Louisiana Voice

It’s uncertain as to how prevalent a presence Allstate has, but the folks of Winnfield might want to question if their police department is in good hands.

Not only was Police Chief Johnnie Carpenter ARRESTED in April 2011 for obstructing a federal marshal who was attempting to serve a federal arrest warrant and subsequently CONVICTED and sentenced to six months in federal prison, a year of supervised release and fined $4,000. He was even honored with a PARADE, complete with marching band, in Winnfield following his release from prison.

 But he also appears to have done a less-than-thorough job in vetting one of his part-time officers.

LouisianaVoice confirmed on Monday that Ben Earl Johnson is employed as a part-time police officer for the city of Winnfield. Johnson has a checkered history at best.

Johnson was hired by Louisiana State Police on Dec. 3, 1995 but was terminated on March 27, 1998 because of repeated disciplinary problems, things like:

• Failure to be in his assigned parish for patrol;
• Altering accident reports with white correction fluid;
• Sloppy and error-plagued paperwork and accident reports, including incorrect dates, incorrect mileposts and even incorrect parishes and incorrect judicial districts;
• Unauthorized attendance at a Northwestern State University football game in uniform while off-duty;
• Altercations with fellow state troopers;
• Rude treatment of females stopped for traffic violations;
• Logging incorrect dates he worked on his time sheets;
• Losing citations that he had written;
• Allowing his patrol unit to run out of gas and then attempting to claim mechanical problems;
• Losing his State Police badge and badge/identification card holder;
• Failure to search and handcuff a prisoner later found to be in possession of a pocket knife;
• Possession of radar equipment in his patrol car that had been missing and which caused considerable concern in efforts to locate the equipment.
• Patrolling in the city limits of Alexandria and Pineville against troop regulations;
• Calling in traffic stops before violations actually occurred;
• Inability to locate accident he was directed to even though both vehicles were in the roadway;
• Untimely submission of paperwork;
• A five-day suspension for leaving his assigned parish to travel nearly 20 miles off his assigned route.
• On April 27, 1997, barely four months after his designation as a State Police Trooper, he became embroiled in a confrontation with a Rapides Parish sheriff’s deputy after the deputy allegedly made disparaging remarks about him to a woman Johnson was dating. Johnson appeared at England Air Park where the deputy was assigned while off duty but in his state police vehicle and threatened the deputy with physical harm.

Normally, when a State Trooper resigns in lieu of dismissal may land a job with another law enforcement agency. But Johnson did not resign; he was fired, which usually also involves revocation of his Police Officer Standards & Training (P.O.S.T.) certification.

Despite that, he was next employed as a police officer for the Veterans Administration at the VA Hospital in Pineville. It was while employed in that capacity that he was ARRESTED by Natchitoches police for ATTEMPTED RAPE of a woman in a Natchitoches hotel.

Incredulously, the charge of attempted forcible rape, a felony, was reduced to a misdemeanor by then-10^th Judicial District Attorney Ven Kyzar who now is a judge on Louisiana’s Third Circuit Court of Appeal. On Nov. 13, 2009, Johnson signed off on an inexplicable AGREEMENT that dismissed the charges against him upon the satisfactory completion of a pre-trial intervention program.

Several other judicial districts were consulted and all agreed that those with such felony charges are ineligible for pre-trial intervention program. But even stranger, Johnson’s pre-trial intervention appears to have been fast-tracked with warp speed because, according to DIMISSAL PAPERWORK issued by then-district attorney investigator Danny C. Hall to Barbara Watkins of the Veterans Medical Center in Pineville, charges were dismissed that same day.

One former district attorney said it was unheard of to DIMISS CHARGES on the same day an individual was assigned to a PTI, especially when the dismissal was contingent upon completion of the program. Moreover, he said, there was no way anyone could have completed such a program in a single day. “The person would have to know somebody,” he said.

A sitting judge said much the same thing. “He knew someone. It usually takes six months or longer for a case to be dismissed that way,” he said. At the same time, he said the district attorney could have seen it as a weak case, particularly in light of the fact the victim waited several days to report the incident. (The victim told police she was “embarrassed and ashamed,” and initially “just wanted to forget about the entire day” but her best friend convinced her to talk to police.). Still, Johnson, saying, “I feely admit my guilt,” ACKNOWLEDGED that he had been arrested and charged with the crime of attempted forcible rape, a felony” and that the pre-trial intervention program was established “to divert me from further criminal conduct.”

He even told his would-be victim at one point prior to their struggle that she was safe with him because he was a POLICE OFFICER.

So, how did the VA handle his Natchitoches arrest and his subsequent confession? He was stripped of his position as police officer but was kept on – in the Human Relations Department, of all places, where he supposedly had access to employee personnel records, including home addresses and telephone numbers.

Equally baffling is why such a serious felony charge was reduced to a misdemeanor and then how did he manage the “satisfactory completion” of a pre-trial intervention on the same day he was assigned to the program, allowing the charges go away instantly?

All that would be bad enough to warrant his prohibition from ever again working in any capacity of law enforcement but he is doing just that and LouisianaVoice confirmed on Tuesday that he is even P.O.S.T.-certified. Wonders never cease in Louisiana.