Louisiana Voice

The Louisiana Board of Ethics has awakened long enough to file separate ethics violation charges against both Dr. REBEKAH GEE and her husband, attorney DAVID LEE PATRON, according to documents obtained by LouisianaVoice.

The charges, while separate, stem from the same set of facts – Patron’s legal representation of a restaurant which was under the regulation of Dr. Gee during her tenure as Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH).

Governmental ethics has been such a cruel joke since Bobby Jindal’s “reform” of the Board of Ethics way back in 2008 that any action at all by the otherwise moribund board is suddenly a major news story.

This is the same ethics board that cleared state troopers for their 2016 trip in a state vehicle to San Diego via the Grand Canyon, determining they were acting on directives from above, and then clearing the person who gave those directives, then-State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson who was represented, coincidentally (or perhaps ironically), by the former head of the Ethics Board.

Dr. Gee headed LDH from 2016 until her RESIGNATION in January. In March, she was hired as head of the LSU HEALTH CARE SERVICES DIVISION.

Patron, who specializes in intellectual property, is a partner in the Baton Rouge law firm Phelps Dunbar. He was retained by the Ruby Slipper Café, LLC, which has six restaurants in New Orleans and one each in Metairie, Baton Rouge, Pensacola, Florida, and Mobile and Orange Beach, Alabama.

LDH regulates the eight restaurants in Louisiana and between January 2016 and February 2020, conducted 106 inspections of the restaurant’s eight Louisiana locations.

Phelps Dunbar was retained by Ruby Slipper and as part of its representation, filed a breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit on behalf of the Ruby Slipper against a former employee. Patron was the signatory on the pleadings filed in the litigation in U.S. District Court.

Though neither the firm nor Patron handled any matters on behalf of Ruby Slipper in 2016 and 2017, Patron did represent the restaurant in three matters in 2018 and 2019. He billed Ruby Slipper $157,142 in 2018 and $133,528 in 2019, according to July 17 Board of Ethics letters sent to Patron and Dr. Gee. Patron received a percentage of Phelps Dunbar’s net revenue.

PATRON’S LETTER says he violated state law “by virtue of his failure to file the requisite financial disclosures reflecting his direct or indirect receipt of anything of economic value resulting from the provision of legal services to the Ruby Slipper at a time when the Ruby Slipper conducted operations or activities that are regulated by the LDH.”

DR. GEE’S LETTER said she is also in violation of state ethics statutes “by virtue of her receipt of a thing of economic value” (Patron’s compensation from Phelps Dunbar as part of their community property regime).

Both letters requested that the Ethics Adjudicatory Board conduct hearings on the charges to determine if there were any ethics violations and to “assess the appropriate penalties.”

It’s not the first time Dr. Gee has come under scrutiny. In April 2018, LouisianaVoice REVEALED that the LDH legal counsel, a state employee, had pursued negotiations with LSU on her behalf – on state time and using a state computer, state telephone and his state email address – in attempts to help her retain her tenure at LSU and for LSU to pay her medical malpractice insurance premiums.

Any rank-and-file civil servant would be severely disciplined for any such use of state property for personal purposes.

Dr. Gee and legal counsel Stephen Russo apparently also ignored the obvious conflict of interest in her continued part-time employment as a physician at the LSU Health Sciences Center, which like the Ruby Slipper, is overseen by – and which receives funding from – the agency she headed.