Louisiana Voice

For those who might believe the official story that a controversial lawsuit in 4^th Judicial District Court in Monroe was sealed by human error, you probably also believe in the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny and that Trump won the election.

Anyone who thinks anything done in 4^th JDC court is by accident, or “human error,” is only fooling himself. The 4^th JDC, which encompasses the parishes of Ouachita and Morehouse, is quite likely the most duplicitous, most secretive public body this side of Louisiana State Police.

How secretive? Well, the court even sued a local newspaper for making public records request, a tactic Attorney General Jeff Landry would later employ against the Baton Rouge Advocate for the same transgression.

The Ouachita Citizen newspaper in West Monroe is, for all intents and purposes, the only publication (other than LouisianaVoice) actively covering the exploits of the 4^th JDC and credit where credit is due, The Citizen has done a far better job than anyone else, including LouisianaVoice.

The larger daily (I’m guessing it’s larger, though The Citizen may well have surpassed it in circulation numbers) Gannett paper, the Monroe News-Star, just doesn’t have the time to cover the 4^th JDC’s mischief what with its devotion to covering the duck commanders, aka the Robertson family. But then, Allyson Campbell was a gossip columnist for the News-Star, so no one really expected that publication to wave the First Amendment banner too highly on that story.

Campbell is the SISTER of prominent Monroe personal injury attorney Catherine Creed and is married to her law partner, Christian Creed who contributed $5,000 to the 2015 campaign of Attorney General Jeff Landry.

Last Wednesday, The Citizen had another interesting STORY about a lawsuit that’s been hanging over the court like a dark cloud for six years now and which has been the source of much of the 4^th JDC’s consternation.

“Stanley Palowsky III is su[ing] law clerk Allyson Campbell and accused her of concealing or destroying court documents he filed with the Clerk of Court’s office in a separate racketeering lawsuit against a former business partner,” The Citizen REPORTED. “Palowsky also sued five Fourth Judicial District Court judges, claiming the five elected officials conspired to protect Campbell and cover up her alleged shenanigans.”

So, just what did Campbell do that was so awful?

Palowsky’s suit alleged the Clerk of Court could not locate as many as 52 different writ applications which had been “missing” for over a year and that Campbell “who was clerking for Defendant Sharp at the time, had used the applications as an end table in her office.”

An end table? Yep, an end table.

Here’s the LINK a story that the late Ken Booth wrote for LouisianaVoice way back in May 2016 that gives all the sordid details.

The clerk of court’s office, it seems sealed the record for more than three weeks before claiming it had been sealed by one of her employees by mistake.

Clerk of Court Dana Benson said deputy clerk Janae Madison inadvertently sealed the lawsuit. Madison’s mother-in-law once served as the judicial assistant to 4^th JDC Judge Carl Sharp, one of the five defendant judges in the Campbell lawsuit.

But on June 1, Benson told The Citizen that the record was sealed under an order by retired Judge Jerome “Jerry” Barbera of Thibodaux who has presided over the lawsuit as an ad hoc, or special appointed, judge since 2015 because the suit named the five judges in the 4^th JDC as defendants, along with Campbell. Benson said at the time that Judge Barbera had signed the order and that it was filed.

But Benson’s staff was unable to produce any court orders that the record be closed from the public.

This entire matter got so complicated that the Louisiana Office of Inspector General (OIG) and Louisiana State Police (LSP) got involved in an investigation but the two agencies apparently didn’t talk much to each other.

When LouisianaVoice made PUBLIC RECORDS REQUESTS for investigation reports, the LSP dug in its heels and refused to release the information, saying the investigation was ongoing but the OIG did provide a two-page summary that said the matter was over and done.

The Baton Rouge Advocate even got involved, saying in an editorial in January 2019 that the court was dragging its feet on the case and that it was “little wonder that public cynicism about important government institutions runs so deep these days.”

That was two and one-half years ago and the matter is still stalled and someone in the 4^th JDC didn’t want the lawsuit to become public record but apparently had no problem with it serving as Allyson Campbell’s end table.

Oh, wait. It was sealed by “human error.”

Of course it was.