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Archive for August, 2019

Ouachita Citizen newspaper in fight with Division of Administration over public record of expenditures

Posted in Attorney General, Campaign Contributions, Corruption, Courts, DOA, Ethics, Fraud, Judges, Lawsuits, Public Records on August 30, 2019| 4 Comments »

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: here they go again.

The expenditure of public funds, under the law, is supposed to be just that: public.

But trying to pry an accounting of legal costs associated with the state’s defense of 4th Judicial District law clerk Allyson Campbell has proved to be somewhat problematic, to say the least, for a north Louisiana publication.

The Ouachita Citizen in West Monroe is the only newspaper willing to take on the powers that be and so far, it has encountered a huge stone wall.

[The unwillingness of the Monroe News-Star to involve itself in the fight for the public’s right to know may be attributed to two factors: (1) it’s a Gannett publication which in and of itself, lends itself to mediocrity, and (2) Campbell once worked part time as something of a gossip columnist for the paper. Of course, it didn’t hurt that her father was an executive with Regions Bank and is married to the daughter of influential attorney Billy Boles, or that Campbell is the sister of Catherine Creed of the prominent Monroe law firm of Creed and Creed. Got all that? If not, here’s a LINK to one of our earlier stories about Campbell.]

But back to the latest developments in this ongoing saga. The Citizen made a by-the-books public records REQUEST of the Division of Administration (DOA) in which it sought an accounting of legal costs in defending Campbell in a lawsuit brought against her by Stanley Palowsky, III, for damages incurred when she “spoliated, concealed, removed, destroyed, shredded, withheld, and/or improperly handled” his petition for damages against a former business partner.

It seems that some 52 writ applications went missing for more than a year only to be found in Campbell’s office where, incredibly and inexplicably, she was using them as an end table in her office.

So, how DOA respond to the Citizen’s request? Basically, it said attorney’s bills for legal services were exempt from production under an exception pertaining to pending claims.

That’s debatable. Yes, in ongoing litigation, communications between attorney and client are definitely privileged. But a simple accounting of expenditures for legal representation has nothing to legal strategy or negotiations. It’s an expenditure, pure and simple, and should be available as a public record.

The Citizen, in its story, pointed out that Christian Creed, Catherine Creed’s husband and law partner, contributed $5,000 to Attorney General Jeff Landry’s campaign in November 2015.

But more significantly, LouisianaVoice combed through campaign reports and found that Christian Creed, Catherine Creed, and the Creed Law Firm were quite active in their support of other candidates.

Gov. John Bel Edwards was the beneficiary of $25,000 in contributions from both Catherine and Christian Creed over the three-year period of 2015-2107, and Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne received $2,000 in contributions from Christian Creed in 2013 and 2014.

Attorney Scott Sternberg of New Orleans is representing the Citizen and by letter dated August 27, gave DOA until today (August 30) to comply with the request.

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The other shoe falls for former St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain: federal indictment is handed down Thursday

Posted in Corruption, Courts, Crime, Ethics, Politicians, Privatization, Uncategorized on August 29, 2019| 8 Comments »

In Chapter 26 of my book, Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption,

Louisiana's Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption

I described how St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain circumvented state ethics laws by setting the son and daughter of two of his deputies up as straw owners of a private entity formed to run the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Department’s prisoner work release program under a no-bid contract.

Unfortunately, when I wrote the Strain chapter, I didn’t have all the sordid details that went along with the agreement, which included kickbacks to Strain and hundreds of thousands of dollars that went to his two deputies, David Hanson and Clifford “Skip” Keen.

On Thursday (August 29) those details were made public in the form of a federal INDICTMENT of Strain—details that revealed how the scheme worked, how kickbacks were paid to Strain and how federal funds were used to pay American Express Gold Card charges for expensive family vacations to Hawaii, the Bahamas, Destin, Florida, a hunting trip to Illinois, a $2,000 down payment on a Dodge Durango truck, $2,770 for a jewelry purchase from Boudreaux’s Fine Jewelers, other personal purchases and a $2.500 contribution to Strain’s re-election campaign.

The single-count indictment, in 22 pages, laid out the method by which Strain, Hanson and Keen set up two separate prisoner work release programs and awarded a no-bid contract to St. Tammany Workforce Solutions, LLC, to operate the programs.

The indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans, said that Hanson supervised the sheriff’s department’s Canine Division and Keen was over the Maintenance Department.

Strain, the indictment said, wanted to transfer operations of the work release programs to a private entity run by Hanson and Keen but for them to do so would have necessitated their resignations from the sheriff’s office, thus forfeiting medical and retirement benefits.

As a solution, Hanson’s daughter, Brandy Hanson, and Keen’s son, Jarret Cole Keen were set up as operators of St. Tammany Workforce Solutions, with each holding 45 percent ownership. To sidestep state ethics laws, which were already virtually meaningless, Allen Tingle was given 10 percent ownership and was paid $30,000 per year to run the work release program.

Brandy Hanson and Jarret Keen received more than 100 payments each totaling nearly $1.2 million between them from 2013 and 2017. The kickbacks to Strain, David Hanson and Skip Keen, the charges claim, were accomplished by arranging for Brandy Hanson and Jarret Keen to serve as “straw owners” of St. Tammany Workforce Solutions.

David Hanson and Skip Keen entered guilty pleas last February to funneling kickbacks to Strains from profits they received through the work release program.

Tingle is never identified in the indictment and is referred to only as “Person 2.” But the indictment named Person 2 as the registered agent for St. Tammany Workforce Solutions and the Secretary of State’s corporate RECORDS show the registered agent as Allen Tingle.

Thursday’s indictment said that Tingle was required to make payments to Brandy Hanson and Jarrett Keen.

Among the expenditures paid on Hanson’s American Express Cold Card were payments of $4,041; $4,770; $2,205, and $4,660.

Payments were also made to American Express in the amounts of:

  • $4,000 for Hanson’s Hawaiian vacation;
  • $4,000 for Hanson’s trip to the Bahamas;
  • $2,770 to pay for jewelry from Boudreaux’s Fine Jewelers;
  • $2,000 for a down payment on a new Dodge Durango;
  • $4,360 for another vacation in the Bahamas;
  • A check for $16,000 made payable to Big River Outfitters for a hunting lease in Illinois to be used by Keen and Hanson;
  • A debit card charge of $2,241 to Destin West for a Keen family vacation, and
  • A check for $2,500 drawn on the Skip Keen account and made payable to the Jack Strain Campaign.

Last month, Strain, who was defeated for re-election in 2015, was indicted by a St. Tammany Parish grand jury on two counts each of aggravated rape and aggravated incest and single counts of sexual battery and indecent behavior with a juvenile.

Two of his alleged victims were under the age of 12 and the alleged incidents date back as far as 1975, to when Strain himself was as young as 12, according to 22nd Judicial District Attorney Warren Montgomery. One of his victims claimed he was only six when Strain anally raped him.

At least four persons came forward to claim they were molested by Strain, one of whom said he was raped as late as June 2004. Strain, 56, was first elected sheriff in 1995, serving until his defeat by current Sheriff Randy Smith.

Strain was arrested at his home by state police and booked into his former jail where he was held in lieu of posting $400,000 bail. He faced the possibility of life in prison if convicted.

Move along, folks. Nothing to see here. Just another ho-hum day in Louisiana politics.

 

 

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My response to the Republican National Committee:

Posted in Uncategorized on August 24, 2019| 11 Comments »

On Friday (Aug. 23),I received the attached “Trump Agenda Survey,” aka “A Project of the Republican National Committee,” cleverly disguised as a solicitation for a monetary contribution even though I was forced to walk away from the Republican Party several years ago because:

  • It no longer makes any pretense of supporting individuals’ Constitutional rights;
  • It no longer makes any pretense of fiscal responsibility as evidenced by the national deficit which has CLIMBED to $1 trillion rather than being reduced as promised by Trump;
  • It no longer embraces the concept of rational conservatism but instead, in the very words of RONALD REAGAN, JR., in describing Trump: “He’s obsessed with ratings and things like that, but he doesn’t actually engage with the idea of being the president of the United States. Not interested in learning anything in particular. And so, he just sort of floats along day to day in this stew of chaos that he creates.”
  • The Republican Party has capitulated to corporate America with its so-called tax reform that only benefits the wealthiest one percent at the expense of working Americans;
  • The Republican Party has sold its soul to the Second Amendment while looking the other way as Trump and his allies in the party try to destroy the First Amendment. Even one of my own U.S. Senators, BILL CASSIDY, has sponsored a bill that would cast a chill over the First Amendment by labeling Antifa as a terrorist organization without batting an eye at the PROUD BOYS or other WHITE NATIONALIST GROUPS tied to TRUMP and his attorney general, WILLIAM BARR.

PROUD BOYS

In short, the Republican Party, led by the likes of Trump and Mitch McConnell, more resembles a totalitarian party than one that represents the American citizens.

The Republican Party no longer is the stalwart opponent of the communist government of Russia and North Korea, as evidenced by its silence when Trump fawns over those countries’ leaders.

The Republican Party is no longer the staunch, proud opponent of slavery, as evidenced by its deafening silence over the caging of children who are forced to live in squalid conditions no animal should be forced to endure.

  • You ask in your questionnaire if I believe “that Democrats in Congress have any intention of working in good faith with President Trump and Republicans to address the pressing issues facing our nation.” I remind you that since January alone, the House has passed bills on comprehensive democratic reform (election security), pay equity for women, gender discrimination, dreamers protection, prescription drug costs, pre-existing conditions, background checks—all of which Mitch McConnell blocked in the Senate. So, just who is not working in “good faith”?
  • You asked in your questionnaire if I agreed that “Democrats have not said or done enough to stop their radical left-wing supports and fringe groups from harassing and launching violent protests against people with differing opinions.” I direct you to Charlottesville, San Diego, Dayton, Orlando, El Paso, Charleston, and elsewhere and ask that you please tell me exactly which fringe group those perpetrators represented. I would also suggest you examine the arrests of those planning white nationalist attacks and then tell me just who the hell poses the greatest threat—white nationalist Trump supporters or suspected Democrats who heckle and hold counter-protests in opposition to groups like the Proud Boys, the American Freedom Party, The White Boys Society, or hundreds of other such groups?

David Duke must be so proud of you.

  • You asked in your questionnaire if I am worried “that the hateful, divisive rhetoric of many Democrat leaders against our President, his administration and conservative policies is fomenting political violence and undermining the foundations of our society and democracy?” Oh, for God’s sake, where to start. I suppose by offering to provide you with a half-dozen (at a minimum) examples of Trump’s “hateful and divisive rhetoric” for every example you can provide of the same for Democrats. I dare you to take me up on that challenge.

I’m sorry, but I do not believe a truly patriotic political party would stand silently by while the president smugly refers to himself as “the chosen one.” A truly patriotic party would not stand idly by as he drives the country—and the world—into a recession with his chaotic trade policies. A party with an iota of dignity and self-respect might even ask Trump to “pick a position and stay with it; quit flip-flopping.” A truly responsible party would not condone the description of African countries as “shit-hole countries.” A truly patriotic party would never look the other way as innocent children are caged without toothpaste, blankets or clean clothing. A party that sincerely loves this country would address solutions to mass shootings in an adult, responsible way—instead of offering the by now cliché “thoughts and prayers,” and mumbling, “Now is not the time to make this (pick a shooting) tragedy a political issue.”

I have long lamented the fact that we were losing jobs to countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, China, India and Korea because of cheap labor. On that point, I can agree with Trump. Most people I know do, too. We would love nothing better than to see manufacturing jobs returned to this country. But no one, including POTUS, can “order” American companies to cease doing business with China. If such an order were to be implemented, Walmart would be out of business within a week. Such an “order” is the type action only a dictator would—or could—take.

Or, perhaps the “Chosen One.”

Here is the POTUS order-by-tweet:

✔@realDonaldTrump

Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.

In short, the Republican party is despicable, disgusting, uncaring, callous, and unresponsive to the concerns of this country.

So, no, I shall not be contributing one dime to any candidate, national or local, who indicates his unwavering, unquestioning, devotion and loyalty to such a monster as Donald J. Trump or Mitch McConnell—and that includes our two Republican candidates for governor of the state of Louisiana who proudly wear their lack of moral courage and convictions on their sleeves.

Not necessarily a proud Democrat, but for damned sure not a Republican,

Tom Aswell

(Disclaimer: I post this with the full knowledge that Trump’s core supporters will come out of the woodwork to nail me to the wall. So, having acknowledged that fact, enjoy yourselves. I would never deny anyone the right of free expression because that’s the American way. Just keep it clean and civil.)

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Excerpt from my book ‘Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs’

Posted in Uncategorized on August 23, 2019| Leave a Comment »

The following is an excerpt from my book, Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption, which chronicles the unparalleled power of sheriffs and how they can use that power for personal enrichment and to shield themselves from violations of human rights, theft, drug distribution and even murder. For this book, I have chosen to limit stories to Louisiana and there were plenty of examples from which to choose. This partial chapter examines Mike Tregre, sheriff of St. John the Baptist Parish.

 

On December 20, 1993, Leonardo Alexander and Arizona Batiste became embroiled in an argument over property Batiste said Alexander had stolen from his home. The confrontation ended when Batiste shot and killed Alexander when he said Alexander first pulled a chrome-plated handgun on him. Batiste panicked, flagged down a passing friend, Jerry Lewis, threw both guns in his truck with instructions to “get rid of them,” according to Lewis, who said he threw the pistol in a canal.

When deputies arrived at the scene of the shooting, one of the officers, Paul Schnyder, was a first cousin to the victim Alexander. Schnyder, because of the conflict of interest, turned the investigation over to his partner, Allan Wayne Schaeffer, but remained on the scene as interviews were conducted with four witnesses, each of whom said Alexander had a handgun. That would seem to collaborate Batiste’s claim of self-defense but deputies instead accused the witnesses of lying, saying they had fabricated the story of the second gun.

Lewis said sheriff’s deputies went to the canal in search of Alexander’s weapon and he seemed to remember there were divers at the canal who were not mentioned in the subsequent report filed by Schaeffer. “They had divers out there,” Lewis said.

Carl Butler, an attorney for the sheriff’s office, would deny that the sheriff’s office had an “official” diving team but Edward Nowell, commander of the Marine Division of the sheriff’s office at the time, confirmed that the sheriff’s department had access to divers.

Upon their return from the canal, Lewis said deputies pressured him to lie and say there was only one gun, repeatedly asking him, “You gonna continue to lie for Arizona?” Though Lewis said he never changed his story, the investigative report filed by deputies following their last interview with Lewis said he told them there was only one gun, quoting Lewis as saying he “only received one gun from Batiste, that being the 12-gauge shotgun that killed Alexander. The actual transcript of the interview, however, differs radically from the detectives’ report, with no mention of any questions about the gun. Instead, Lewis refused to answer questions and demanded an attorney.

Charges against Lewis were eventually dropped after Batiste’s trial because he had produced Batiste’s shotgun for deputies. The detective who interviewed him, Mike Tregre, asked, “Have any threats or promises been made to you or has pressure of any kind been applied to induce you to answer questions or give up any of your rights?”

“No,” said Lewis, who would later say, “They (the sheriff’s deputies) were putting a lot of pressure on me,” adding that he was in fear of retaliation against him by Tregre.

In December 1995, two years after the shooting, Schaeffer faxed a file to St. John Assistant District Attorney GeorgeAnn Graugnard which said a silver handgun recovered in the Batiste investigation was being held by the sheriff’s office for “safekeeping.”

When Batiste’s new attorney, Gwyn Brown, discovered the fax, she confirmed with the sheriff’s office that it was still in possession of the gun that deputies had denied ever existed. When Batiste appealed for a new trial, cooperation was less forthcoming, saying records of the investigation had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The only problem with that was while New Orleans was inundated by floodwaters, St. John the Baptist Parish was not. Instead, it served as a staging area for recovery efforts into New Orleans and the sheriff’s department’s own annual report boasted there was “no flooding and no looting. Power outages inconvenienced us all but thankfully, damage was mostly limited to roofs.” No mention was made of any damage to sheriff’s facilities. Nor did the sheriff’s office ever file any insurance claims for damaged facilities from the hurricane. Faced with the prospect of explaining how files could have been damaged when nothing else was, the department changed its story to say, “The case files you see were relocated to a mobile trailer following Hurricane Katrina damage to the CID (Criminal Investigations Department) building where they were stored. However, those files cannot be currently located.”

…

Mike Tregre captured 64 percent of the vote in the first primary, easily defeating two other candidates.

He was sworn into office in July 2012 and six months later, on January 18, 2013, his son, Jared Tregre, was sworn in as a reserve deputy while still a student in high school. He wore a badge and “represented himself as a deputy” during a ceremony for fallen officers in Washington, D.C. Among those honored at the event were St. John deputies Brandon Nielsen and Jeremy Triche, who were killed in 2012. Moreover, by virtue of his still being four months from graduating from high school, Jared Tregre could not legally be commissioned as a reserve deputy since the law requires deputies to have a high school diploma or to possess a GED, said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission (MCC), a nonprofit citizen watchdog organization.

Goyeneche’s letter described Jered Tregre’s action of walking around Washington “with a badge around his neck with people thanking him” for his service as a “disgraceful breech of conduct”

 

To read the first page of that letter, click HERE.

To read the full story, as well as 43 other chapters of murder, malfeasance, abuse of power, theft, and other transgressions, you may order my book, Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption. The price for the book is $30 and you may click on this icon: Donate Button with Credit Cardsin the column to the right or you may send a check for $30 to Tom Aswell, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727.

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Kira Orange-Jones overcomes legal challenge to BESE candidacy but other ethical problems plague the board

Posted in BESE, Corruption, Education, Elections, Ethics, Lawsuits on August 20, 2019| 2 Comments »

Kira Orange Jones prevailed in the challenge to her candidacy for re-election to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from the state’s 2nd District in a special court hearing in New Orleans on Tuesday, lending further validation to the theory that in Louisiana politics, anything goes.

That anything includes:

Jones listing at least three separate residents on various reporting forms submitted to the state;

Her failure to file Louisiana state income tax returns for the years 2015 and 2017 (a prerequisite to seeking political office in Louisiana, but…);

Her serving as executive director for Teach for America (TFA), which contracts with the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE), a clear conflict of interests and a not-so-trivial ethics question;

Her chronic absence from BESE meetings—she missed more than one-third of all meetings last year;

Here several years’ delinquency in filing required annual financial disclosure forms with the state—another requirement of candidates and even in-the-trenches civil service employees;

Her serving as a board member for a non-profit called Instruction Partners (IP) which is listed by LDOE as a vendor for professional development for 2018-19—another potential ethics problem and conflict of interest.

But what I found most humorous was the suggestion by educator and blogger Mercedes Schneider: “Given that Orange-Jones’ uninterrupted residence in BESE District 2 is in serious question (Her husband was at one time during her tenure New Mexico’s top education official), it seems in (opposition candidates) (Shawon) Bernard’s and (Ashonta) Wyatt’s best interest to file a claim against Orange-Jones with the Louisiana Ethics Board.”

So, why would I find that so amusing? Simple. Not to make light of Schneider’s well-intentioned suggestion, but the Ethics Board is Louisiana’s single biggest political JOKE going and has been since Bobby Jindal’s ethics “reform” of 2008.

Eight years ago, special interests hijacked BESE from Louisiana’s citizens by buying the offices of the likes of Orange-Jones, Jay Guillot, Holly Boffy, and others so that people like John White could ram through education “reform” designed to benefit corporate ownership of virtual on-line schools and charter schools.

Boffy, who is seeking re-election to her District 7 seat, is manager of an outfit called EdTalents in Lafayette, which, according to its web page, works to support schools or districts “in creating an educator talent system to attract, hire, place, develop, leverage, and retain teachers for student success.” Go HERE for the Louisiana Secretary of State’s corporate report on EdTalents.

She also is an Educator in Residence for the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) for the central and southeastern states. CCSSO was instrumental in writing COMMON CORE standards for the state.

In other words, like Guillot when he served on the board, Boffy contracts for services with school districts that are governed and regulated by the board on which she sits.

No conflict or ethics problem there.

But let’s look at some of the results under the tenure of Orange-Jones, Boffy and White:

  • Today, every single charter school in New Orleans is FAILING;
  • Louisiana, after a decade of White’s leadership, remains the fourth-worst EDUCATED state in the nation;
  • While the state’s teachers were going without pay raises, 20 unclassified employees at LDOE raked in average PAY RAISES of nearly $27,000 each over a five-year period—that’s more than $5,000 per year, compared to the meager $1,000 raise teachers got this year—finally.
  • LDOE attempted to gloss over a major ERROR in the Minimum Foundation Program for fiscal year 2018-19 which created an actual $17 million surplus for LDOE, but instead of distributing the money to the schools as it should have done, LDOE made no mention of the error for fear of an audit. Instead, the money was expected to be used for one-time expenses for the department.

And did a single legislator raise the first question about the mistake?

Nah. It’s all good. Move along. Nothing to see here.

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