Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for October, 2019

Online ads link LABI, Rispone candidate for 36th Senatorial District to Ashley Madison online extramarital dating service

Posted in Uncategorized on October 31, 2019| 2 Comments »

I read a joke somewhere once that defined “priceless” as the expression on someone’s face the moment he realized he was wrong.

The same might be said of U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and other family values conservatives who may have backed the wrong horse in the Senate District 36 race.

All the right names (and that would be the “far-right”) have thrown their support and their money into electing challenger Robert Mills over incumbent Ryan Gatti because (gasp) Gatti, like Mills, a Republican, has a bipartisanship voting record as opposed to voting the straight party line.

In party politics (and I’m talking about both parties now), walking in lock-step with the party line has somehow become more important than cooperation and compromise with those across the aisle in order to do what’s best for state and country.

And it’s that spirit of party over progress that has so sharply divided this country and this state to the point of political paralysis.

We witnessed eight years of a Jindal administration in which a Republican legislature rolled back funding for higher education, public education, mental health programs, and privatized other programs. Once Democrat Edwards entered the governor’s office, he was opposed by the Republicans at every turn.

And now, big money with far too much influence in our electoral process is trying to tip the scales even further in favor of big business, big banks, payday lending, nursing homes, private prisons, big oil, and big pharma, just to name a few of the heavy hitters in Baton Rouge.

Behind those efforts are political action committees with names like East PAC, West PAC, North PAC, and South PAC, all political action committees of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), begging the question of why does one lobbying organization need four separate political action committees? To make LABI’s political influence four times greater, perhaps?

And they have Gatti in their crosshairs.

People and organizations like the Republican State Leadership Committee, the Louisiana Student Financial Aid Association, Eddie Rispone, Koch Industries, Donald Bollinger, and relatives of Republican (would-be) kingmaker Lane Grigsby, among others, have joined LABI’s directional PACs to dislodge Gatti, whose senate district comprises all of Webster and parts of the parishes of Bossier, Bienville and Claiborne.

Just since January 1 of this year, they and others have coughed up more than $250,000 to get their boy elected. $250,000 for one little rural senatorial district.

The Louisiana Committee for a Conservative Majority, led by Kennedy and Landry, is pushing hard for Gatti’s defeat. “Sen. Gatti seems to have proven time and time again to choose the governor’s wishes over the Republican Party’s platform,” Landry said. The committee has raised more than $1 million to boost its candidates, Mills included.

But their boy—and by extension, his well-heeled supporters—may have a problem.

That problem goes by the name of ASHLEY MADISON. For those who may not know, that’s the online dating service designed specifically for married people seeking a discreet affair.

And Robert Mills’ name pops up on the website:

MILLS LISTING

…and an online AD has already popped up asking Mills about his name appearing on the Ashley Madison site:

Is it the same Robert Mills? That is, after all, a fairly common name. Not so much as John Smith or Joe Jones, but common nevertheless. And more so than say, Sterdly Thrunch.

We have no way of knowing, but whoever placed those two ads online seem to be pretty confident it’s the same Robert Mills.

If it is, those family-value conservative Republicans—Rispone included (he gave $2500 to Mills)—have to feel they’ve picked a loser.

Mills garnered nearly 48 percent of the vote in the first primary, finishing a full 10 points ahead of incumbent Gatti, but that big edge could evaporate in heavily-Protestant northwest Louisiana if it turns out Mills, who, four-times married and thrice divorced, according to one of the ads, turns out to be the same one trolling for an online hookup for a one-night fling.

Or maybe not.

That stigma certainly didn’t keep them from voting for Donald Trump.

But when the late Tip O’Neill said all politics is local, he wasn’t talking about a presidential candidacy.

And state senator doesn’t get much more local and the more local it gets, the more the perception of immoral behavior could figure in the final outcome.

Mills’ supporters have spent a lot of money and time trashing Gatti because he had the nerve to vote with Democrat Edwards from time to time.

That sin could pale by comparison to an Ashley Madison tie to their anointed candidate.

By all political logic, they should have a difficult time squaring their support for Mills if indeed, he is the one seeking warmth and companionship for the coming cold north Louisiana nights. But then, logic has seldom factored into the equation of Louisiana politics.

Read Full Post »

Two publications, two versions of dispute between Judge Lori Landry & District Attorney Bo Duhé in Iberia Parish

Posted in Corruption, Courts, Ethics, Judges on October 30, 2019| 1 Comment »

Iberia Parish continues to generate negative publicity that only serves to underscore the racial divide in that parish. This time, though, it’s not the sheriff’s office but the office of District Attorney Bo Duhé and instead of silencing African-American prisoners, Duhé’s office is attempting to undercut the authority of an African-American judge

Sarah Lustbader, writing for http://theappeal.org/, described on Tuesday the legal effort of the DA’s office to force the recusal of 16th Judicial District Judge Lori Landry from more than 300 criminal cases.

On Wednesday, Katie Gagliano, writing for the Acadiana Advocate, put a slightly different spin (the DA’s spin, as contained in Duhé’s office’s legal filings) on the same story.

While Gagliano’s STORY dealt with confrontations between Judge Landry and attorneys for the district attorney’s office, Lustbader chose to hard statistics that reflect harsher penalties for blacks who commit felonies than for their white counterparts. You can read that story by going HERE.

But there’s more to the story—as there nearly always is.

And it’s not that First Assistant DA Robert Vines, who is white, filed the recusal motion—the same Robert Vines who was named LEAD PROSECUTOR in a case involving alleged illegal manipulation of the Cypress Bayou Casino’s employee and payroll databases.

Cypress Bayou Casino is run by the Chitimacha Indian Tribe in St. Mary Parish and in June 2016, the tribe’s chairman, O’Neil Darden, Jr., was arrested by State Police on charges of felony theft, accused of stealing from the tribe by tinkering with the casino’s data bases that resulted in his receiving an “annual bonus” of several thousand dollars to which he was not entitled.

The only problem with Vines serving as lead prosecutor in that case is that Darden hired Vines in January 2016, six months before his arrest, as prosecutor for the Chitimacha Tribal Court.

Apparently, the question of recusal never came up in that case.

Of course, the Cypress Bayou Casino case is not related to the latest controversy arising in the DA’s office, but it does illustrate how the district attorney’s office—along with the office of Sheriff Louis Ackal—operates as a law unto itself.

As further illustration of the manner in which justice has been turned on its ear in Iberia, there is the case of DONALD BROUSSARD. In July 2016, Broussard, who had begun a drive to recall Sheriff Ackal, was rear-ended in adjacent Lafayette Parish by a hit-and-run driver named Rakeem Blakes.

Broussard followed Blakes, getting close enough to read the license number, which he gave to a 911 dispatcher before falling back. Moments later, after entering Iberia Parish, Blakes was killed when he collided with an 18-wheeler.

Broussard was subsequently indicted for manslaughter by Duhé and sentenced to four years hard labor. Thus, the message was sent loud and clear: Broussard, a black man, should have known better than to initiate a recall of Ackal.

So, there is obvious acrimony between Judge Landry and Duhé’s office, but when one looks beyond the legal motions filed by Vines and analyzes the data provided by Lustbader, it’s easier to understand why there might be some undercurrent of resentment in Iberia Parish’s black community.

There is a real disparity in the manner in which justice is meted out and there has been little effort to address that disparity.

The Appeal is a non-profit media organization that produces original journalism about criminal justice that is focused on the most significant drivers of mass incarceration, which occur at the state and local level.

Its job is to address that disparity.

Duhé’s job, apparently, is not.

 

Read Full Post »

Fall fundraiser in final week but we also solicit news tips

Posted in Uncategorized on October 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

As LouisianaVoice enters the final week of its fall fundraiser, we still need your help.

Obviously, there is the financial aspect of keeping this blog viable and we do humbly solicit your generous contributions.

Because we are a 501(c)(3) non-profit, your contributions are fully tax-deductible and anyone giving $100 or more gets a free signed copy of my newest book, Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption.

You may contribute by credit card by clicking on the yellow oval DONATE button in the column to the right of this post. It looks like this:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

But don’t click on this image because it won’t work. Go to the button in the column to the right.

Or you can contribute by sending your checks to:

LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727

And as much as we need and appreciate your financial support, we also ask that you provide us with information about any kind of official misconduct on the part of any public officials or agencies, be they state, parish or municipal. Corruption at all levels should be exposed and that’s what we’re about at LouisianaVoice.

We’re not interested in pursuing a personal vendetta but we will investigate any official wrongdoing.

You may email information to us at louisianavoice@outlook.com

Thanks for nine years of support and let us hear from you.

 

Read Full Post »

Louisiana author Aimee Edmondson’s book ‘In Sullivan’s Shadow’ examines landmark case vital to press freedom

Posted in Book Review, Corruption, Courts, Lawsuits, LSU, TV News on October 25, 2019| 1 Comment »

For those who prefer the fast-paced action of James Patterson, John Grisham or James Lee Burke, In Sullivan’s Shadow isn’t for you.

But if you are a political junkie with an eye for a scholarly work about a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that was key to the simultaneous support of the First Amendment and the American civil rights movement, then you will definitely fine In Sullivan’s Shadow riveting reading.

Author Aimee Edmondson, a native of East Carroll Parish, never really appreciated the stark reality of having grown up sheltered from exposure to blacks, attending as she did, an all-white private school, until she bumped into an African-American student from her home town her freshman year at LSU. Only then did she realize that even in a small town like Lake Providence, they had grown up worlds apart. When she innocently observed that she didn’t attend public school back home, he simply shook his head and said, “No s**t.”

Edmondson, who teaches journalism at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, has crawled back through the legal archives of civil rights litigation to give us a long-awaited examination of SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) lawsuits used as weapons against national publications like Time, The New York Times, Look, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, and even The Ladies’ Home Journal and bold local editors who saw resistance to the civil rights movement for what it was: a desperate attempt to keep blacks “in their place” while preserving the comfortable—and separate—lifestyles of whites.

While local television stations in the South would display “Technical Difficulties” on viewers’ screens whenever their networks would air footage of blacks being beaten in Southern bus stations, the national publications—and to a lesser extent, courageous small town editors like Hodding Carter, Buford Boone and Hazel Brannon Smith—were providing graphic coverage that left people like Lester Sullivan, Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor, Lawrence A. Rainey, and retired Army Gen. Edwin Walker in a litigious mood.

Sullivan was Commissioner of the Police and Fire Department of Montgomery, Alabama, Connor was Birmingham Police Commissioner, and Rainey was Sheriff of Neshoba County, Mississippi.

In a series of separate SLAPP filings, they launched a full-scale attack on the national publications, CBS News, CBS reporter Howard K. Smith, himself a native of Ferriday, Louisiana, and local newspapers that dared to take a stand against arrests, beatings, arson, and even murders. And of course, black newspapers and civil rights leaders were not exempt from the costly litigation.

Edmondson calls up some familiar names when she describes how the struggle for equality made its way to Baton Rouge. Names like Police Chief Wingate White, U.S. District Court Judge E. Gordon West, 19th Judicial District Court Judge Fred LeBlanc, and District Attorney Sargent Pitcher, Jr., Mayor John Christian, and Rev. Arthur L Jelks surface in her recounting of the volatile struggle.

She even manages to provide us with a brief account of the ongoing battles between blacks and Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal.

But more than just a rehashing of police dogs, fire hoses and clubs, Edmondson’s book focuses more on the legal struggles that came out of the multitude of SLAPP actions brought by Sullivan, Connor, Rainey, and Walker.

In frightening detail, she shows how these lawsuits bullied CBS into a public apology for Smith’s reporting and how editors at The New York Times genuinely feared for the financial existence of the publication should it lose its landmark case brought by Sullivan.

But then, in 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that even if a publication had factual errors in its reporting on a public official, that public official must show that the publication new its story was false and published it anyway, with malice and reckless disregard for the truth.

But then, when Gen. Walker sued over stories that he instigated rioting during the integration of the University of Mississippi, the Supreme Court went a bit further in declaring that Sullivan protected publications from litigation not only from public officials, but from public figures, as well, thus cementing the right of freedom of the press.

In Sullivan’s Shadow is a must-read for political junkies, especially in a time when the adversarial relationship between the media and public officials–particularly on the national stage—is more acrimonious than it’s been since Montgomery, Birmingham and Neshoba County.

 

Read Full Post »

Former BR hospital foundation head gets 33 months for embezzling $800k; a good thing it wasn’t for two joints

Posted in Corruption, Courts, Crime, Ethics, Governor's Office, Judges, LSU, Prison on October 24, 2019| 8 Comments »

John Paul Funes walked into federal district court in Baton Rouge on Thursday, not in an orange prison jump suit but in a dark business suit with a nicely-pressed blue shirt accented by a pink tie, for his sentencing in connection with his EMBEZZLEMENT of nearly $800,000 from a Baton Rouge hospital foundation—a children’s hospital foundation at that—and received a whopping 33 months in prison.

Funes, 49, was already receiving more than $350,000 per year in salary from the foundation he headed but that, apparently, was not enough.

He could have been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for his transgressions but U.S. District Judge John deGravelles, who earlier accepted Funes’ guilty pleas, apparently felt that 33 months was punishment enough for the white-collar crimes of wire fraud and money laundering.

Contrast that, if you will, with the sentence handed down to one BERNARD NOBLE, an African-American not pulling down $350 thou a year.

Back in 2010, he was arrested while biking in New Orleans—a bicycle, mind you, not a Lexus or BMW—for possession of three grams of marijuana. It would be seven years before he saw his family again.

Sentenced to 13 ½ years in prison at hard labor without the possibility of parole as a habitual offender—he did have previous drug arrests, none of them violent and none which involved stealing from cancer-stricken children—he spent seven years behind bars before being finally freed on parole, thanks in large part to the efforts of billionaire New York hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb who spent years lobbying courts and Louisiana elected officials to reverse Noble’s sentence.

Three grams. Enough for two whole joints.

Meanwhile, Funes pilfered gift cards intended for cancer patients. He flew family and associates to LSU and Saints football games on charter flights he labeled on the books as “outbound patient transports,” and funneled nearly $300,000 to the parents of two former LSU football players–$107,000 to the mother and sister of former quarterback Rohan Davey (they kicked back $63,000 to Funes) and $180,000 to James Alexander, father of former LSU offensive lineman Vadal Alexander.

But for DEREK HARRIS of Abbeville, an unemployed Gulf War veteran, things didn’t turn out so well. He’s currently serving life imprisonment for selling $30 worth of weed to an undercover agent.

After posting bond following his 2009 arrest, Harris, who also happens to be African-American, waited three years for his trial to start. He chose a trial by judge rather than facing a jury. On June 26, 2012, the judge found him guilty and imposed a 15-year sentence.

But that apparently wasn’t enough for the district attorney, who then filed a habitual offender bill of information based on Harris’s prior arrests and on Nov. 15, 2012, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole—his service to his country be damned. For $30 worth of marijuana, which shouldn’t rise to the level of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a foundation intended for children suffering from cancer and giving it to football players’ families.

Did I mention that Funes got just 33 months for that? Or that he was making $350,000 a year when he went off the rails?

Noble was riding a bicycle and Harris was unemployed and were sentenced to 13 ½ years and life, respectively, for pot. Funes stole from sick babies. And he’ll serve maybe half of those 33 months before he’s a free man again. Maybe.

Following Noble’s conviction, two district court judges attempted to lower his sentence to five years because of his lack of a violent record but Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro put the kibosh on those attempts. Loeb, a major supporter of criminal justice reform efforts, eventually learned of his case and became involved.

Appeals to then-Gov. Bobby Jindal fell on deaf ears and it wasn’t until John Bel Edwards became governor and efforts were begun to reduce maximum sentences for marijuana possession. Finally, through the combined efforts of Loeb, Nobel’s attorney Jee Park of the Innocence Project of New Orleans (IPNO), Cannizzaro finally relented and he was re-sentenced to eight years.

Funes, however, received 33 months for embezzling from a charitable foundation to which people contributed in good faith in the belief they were helping sick children, some of them terminally ill.

Of course, Funes did help a couple of LSU football players and he did make restitution of $796,000, which is equivalent to little more than two years’ salary for him, so that must make it all right.

 

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »