Louisiana Voice

Law and Order isn’t just the name of a popular, long-running NBC cop show. It is a catchy three-word campaign slogan employed by every candidate for judge, district attorney and higher, all the way to and including president of the United States.

It’s a subject that resonates with voters and politicians who want to get themselves elected had better be quick to jump on board lest they be labeled as weak on crime.

Clay Higgins is certainly no exception as evidence by those cheesey VIDEOS he made while still employed as a low-level public relations director o the St. Landry Sheriff’s Office long before he ever ran for office. Seeing him decked out in his S.W.A.T. digs, you’d be excused for thinking that he was a legitimate tough guy willing and able to take on the world’s crime element single-handedly. The truth is a bit different, according to an article published by MOTHER JONESon Friday that paints a slightly different picture of the CAJUN JOHN WAYNE wannabe. He even took on the NFL over the issue of players kneeling during the National Anthem.

But not everyone who supposedly represents law and order actually lives by that credo:

• In Iowa, a 15-year-old girl accompanied officer Alec Veatch on a ride-along and upon returning to the police station around 2 a.m. Veatch, 24, sexually assaulted her in the station interview room – on camera. His punishment was 14 days in jail.
• Another 15-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by Joseph Palmer, a police officer in York, Pennsylvania. He was sentenced to probation. At least six other Pennsylvania police officers were similarly given only probation for sexual abuse of minors.
• Closer to home, New Orleans police officer Rodney Vicknair, 53, convinced a 14-year-old girl who had been sexually assaulted to go with him to the hospital for a rape kit. Instead, Vicknair himself sexually assaulted her. He would ultimately die in prison and the city of New Orleans would be hit with a million-dollar payout to the victim.
• David Higgins, 44, was a school resource officer in Kansas when he impregnated a 15-year-old sophomore.
• A Washington Post investigation found that no fewer than 1,800 state and local law enforcement officers were charged with child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022. Almost 40 percent of those actually convicted never served a day in jail.
• Marc Dody was a Troy, Missouri, police officer when he was charged with statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl and was given a six-year sentence. He served only two years before being released. Within three months of his 2020 release, he was charged with sexually abusing another child. He was convicted in 2023, sentenced and released again in May 2024.

Many times, cops guilty of criminal activity AVOID JAIL TIME ALTOGETHER.

Slate was blunter and more to the point, calling sexual abuse of minors by cops THE QUIET EPIDEMIC OF PREDATORS IN UNIFORMS.

Nor is the abuse limited to cops.

• Tim Campbell, a Kentucky judge active in Republican politics, pleaded guilty in 2018 to 21 counts of rape, human trafficking, witness tampering, prostitution, unlawful transaction with a minor and sodomy. He received a 20-year sentence.
• In Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, two judges, Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan were caught up in the “kids for cash” scandal in which they literally sold as many as 2,400 juveniles into a pair of privately-run youth homes in exchange for nearly $3 million in kickbacks. Conahan was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison and Ciavarella received a 28-year sentence.

Accordingly, all those pronouncements of “law and order” by political candidates should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Take Friday’s Mother Jones article about Higgins, for example.

The story noted that Higgins, who may be planning a U.S. Senate run in 2026 against incumbent Bill Cassidy, is a biking buddy of another “law and order” proponent, Leon Boudreaux, himself a former law enforcement officer convicted of a sex crime against a juvenile in New Mexico.

That story was also reported by a Lafayette TELEVISION STAION and the Lafayette DAILY ADVERTISER.

Then there is Jerod Prunty, another former cop buddy of Higgins, who was cited in the Mother Jones article. In 2019, he was arrested along with 19 others suspected of operating a sex-trafficking ring involving Chinese women who were reportedly forced to live in and perform sex acts at local massage parlors.

Still, Higgins puts on a public face of no-nonsense law and order, advocating severe punishment for offenders.

The ultimate irony? Higgins is expected to win reelection easily on November 5, making the constituents of his district (Louisiana’s 3rd Congressional District) as the collective butts of a cruel joke.

Clay Higgins, second from right, clasps hands with former constable Leon Boudreaux. (Mother Jones)

Kindred Vets, the biker club founded by Leon Boudreaux (center). Clay Higgins is at front left. (Mother Jones)

Read Full Post »

I should’ve known better. Any time I agree with anything The Hayride posts, I oughta wait and pull back the curtain to see what’s on the other side first.

This time I didn’t and one of LouisianaVoice’s longtime readers was quick to point out where I (and Michael Lunsford) were wrong in our (brief) bipartisan criticism of that $11.2 million allocation to New Orleans and Company.

Before I go any further, let me point out that newspapers traditionally carry a one- or two- sentence to front page errors somewhere inside the publication. I feel my readers are entitled to a little more in the way of an explanation when I’m wrong.

The gist of Lunsford’s story – and my all-too quick-endorsement of his argument – was that the Louisiana Legislature was reckless at worse or overly generous at best in “awarding” the $11.2 million to the New Orleans non-governmental agency that promotes tourism and special events for New Orleans.

Turns out, as reader Bill Hammack was quick to point out, it wasn’t a “gift” or a grant at all.

“The $11.2 m is a statutory dedication of .97 cents of hotel tax,” Hammack wrote. In other words, the state collects the tax on hotel occupancy and at the end of the year, sends New Orleans and Company the proceeds it has collected for the past year on the organization’s behalf.

“Every Convention and Visitor Bureau in the state receives that income in their respective parishes,” Hammack explained, much like the proposed tax Denham Springs citizens will vote on in November for hotel occupancy here, the revenue to be used to fund pay raises for fire fighters and police.

“New Orleans happens to be a larger amount because it has more hotel rooms and more visitors,” Hammack said. “I think it is entirely reasonable that we would use tax dollars paid by out-of-town visitors to fund marketing and promotion, rather than the tax dollars of locals.

“Those promotional dollars provide a tremendous ROI (return on investment) for the state via additional sales tax revenue from all the other spending done by visitors…shopping, food, events, etc.”

Turns out Lunsford’s post, which I was too eager to endorse despite our bitter differences on his efforts to censor libraries, was somewhat reminiscent of a Baton Rouge radio station news director who, back in the 1970s, promoted a major investigative story he’d been developing and would be airing in a couple of hours.

When the time came, he broke the story of the “missing” I-10 exit ramps and the unaccounted millions of dollars that should have gone to constructing said ramps. He told his listeners (all half-dozen or so of them) in his best Ted Baxter voice that there was an exit 163 (Siegen Lane) and an exit 166 Highland Road, but no exits 164 or 165 and that he was hot on the trail to learning where the money for their construction went.

The poor guy wasn’t aware that the exit numbers corresponded to the mile markers along the interstate highways.

Lunsford (and I) had a valid point, I believe, about the exorbitant salaries paid the president and CEO of New Orleans and Company but we were both incorrect about the source of the $11.2 million.

I got egg on my face for jumping on the Lunsford bandwagon. Now the question is, will Lunsford admit his misrepresentation as well?

Read Full Post »

I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but there are only six days left in LouisianaVoice’s October fundraiser.

If you have yet to contribute, you are respectfully requested to help support independent journalism with your generous contribution.

Every bit, large or small, helps us to continue to dig for stories such as the we one we did yesterday on the update of former Angola warden BURL CAIN.

Your donations allow us to pursue questionable practices in STATE POLICE, the GOVERNOR’S OFFICE, the ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE, child TRAFFICKING, WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS, malfeasance of public officials from SHERIFFS to federal officials and everything in between.

If you can see your way clear, I humbly ask for your continued support. You may contribute by clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post and following directions to make a one-time contribution by credit card.

The person making the largest contribution will receive an original copy of Huey Long’s autobiography, Every Man A King, published in 1933 by the now defunct National Book Co. of New Orleans. It’s considered a collector’s item that any serious collector would love to add to his or her library. Also, everyone contributing $100 or more will be eligible for a drawing for an autographed (by Edwin Edwards) copy of Leo Honeycutt’s biography of the late governor. Finally, everyone contributing $50 or more will receive a signed copy of my newest book, The Mission.

Whether you feel you can help or not, please do NOT forget to vote!

Read Full Post »

There are rarities and there are rarities and it’s rare indeed that I agree with any of the positions espoused by one Michael Lunsford, the top dog at an outfit called Citizens for a New Louisiana.

I believe, for instance, that his multi-front campaign to impose his version of morality on public libraries across the state is at best a misguided attempt to protect children and at worst, an evil introduction to across-the-board censorship that only begins with book-banning with an end-game aimed at sending society reeling back to the days of Jim Crow and an erosion of human rights in general.

But as averse as I am to just about everything Citizens for a New Louisiana stands for (or against), I have to lend my unqualified endorsement of Lunsford’s most recent exposé: the waste of public funds lavished on certain non-government organizations (NGOs), particularly the $11.2 million doled out earlier this year by the Louisiana Legislature to an NGO named New Orleans. and Company, previously known as the New Orleans Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.

In the spirit of infrequent partisanship, I find myself agreeing with The Hayride’s post by Lunsford that was originally PUBLISHED by Citizens for a New Louisiana.

Forget for the moment Hayride writer M. Fulton Robicheaux’s story on State Sen. Jean-Paul Coussan’s candidacy for Public Service Commission in which he erroneously said that Coussan was seeking promotion from “one of thirty-five state senators to one of five public service commissioners” (there are 39 state senators).

Lunsford noted that with this year’s $11.2 million allocation, the legislature has shelled out $87.3 million for New Orleans and Company since 202 even though the organization currently has more than $100 million in assets.

Even more astonishing, Lunsford says, are the salaries of the principals of New Orleans and Company. As of 2022, the most recently available figures, its president and CEO, J. Stephen Perry, received an eye-popping $711,753 in salary, bonuses and retirement benefits. By comparison, the U.S. President receives $450,000 in salary and expenses. The Louisiana governor is paid a base salary of $130,000.

Former Speaker pro tempore of the Louisiana House of Representatives Walt Legier, III, succeeded Perry as CEO. In 2022, he was executive vice president and general counsel and his salary that year was $371,237, including benefits and bonuses.

Lunsford wrote that odd rules in reporting compensation, “an organization can shuffle money around in such a way as to make it appear that no public dollars were used for executive compensation,” allowing Stephens to list his compensation as zero in documents filed with the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office.

He also wrote that staff salaries increased at an annual rate of 24 percent, from $8.9 million in 2021 to almost $11 million in 2022, which coincidentally just happens to match the state’s contribution.

There’s no doubt that New Orleans and Company does a commendable job for tourism in New Orleans as evidenced by the successful luring of next year’s Super Bowl and the upcoming Taylor Swift concert.

But with 1,100 MEMBER COMPANIES, one would think the organization would be a bit more self-sustaining and less dependent upon state funding.

On that point, I have to wholeheartedly agree with Lunsford – especially with the state ANTICIPATING a $65 million short during the current fiscal year with projected deficits of $559 million, $614 million and $733 million the following three subsequent fiscal years.

Read Full Post »

I’ve been relatively quiet as of late insofar as soliciting contributions to support the efforts of LouisianaVoice to keep bringing you stories like the one below on the exploits of former Angola warden Burl Cain, but that doesn’t mean your support is not needed – or deeply appreciated.

There’s only one week left in our October fundraiser and your help is still needed.

I know there are so many worthy causes out there that need your support, too. There is hurricane relief. Those victims really need help just as we needed help during the devastating flood of 2016. The Baton Rouge Food Bank is constantly in need of support to help feed the impoverished citizens of the area. Animal shelters are always in need of and appreciative of your support for our friends who are unable to speak for themselves. Plus, Christmas is just around the corner as we gear up for another holiday season.

All things considered, I hate to come asking for your help but journalistic freedom is critical at this juncture of our country’s history. There are so many efforts to erect roadblocks to our path to finding the truth about what our government is up to that it really makes us question the motives of politicians who would hide the facts from us – and you.

So, if you can see your way clear, I humbly ask for your continued support. You may contribute by clicking on the yellow DONATE button to the right of this post and following directions to make a one-time contribution by credit card.

Remember, the person making the largest contribution will receive an original copy of Huey Long’s autobiography, Every Man A King, published in 1933 by the now defunct National Book Co. of New Orleans. It’s considered a collector’s item that any serious collector would love to add to his or her library. Also, everyone contributing $100 or more will be eligible for a drawing for an autographed (by Edwin Edwards) copy of Leo Honeycutt’s biography of the late governor. Finally, everyone contributing $50 or more will receive a signed copy of my newest book, The Mission.

As always, your continued support over the past 13 years of LouisianaVoice’s existence is sincerely appreciated.

Read Full Post »