinued participation in the program funded by the Criminal Court Fund.

DPSO had few written policies on procedures for LACE details during the period covered by the audit, lending to an atmosphere of abuse and falsified time sheets, time sheets approved by then-Captain of Patrols Richardson.

Because LACE details paid more than other off-duty details such as security, there was active competition for open LACE spots, the report says, adding that four current and former deputies who worked LACE were told to “get on and get off” I-49 quickly so that the next deputy could begin his or her LACE detail.

State auditors attempted to speak with deputies but only three former deputies agreed to interviews.

Following are the LLA’s summation of what the former deputies told auditors:

  • Former Lt. Stephanie White told us that she was paid for hours she claimed on LACE details that she did not work on Interstate 49. She further said that she was never told that she had to be on Interstate 49 for her entire LACE shift and ran personal errands after she left the interstate before returning the digiTICKET device. She stated that, in September 2017, former Sheriff Arbuckle asked her before we began our investigation if LLA was going to find any problems with the LACE details; she said she informed him that the deputies did not work all of the hours claimed.
  • Former Deputy Dennis Buckingham said that he was trained to work LACE details by claiming one hour per citation written without regard to hours actually worked. He further said that he wrote numerous citations during the first hours of his LACE shift and then went home for the remainder of his shift. Because he may not have worked all the hours on his LACE time sheet, he may have been paid for hours he did not work.
  • Former Deputy Alphonsa Carter stated that she received compensation for hours she did not work. She stated although she knew it was common practice for other deputies to claim an hour for each citation written and not work full shifts, she should not have done wrong just because they were.

Buckingham filed a written response to the audit in which he denied that he admitted to being paid for lace hours he did not work, although he reiterated that he was instructed to claim a full hour for every ticket written.

“Four former deputies told us that one former deputy routinely called in as starting work for LACE details although the deputy remained at home for several hours after ‘starting’ the LACE detail,” the report said.

“If these deputies claimed time and were paid for hours not actually worked on LACE details, they may have violated state law,” it said. “Additionally, since DPSO billed by the hour for the use of its patrol units for LACE details, DPSO may have over-billed the DA for that same period.”

Richardson’s response, written by James Sterritt, an attorney for the Shreveport law firm Cook, Yancey, King and Galloway, said that the sheriff’s department “became aware of several inconsistencies” while assisting the LLA with information during the audit. “That information led to three deputies being placed on administrative leave,” Sterritt said. “All three resigned shortly afterwards.

At the same time, Sterritt, said that a comparison of deputies’ timesheets to digiTICKET log reports “may not provide a complete picture of time actually worked by deputies performing LACE details. Thus, the hours designated in the report as ‘over-payments’ may have been overestimated.” Sterritt said that when superiors become aware of improper conduct by a deputy, “that deputy is properly disciplined”

 

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Dental, Medical boards wield enormous leverage over licensees, but Supreme Court ruling could temper that

Posted in Audit Reports, Boards, Commissions, Corruption, Ethics, Lawsuits, Legislature, Public Records, Senate, Transparency on February 23, 2019| 3 Comments »

Trying to decipher which was the first to employ Gestapo-like extortion as a means of controlling licensees is like solving the chicken-or-the-egg riddle, but there’s no question that the methods employed by the Louisiana Board of Dentistry and the Louisiana State Medical Licensing Board are eerily similar.

Both employ highly questionable investigative methods, both impose stiff fines followed by even more outrageous fines if the licensee displays any will to resist what may even be bogus charges, and both make generous use of the most effective punishment: revocation of licenses—taking away the victim’s very means of earning a livelihood.

And both also occasionally force recalcitrant dentists and physicians to attend costly rehab clinics either in addition to or in lieu of license revocations. And those rehab clinics can cost as much as $30,000 a month.

Sometimes, a professional is sent to a facility that has its own abuse problems. Take the case of Slidell dentist KENNETH STARLING, who, in addition to having to pay an $8,000 fine, was sent by the dental board to a place called Palmetto Addition Recovery Center in Rayville in Richland Parish in 2010.

But PALMETTO, it turned out, was involved a 2009 lawsuit after one of its staff members, Dr. Douglas Wayne Cook, became sexually involved with one of the center’s patients.

And even while at Palmetto, the dental board continued targeting him. Could that be because he practiced in the same town as influential board member Dr. Edward Donaldson?

And while the practices of the dental board have been publicized often by LouisianaVoice, the state medical board essentially plays by the same rules. And, just as with the dental board, the name of Palmetto Addiction Recovery Centers surfaces on a regular basis in report after report, along with Pine Grove Recovery Centers in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and Physicians’ Health Foundation of Louisiana.

I have chosen to delete the names and locations of the following examples, but the cases serve as examples of an uneven playing field, often dependent upon on the physician in question:

  • Following his arrest on charges of distribution and possession of controlled and dangerous substances in 2005, Dr. ________submitted to substance abuse evaluation at Palmetto. “Apparently, the physician had submitted to chemical dependency treatment on two prior occasions. Upon his discharge from Palmetto, he underwent residential treatment at Pine Grove. His license was reinstated in 2009 but in 2013, the board received information indicating that the physician “had returned to the use of controlled or other mood-altering substances.” In 2018, after being placed on indefinite probation in 2014, his license was “reinstated without restriction.”
  • ___________entered a plea of guilty to one count of Medicaid fraud in 2002 and subsequently underwent in-patient chemical dependency evaluation for cocaine abuse. Following completion of his criminal penalty, he was referred to Physician Health Foundation’s Physician Health Program (PHP). Following his reinstatement in 2008, he was disciplined again in 2018, this time placed on probation for unspecified violations.
  • _________________ was diagnosed in 1999 with cocaine and alcohol addiction and in 2000 was referred to Talbott Recovery Campus in Atlanta, Georgia through Physicians’ Health Foundation and later to Fontainebleau Treatment Center in Mandeville. His license was reinstated in 2006 but in 2007, he again came under scrutiny for drug abuse and was again referred to a PHP monitoring program and he was placed on probation by the board for a 10-year period in 2008. He was reinstated “without restriction” in 2018.
  • ________________ entered a plea of guilty to one count of health care fraud in 2009. In addition to criminal penalties, the board suspended his license for 90 days, placed him on probation for five years, and fined him $3,000. Following his reinstatement in December 2009, it was subsequently learned in 2011 that he had been issuing prescriptions of narcotics, including OxyContin, from his home and vehicle since May 2009 under the auspices of a practice site not approved by the board. The board again suspended his license, this time for six months and he was placed on probation for 10 years.
  • _________________ voluntarily entered into a two-week program at DePaul Hospital in New Orleans for cocaine dependency in 1995 and 1996 before transferring to Talbott Marsh in Atlanta. The board in 1998 ordered him into additional treatment in PHP at Palmetto and placed him on probation for five years. In 2003, he was again placed on five-year probation for failure to comply with requirements set forth in the 1998 order. His license was reinstated “without restriction” in 2018.

But when a Lafayette NEUROSURGEON becomes involved in suspected arson and subsequently enters a plea of guilty to one count of felony obstruction of justice, the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners is strangely silent.

Dr. Nancy Rogers was arrested in 2012 in connection with the fire at Levy-East Bed & Breakfast in Natchitoches, a blaze that caused $500,000 in damage to the unoccupied building. No motive has been given for the fire, but investigators determined it to have been intentionally set.

But in the case of Dr. ARNOLD FELDMAN of Baton Rouge, the board came down especially hard.

In a terse December 20, 2018, LETTER TO FELDMAN, board Executive Director Vincent Culotta, Jr., wrote, “Per the decision and order of the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners dated April 13, 2015, the amount due is as follows:

  • Cost of proceeding—$456,980.60
  • Administrative fine—$5,000
  • Total: $461,980.60.

This is not intended as a treatsie on Feldman’s guilt or innocence, but it’s rather difficult to fathom what “proceedings” could cost nearly $457,000 but that’s the way the dental and medical examiners boards operate. While members of both boards are appointed by the governor, they are apparently accountable to no one and able to set fines and costs at whatever amounts they wish.

Feldman served briefly as a member of the Physicians’ Health Foundation until he started asking questions that made certain people uncomfortable. Four months later, he found himself in the board’s crosshairs. But during his short tenure, he learned that the medical board funnels about a million dollars a year into the foundation. Apparently, there is no accounting for those funds.

Moreover, he said, the so-called “independent judges” hearing cases for possible board disciplinary action are paid by the board investigator’s office, which creates something of a stacked deck going into the process—not to mention an obvious conflict of interest.

Physicians aren’t the only ones to encounter an uncooperative medical board. The Legislative Auditor was forced to SUE the board in order to obtain board records so that it could perform its statutorily-mandated job of auditing the board’s financial records.

Senate Bill 286, the so-called physicians’ Bill of Rights, passed the SENATE by a unanimous 36-0 vote last year but never made it to the floor of the House after being involuntarily deferred in committee.

But a rare unanimous DECISION by the U.S. Supreme Court exactly two months later, on February 20, could impact the way these boards mete out exorbitant fines.

Even though the high court’s ruling on Timbs v. Indiana is considered a blow aimed at criminal justice reform, particularly in the so-called policing for profit through asset forfeiture, its effects could spill over into the way civil fines are handed down by regulatory bodies.

The ruling, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, falls back on the Eighth Amendment that guarantees that no “excessive fines” may be imposed, a concept that dates back to the Magna Carta and later embraced by the framers of the U.S. Constitution.

It will be interesting to see if any dentist or physician victimized by either of these boards files legal action based on the Supreme Court’s most recent ruling.

If someone does, it could be a game changer.

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Dental Board kills mobile dental clinics with HB 687; doesn’t forget to invest in renting state legislators with contributions

Posted in Uncategorized on February 22, 2019| 5 Comments »

We’ve already seen that Louisiana has dismal RANKINGS in overall dental care (47th), oral health (44th), dental habits (dead last), in the percentage of adults who visited a dentist in the past year (dead last), and the fewest dentists per capita (dead last).

So, what happened when the legislature in 2009 passed House Bill 687 by votes of 96-0 in the House and 34-0 in the Senate that allowed the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry to promulgate rules and regulations for the operation of MOBILE DENTAL CLINICS?

Short answer: the number of mobile clinics in Louisiana went from three to zero.

Dr. John Reese, III, DMD, writing for DENTAL ECONOMICS in 2009, said, “Access to care is a major problem facing dentistry today. Many recall when the U.S. Surgeon General gave a failing grade to the level of dental disease in this country, and reported that the number-one reason children visit the school nurse is for dental pain.

Dr. Reese went on to say that with mobile clinics, patients can be treated on-site with minimal interruption of daily routines.

Two major obstacles stand in the way of adequate dental care: cost and access. By bringing dental services to schools and treating indigent children on Medicaid, the mobile dental clinics met both challenges.

Between 2010 and 2014, the number of school-linked

MOBILE_and_PORTABLE_DENTISTRY_PROGRAMS increased from 1,930 to 2,315, an increase of 20 percent. That includes health clinics as well as dental and every state except South Dakota and Louisiana participated.

So, what happened to the bill pushed so hard by Slidell dentist Dr. Edward Donaldson, the bill that became Act 429 with the signature of Bobby Jindal?

Quite simply, MCNA DENTAL (Managed Care of North America, Inc.), which certifies Medicaid dental programs, refused to credential mobile dental practices in Louisiana.

But a better question is how did HB 687 by Rep. Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell) change from its original form to the language in the final passage?

Well, in its original form the LEGISLATIVE DIGEST said the proposed law “prohibits the practice of dentistry in the buildings, improvements, grounds, or any other construction of elementary or second schools.”

Perhaps it was mere coincidence that Dr. Donaldson and Rep. Pearson both reside in Slidell, but it’s no secret that Donaldson was pushing hard for the bill because he seemed to think that mobile clinics were cutting into his patient base. Never mind that virtually all mobile clinic patients were not otherwise seeing a dentist.

The bill was amended 13 times before being voted on in its final form and the regulations as written were sound rules, or so it seemed, until MCNA entered the picture.

Diana Chenevert, a former employee of the State Dentistry Board, in her testimony before a Senate committee, referred to the coalition of the State Board of Dentistry, the Louisiana Dental Association, MCNA, and Molina (the firm contracted to approve Medicaid payments by the State Department of Hospitals) as the “Medicaid Mafia,” led by Donaldson.

She provided a graph that showed that (a) MCNA receives money for every child covered by Louisiana Medicaid, (b) MCNA pays mobile clinic dentists a fee for service for every child treated (thereby cutting into MCNA’s profit base), and (c) by denying mobile dental services, and in the process eliminating the fees paid to treating dentists, MCNA’s profits are increased.

She cited testimony by Donaldson and dental board member Dr. Claudia Cavalina “about mobile dentistry’s purported unclean, unsafe, unsanitary practice with no follow-up care. What you don’t hear were the initial pleas to the LDA board to fight against mobile dentists, including my favorite LDA member quotes:

  • “It’s gonna be more and more difficult for the private dentist to make a living trying to see these kids.”
  • “I sure, personally, would not like to see us giving all these groups a leg up to compete against our members.”
  • “They are eliminating the private sector. That’s not what I want.”
  • “(Mobile dentists) would be (happy) because they’re getting the first shot” (at potential patients and income).
  • “It’s unfair.”
  • “You can’t get the patients that you do need in certain areas. They will focus on certain areas obviously wherever the children are.”

“Mafia dentists profit directly by closing mobile dental practices as the only model left standing is their brick and mortar offices, the inside of which will never be seen by hundreds of thousands of Medicaid children in Louisiana,” she said in her testimony. “And the children of Louisiana lose.”

So, it was simple math that the mobile clinics operated by Dr. Greg Foules of Lafayette and Drs. Luciana Sweis and Nikita Sarr, both of New Orleans, would be de-certified. In fact, when Dr. Sweis placed her equipment in storage after her forced closure, it would be destroyed by a mysterious fire. Hailed as a major gain for Louisiana when she moved to New Orleans from Chicago, she departed after her clinic was de-certified and her equipment destroyed.

It’s not that Donaldson neglected the necessary time-honored practice of taking care of Louisiana elected officials.

Included in the $143,000 in political contributions by Donaldson, his wife, and their clinic from 2003, were six contributions to Pearson totaling $5,250.

Other contributions by Donaldson included:

  • $13,000 to Senate President John Alario;
  • $5,000 to House Speaker Taylor Barras;
  • $9,500 to various campaigns of Jay Dardenne;
  • $9,000 to Sen. Jack Donahue of Mandeville;
  • $8,000 to Sen. Jim Fannin of Jonesboro;
  • $5,000 to Rep. Cameron Henry of Metairie;
  • $9,000 to former House Speaker Charles Kleckley of Lake Charles;

But Donaldson’s contributions are dwarfed by the investments in good government totaling more than $1.5 million made by private dental practices, dental PACs and other dental-related organizations since 2003.

Just imagine, if you will, how many indigent children could receive desperately needed dental care with that kind of money.

Among the more fortunate beneficiaries of that investment were:

  • $35,000 to Alario;
  • $3,500 to Sen. Conrad Appel of Metairie;
  • $8,550 to Barras;
  • $7,500 to Rep. Johnny Berthelot of Gonzales;
  • $6,000 to Rep. Robert Billiot of Westwego;
  • $11,000 to former Rep. Simone Champagne;
  • $8,000 to former Sen. Norbert Chabert;
  • $8,000 to Rep. Charles Chaney of Rayville;
  • $12,000 to Rep. Patrick Connick of Marrero;
  • $25,500 to Donahue;
  • $8,000 to Sen. Dale Erdy of Livingston;
  • $13,000 to former Rep. and former Sen. Noble Ellington of Winnsboro;
  • $23,000 to Fannin;
  • $7,000 to Rep. Franklin Foil of Baton Rouge;
  • $13,000 to former Rep. Brett Geymann;
  • $12,000 to former Rep. Elbert Guillory of Opelousas;
  • $8,500 to Henry;
  • $18,000 to former Rep. Lydia Jackson;
  • $31,000 to Jindal;
  • $17,000 to Kleckley;
  • $12,250 to former Rep. John LaBruzzo;
  • $16,500 to Rep. Walt Leger of New Orleans;
  • $15,500 to Rep. James H. Morris of Oil City;
  • $9,500 to Pearson;
  • $7,000 to Sen. Neil Riser of Columbia;
  • $10,000 to former Rep. Mert Smiley of Gonzales;
  • $14,500 to Rep. Patricia Haynes of Baton Rouge;
  • $10,000 to Sen. Gary Smith of Norco;
  • $11,000 to Sen. Greg Tarver of Shreveport;
  • $7,000 to Sen. Michael Walsworth of West Monroe;
  • $7,000 to former House Speaker Jim Tucker;
  • $11,000 to former Sen. Sharon Weston Broome;
  • $17,500 to Sen. Bodi White of Central.

And after all the bad publicity and legislative hearings about dental board actions, the board is now upping its game from extortion, intimidation, and exorbitant fines to witness tampering and cyber stalking.

And why not? Look at those campaign contributions which equate to a get out of jail free card.

If you can’t afford to buy good government (good for your interests, that is), it’s always for rent.

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