The Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) has chosen to terminate what was supposed to be a two-year contract to house up to 30 adjudicated juveniles in the spanking new facility in Jackson Parish a tad early.

The termination of the state’s contract, which took effect last Saturday (Nov. 30), while not exactly killing the golden goose, nevertheless wounded it rather severely.

And even though Jackson Parish Sheriff Andy Brown entered into contracts with a handful of other parishes throughout the state to house youth from their parishes, he is certain to miss the couple of million dollars he has been billing the state to reserve a number of beds for OJJ – even when those beds are unoccupied, according to THE LENS, a New Orleans non-profit news service.

The Lens said that the Jackson Parish jail has “flouted state-licensing law for juvenile detention facilities” and has been “consistently accused” of abuse and neglect of kids in its care – but LouisianaVoice has learned that may be only a part of the problems currently plaguing the high sheriff of Jackson Parish.

Besides rumors from a couple of sources as to the existence of an ongoing FBI investigation (the FBI itself neither confirms nor denies investigations), there is considerably more bad press – that is, if there was any press to report any miscreant-like behavior.

For openers, he reportedly put a gaggle of campaign supporters on his payroll in the lead-up to his 2023 reelection campaign (it’s illegal, according to state law, to pad a payroll within six months of an election). The word is he put a couple dozen on the payroll during that period under the pretense of opening that new juvenile facility. But then, shortly after the election, the layoffs began, attributed to budgetary constraints.

Then, there are the two private corporations he operates out of the same address in the Jackson Parish town of Quitman.

Six Point Consultants, LLC, and Shultz & Brown Associates, LLC each has the same names on its corporate filings with the Louisiana Secretary of State: Andy Brown, Suzanne Brown, Donovan Shultz and Jessica Shultz. Brown, who is listed as the agent for both corporate entities, is also the Chief of Investigations and is the number-three person in rank in the sheriff’s office, behind Brown and Chief Deputy Brent Barnett. Both corporations give their address of domicile as 855 North Antioch Road in Quitman, which is also given as the residential address of Shultz.

The two officials, Brown and Shultz, also operate a towing service which has reportedly performed some towing services for the sheriff’s department with Brown’s son, Andrew Brown, performing some of the actual driving of the tow truck.

Six Point Consultants, as it turned out, had Covid testing equipment that it kept at a clinic called Mercy Medical in the early days of the pandemic – and the Jackson Parish Hospital, by the way, also had testing equipment for Covid.

As it happens, Sheriff Brown’s attorney Chris Bowman is also a member of the hospital board, And, oh, he is also a member of the board of Mercy Medical.

Coincidentally, the hospital decided to outsource some of its Covid testing to Mercy Medical and when some hospital employees, who were supposed to have received testing at no cost, began receiving bills from Mercy Medical, well, naturally, there were questions.

As a result of the outcry from billed hospital employees, many of the Mercy Medical invoices simply disappeared.

Oh, did we mention that Mercy Medical is located at 244 Bond Street, the same address as the former Jackson Parish Health Unit which Sheriff Brown had acquired for the sheriff’s office, ostensibly to convert to a women’s prison, before transferring ownership of the building to Kimberly Brunson, who runs Mercy Medical.

And then there’s the question of those shipping containers Brown was going to use to house all those juvenile offenders, a proposed move opposed in an ADVOCACY PAPER issued last May by the Louisiana United Methodist Children and Family Services.

But wait. It seems, according to one report, that the containers that Brown has already brought in were purchased from…(wait for it)…Donovan Shultz’s father.

LouisianaVoice has learned of other activities and out-of-state travel in sheriff’s department vehicles for personal business as well as reports of additional insider dealing in the construction of the new jail. There are also reports that a parish inmate was transported by deputies to his girlfriend’s home in Chatham on weekends until deputies had to be called to her house in a domestic dispute.

Just another parish where LouisianaVoice is probably not welcome.

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An LSU computer instructor has sued the university for breach of contract after he received a notice of non-reappointment to work on several federally-funded grants last March.

Fernando Alegre had been employed since August 2015 as a research associate where he says he spent 100 percent of his time working on the grants.

He and the university entered into a new agreement on May 22 of this year whereby Alegre agreed to perform specific duties. LSU, however, insisted that he also perform duties outside the scope of his contract, according to his petition filed in 19^th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge.

Among the duties he was asked to perform that were not included in his contract were the installation, restoration and/or maintenance of the school’s Web pages. He claims in his lawsuit that in the past he “occasionally” volunteered to help with some IT work outside his regular working hours (per the grant), but with his new duties, he said he simply did not have the time to devote to those tasks.

Retribution by LSU was quick and severe, he says. He said the university not only breached the employment agreement with him, but at the same time, deemed that Alegre was ineligible for any employment within the LSU (statewide) system.

Even more heavy-handed, Alegre claims, LSU took its actions against him “in and effort to gain a strategic bargaining advantage over him as part of an ongoing dispute between LSU and (Alegre’s) wife, who is also employed by LSU “and whose compensation is linked to or funded by the same grant” referenced earlier.

LSU is essentially seeking to blackball Alegre from employment “without any rational or lawful basis for so doing,” his petition says, and is “seeking to prevent (Alegre) from participating in a broad range of academic and other lawful and legitimate career opportunities and paths within the LSU system in an effort to gain a strategic bargaining advantage.

Alegre’s attorney, J. Arthur Smith, III, accuses LSU of failing and refusing to comply with its contractual commitment in good faith and that the school’s actions “constitute an unfair trade practice” in violation of state law.

Alegre is not seeking any specific monetary damages other than for LSU to pay him “in accordance with his employment agreement” with the university and for the school to pay his attorney fees and court costs.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that LSU has cut an employee loose when it fit the school’s agenda. STEVEN HATFIELD was terminated with no questions asked when he was erroneously linked by the FBI to anthrax mailings. LSU Chancellor Mark Emmert said at the time that the decision to terminate Hatfield “was not reached quickly or easily.” At the same time, he gave no reason for the move. Hatfield eventually settled with the U.S. Justice Department for $2.8 million.

Dr. RANDALL SCHAFFER, who toiled in the LSU School of Dentistry, warned of the faulty design of dental implants developed by the school. LSU rewarded him by having his dental license revoked and his career ruined.

And then there are Drs. ROXANNE TOWNSEND AND FRED CERISE who were deemed expendable by the school when they offended the wonderful Bobby Jindal. But the LSU Board of Supervisors apparently saw no problem in allowing board member Dr. John F. George, Jr., to become president and CEO of Biomedical Research Foundation which was to take over the operation of two LSU hospitals or that Biomedical Research Foundation leased research labs to the LSU system for millions of dollars.

And who could forget the debacle over IVOR van HEERDEN who claimed that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ha not driven pilings deep enough which allowed levees to fail during Hurricane Katrina. He was fired mostly because LSU feared the loss of grant money from the corps. Turns out Van Heerden was 100 percent correct and it ended up costing LSU $435,000 to settle with its former coastal researcher – but only after it spent another $1 million defending his lawsuit.

Of course, none of the cases cited should be taken as indicative of employment policy at LSU.

But it is a pretty good primer for anyone who is interested in what might be anticipated over the next four years or so..

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