Louisiana Voice

As the LSU Health Sciences Center-Shreveport (LSUHSC) is drawn into a brewing legislative battle over the enforcement of NON-COMPETE CONTRACTS with physicians, LSUHSC-New Orleans finds itself defending itself in federal court.

Dr. Ghali E. Ghali, chancellor of the LSU med school in Shreveport, is on administrative leave following allegations that he suppressed students’ sexual harassment complaints and disciplined faculty who support the students.

And as LSU’s TITLE IX PROBLEMS continue to pile up over its mismanagement of sexual harassment complaints, a former Emergency Medicine resident has filed a discrimination lawsuit against the university’s Board of Supervisors over alleged anti-Semitic treatment he was subjected to while serving his residency at LSUHSC-New Orleans.

Eric Greenberg, a native of Michigan, filed his petition in U.S. District Court’s Eastern District in New Orleans pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act after he claimed he was subjected to a pattern of harassment and discrimination at the hands of his immediate supervisor, Salvador Suau, program director of the Emergency Medicine Program.

Greenberg, who is Jewish and who suffers from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD), alleges in his petition that Suau made repeated disparaging remarks about his Jewish heritage, including suggesting at one point that Greenberg was mentally retarded because of his ADHD condition.

Greenberg also claims that Suau, upon learning he was Jewish, in the presence of other residents, said, “Oh, you’re a Jew. You come from Sinai. You should be (doing his residency) at Jewlane,” a reference to Tulane’s School of Medicine. He also said Suau made offensive comments about being circumcised.

Greenberg named LSUHSC-N.O. as a defendant because the administration ignored his repeated complaints about Suau.

Read Full Post »

There are only four days left in LouisianaVoice‘s April fundraiser.

Unlike other online sites, we won’t pester you for contributions again until our September event.

But right now, we need your help if you’re in a position to do so. If not, we certainly understand. It’s been a tough year on everyone and I would never ask anyone to sacrifice anything for my benefit.

If you wish to keep seeing stories like the one below, we want to keep them coming. There’s one thing about Louisiana politics: there is always plenty to write about: contracts, campaign contributions, appointments to boards and commissions, state police, sheriffs, education, official mismanagement, audits, lawsuits, etc.

So, if you can, please help us in our endeavor to present stories no one else covers. You may contribute by credit card by clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post. If you prefer, of course, you may mail a check to: LouisianaVoice, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727.

LouisianaVoice is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, so all contributions are fully tax deductible.

Also, anyone contributing $125 or more will receive a signed copy of my latest book due out this week: Murder on the Teche: A True Story of Money and a Flawed Investigation. Be sure to provide your mailing address with your contribution.

I can’t begin to express my gratitude for your continued support of LouisianaVoice during its first 10 years of existence other than to just say thank you.

Read Full Post »

Alan Logan is revisiting the story of a famous con man who held a SEMINAR about his life as a con man for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) a year ago and in so doing, may have fraudulently received a speaking fee estimated at $20,000 because of LABI’s apparent inability to recognize a con.

But you really can’t blame LABI. The 2002 movie Catch Me if You Can, about Frank Abagnale Jr.’s mythical life as a master con man was certainly entertaining and convincing. And the film, directed by Steven Spielberg no less, featured a cast comprised of several of Hollywood’s heavy hitters: Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen, James Brolen and Jennifer Garner, among others.

But as Logan watched the film and thought something just didn’t seem right. He has written a book about Abagnale called THE GREATEST HOAX ON EARTH: CATCHING TRUTH WHILE WE CAN .

In early 2020, he wrote a book about medical con man Robert Vernon Spears, who was the prime suspect in a mysterious 1959 commercial airline disaster. He compared Spears, whose story was verifiable to that of Abagnale and found that “nothing was adding up, nothing was verifiable.”

In his own book, Catch Me if You Can, published in 1980, Abagnale claimed that between the mid-1960s and the early 1970s, he impersonated a pilot for Pan American Airlines, a doctor in Georgia, a professor at Brigham Young University and a lawyer for the Louisiana Attorney General’s office in Baton Rouge and even passed the bar exam – and cashed bad checks worth more than $2 million in more than 26 countries.

Trouble is, he was in prison for much of that time and wasn’t paroled until 1974. After his release, he moved to Friendswood, Texas, where he was soon arrested again for theft.

He did meet Delta Airlines flight attendant Paula Parks from Baton Rouge (now a resident of Livingston Parish) and while stalking her, befriended her parents – from whom he stole blank checks from them and wrote $1200 in bad checks.

Abagnale appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (several times), the Today show with Tom Brokow, and on To Tell the Truth, the only time all three mystery guests lied. But reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle and The Daily Oklahoman picked up the scent of a bogus story and began picking his story apart, piece-by-lying piece.

Ken DeJean, First Assistant Attorney General in the 1970s and ‘80s, has also debunked Abagnale’s claim that he posed as a lawyer in that office. “After his second appearance on The Tonight Show, I called the producer and tried to set him straight and I talked to a reporter for The National Enquirer, which was planning to do a story on him,” DeJean said. “I gave The National Enquirer reporter a set of questions to ask Abagnale: What did the Attorney General look like? How old was he? How tall was he? Describe our office? What floor (of the State Capitol) is our office on?

“He didn’t answer a single question correctly,” DeJean said, adding that the tabloid subsequently killed the story. Abagnale described Attorney General Jack P.F. Gremillion as being in his forties, six feet tall, slim with blonde hair (he was in his sixties, short, portly, and balding).

Likewise, his claim to have been included in the FBI’s 100^th anniversary coffee table book turned out to be more of Abagnale’s flim-flam. There is such a coffee table book, but it contains no mention anywhere in it of Abagnale.

There is plenty information available to show that Abagnale has been running a con about his fictional life as an imposter but apparently no one at LABI bothered to vet him thoroughly before booking him for its seminar.

It’s apparently a fairly simple process to run a scam if no one’s checking your story.

But Logan has.

You might want to check his NEW BOOK before scheduling the next speaker for your organization.

Read Full Post »

If you believe State Sen. Gary Smith (D-Norco), then have I got a deal for you on your extended used car warranty. And just to sweeten the deal, I can put you in touch with this Nigerian prince I know who is eager to smuggle $40 million out of the country and into your bank account.

But first, of course, you’ll have to verify all your personal email account information so that your computer may be reconfigured.

After you’ve done all that, you will be asked to agree to the most difficult condition of all: the concept that the Louisiana Ethics Commission is doing a great job of keeping legislators toeing the line of ethical behavior.

It’s not that we don’t buy what Sen. Smith is selling (which we don’t). It’s just that we’ve seen this movie before and the ending is always the same for this stale formula plot.

Here are the undisputed facts:

• Brent Stevens, owner of a Los Angeles company called P2E, wants to move a defunct Bossier Parish casino to Slidell.
• State Sen. Sharon Hewitt (R-Slidell) has filed Senate Bill 243 to make the move happen.
• The bill was heard by the Senate Judiciary B Committee, where it was approved by a slim 4-3 vote.
• Committee Chairman Smith cast the deciding vote (how’s that for bipartisanship?).
• Smith’s wife Katherine is one of – count ‘em – 19 lobbyists hired by P2E founder Brent Stevens to push for approval of the move.

This is the same DIAMOND JACKS Casino in Bossier City that Stevens earlier tried to relocate to a site east of Hammond on the Tangipahoa River which is better suited to accommodating tubers and bateau boats than a floating casino.

But what is certain is that in just about any other state, legislators would never vote on a bill being LOBBIED BY A SPOUSE It just ain’t done.

Smith, when asked about the apparent conflict of interest, ethics breach, subterfuge and/or (pick one) Louisiana tradition, said he didn’t even know that his wife, a veteran lobbyist, was working on that particular issue.

“She didn’t tell me,” he sniffed, adding that her involvement with the bill “would not change my opinion that letting the people of that area vote on the issue is the correct vote.”

He said he does not discuss his wife’s clients or issues with her.

Perhaps they should communicate more so as to avoid such ethics questions in the future.

Seriously, if you buy that line, you’ve probably already purchased that car warranty, sent “good faith” money to the Nigerian prince and given up all your personal email information.

But if you have any money left to fritter away, you can always place a generous bet that the Ethics Commission will take decisive action in this matter.

Read Full Post »

There are only nine days left in our April fundraiser. Unlike other blogs, we don’t bug you every other day for contributions to keep us afloat.

We’re not in the throes of financial ruin nor is there a threat of impending doom to LouisianaVoice if we don’t raise some arbitrary amount by the end of the day.

We simply ask that you contribute what you can to help us meet expenses like travel costs, public record charges and the occasional legal consultation to prod some agency to surrender requested records.

If you are not in a position to help, our efforts to ferret out stories like the ones below will continue and we will never institute a paywall to make readers subscribe to our stories. Neither will we clutter this site with advertisements (sorry, we can’t control our platform host which does slap ads on our site without our permission or approval).

So, if your are so inclined, you may contribute by credit card by clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post. If you prefer, you may mail a check to: LouisianaVoice, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit, so your contribution is fully tax-deductible.

Also, anyone contributing $100 or more will get a signed copy one of my latest books: Murder on the Teche: A True Story of Money and a Flawed Investigation; Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption, or Bordello on the Bayou, a fictional story based loosely on the Baton Rouge Madam of several years ago. Please state your preference and provide your mailing address.

As always, we appreciate our readers.

Read Full Post »