Louisiana Voice

Loren Lampert, executive director of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association (LDAA), gets around.

And around.

Lampert began his career as a deputy sheriff in his native Rapides Parish before receiving his law degree from Oklahoma City University in 1996 and being named Assistant District Attorney, where he served for the next 13 years. While working for the Rapides DA, he was named that office’s Chief Felony Narcotics Prosecutor.

He has held a multitude of prosecutorial positions in several parishes in different judicial districts, some of them overlapping, in apparent violation of the state’s dual-officeholding statutes.

His documented odyssey of multi-tasking for various district attorneys had its beginnings as early as 2012 and continued through mid-September 2018.

In 2011, he became Chief of Police for the City of Alexandria and remained in that $150,000-per-year post until he was appointed as part-time Assistant District Attorney for Calcasieu Parish on May 9, 2017, earning $41.96 before being promoted just two months later to full-time at a six-figure salary.

But wait. We’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Lampert in the unique position of having served as a prosecutor, in more than one judicial district simultaneously—an apparent violation of the state’s dual-officeholding statutes.

His employment becomes rather murky after signing an Oath of Office as Assistant District for the 14^th JDC in May 2017 pursuant to his appointment to that position by DA John DeRosier. KTBS-TV in Shreveport ran a story on Oct. 23, 2017, about the Natchitoches Parish conviction of a man accused of crashing into a Natchitoches police vehicle, injuring three officers.

The last paragraph of that story said, “Assistant District Attorney Loren Lampert prosecuted the case.”

And in a letter to the secretary of state dated Nov. 2, 2017, by 10^th JDC (that would be Natchitoches Parish) District Attorney Billy Joe Harrington, the appointment of Loren M. Lampert as assistant district attorney “effective 8/30/17,” was announced. A copy of Lampert’s oath of office also accompanied that letter.

That’s less than four months after he signed on as a part-time assistant DA for Calcasieu Parish and only six weeks after that part-time position had been super-sized to ADMINISTRATIVE FIRST ASSISTANT DA in DeRosier’s office on July 17, 2017, at a SALARY salary of $105,000, which was increased to $106,068 on Dec. 18, even though he continued living in Alexandria, not Calcasieu, all that time.

Sources claim that Lampert’s appointment by DeRosier was a means of grooming him for bigger and better things.

In June 2018, according to a story in the Natchitoches Times, Lampert was also the prosecutor in ANOTHER CASE involving a man subsequently found guilty three of four charges involving a disturbance at the Natchitoches Parish courthouse.

In other words, he was being paid a six-figure salary as First Assistant DA in Calcasieu while also being paid as a prosecutor in Natchitoches Parish in 2017 and 2018—all the while living in Rapides.

But it gets murkier still.

KALB-TV in Alexandria ran a story on July 3, 2018, announcing that Lampert “has been named the ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR of the LDAA and is on the fast track to transition to the top spot as executive director next summer.”

Lampert submitted his resignation as DeRosier’s Administrative First Assistant DA on Sept. 13, 2018 and his last day with the Calcasieu DA’s office was Sept. 28.

Today, Lampert appears to have finally settled into one position as EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of the Louisiana District Attorney’s Association, succeeding long time Executive Director Pete Adams upon the latter’s retirement.

But maybe not. In May of this year, well into his tenure as associate director of LDAA, the omnipresent Lampert was still working as an assistant DA in Calcasieu, serving as prosecutor in the case of Felton Felmon Thompson, charged with first-degree murder.

“We did a general request for resumes and interest in the position,” Adams said in announcing Lampert’s hiring as associate director in July 2018. “Loren was one of many candidates who applied. He was clearly number-one in the selection process. And he was approved by the board,” Adams said.

It must seem like old times to Lampert who, along with DeRosier, previously served as an LDAA board member. DeRosier served as president of the board in 2012-2013. Lampert served as a board member in 2017-2018.

And as LDAA’s new executive director, he will continue working with a 2019-2020 BOARD OF DIRECTORS that included at least one familiar member: Natchitoches Parish DA Harrington.

Here are copies of Lambert’s OATHS OF OFFICE  which show the overlapping times of employment by the four district attorneys.