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Archive for the ‘ATC’ Category

ATC fails to do background check on Baton Rouge bar owner with ties to Atlanta Gold Club scandal and Gambino family

Posted in ATC, Public Records on March 22, 2013| 22 Comments »

The revelation earlier this week that the Louisiana Office of Alcohol Tobacco Control (ATC) was lax in allowing the issuance of alcohol licenses to the wife of a felon has led to disclosure of another license issued to a Baton Rouge individual caught up in a high profile trial in Atlanta involving a well-known strip club with ties to the Gambino crime family and which was frequented by several NBA basketball players and singer Madonna.

As in the case of the New Orleans licenses, the license for the new owners of the North Gate Tavern right outside the LSU gates on West Chimes Street in Baton Rouge was issued to the relative of a man with a felony record, which is against the law in Louisiana as well as several other states.

Such practice is officially known as interposing on behalf of another in an attempt to obtain licenses.

Records obtained from ATC show that Ralph Goodman, 83, applied for the North Gate Tavern on Dec. 27 but observers say in reality, the club is run by Ralph Goodman’s son, Lyle Goodman. Ralph Goodman, who has no background in running night clubs, was a tool salesman from Brooklyn.

Lyle Goodman was among 17 defendants in the Atlanta Gold Club trial, charged with credit card fraud. He eventually accepted a plea bargain on a felony count of failure to report credit card fraud and was sentenced to three years of federal probation.

Lyle Goodman worked for his cousin Steve Kaplan at the Atlanta Gold Club that federal prosecutors said was a moneymaking operation for the Gambino family. NBA stars Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers star Reggie Miller each were said to have accepted sexual favors from dancers at the club.

Kaplan pleaded guilty to racketeering and surrendered ownership of the Gold Club. Goodman next showed up in Philadelphia where he worked as a “consultant” for a new strip club in 2001. As with the Baton Rouge club, Lyle Goodman’s father Ralph Goodman was the applicant for the liquor license for that club, Philadelphia records show.

While it is not immediately clear what happened with the 12,000 square foot Philadelphia strip club, Lyle and Ralph Goodman have now popped up in Baton Rouge where Lyle Goodman now runs a much smaller club under his father’s license, issued by ATC.

ATC, it appears, conducted little to nothing in the way of a background check on the Goodmans before issuing the license.

On the questionnaire that Ralph Goodman completed for his application there was a question which asked, “Is this application being made by you to permit any person other than yourself to secure a beer/liquor permit in your name for his/her benefit?”

Ralph Goodman checked “No” to the question.

In the New Orleans cases in which the wife of a convicted felon applied—and got—licenses from ATC, the person who complained was told by ATC Commissioner Troy Hebert that his office did not conduct background investigations. Hebert told the complainant, the person from whom the felon, Omar Hamdan, purchased the stores and which businesses subsequently were granted licenses, that applications are accepted by ATC “on the honor system.”

Title 26:80 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes, however, says nothing about any such “honor system.”

Not only does the statute prohibit the issuance of a license to a convicted felon or his spouse, it also says that ATC “shall require a background investigation by means of fingerprint checks by the office of state police and the FBI of each applicant…”

It also says that all fingerprints “shall be available for use by the office of state police and for transmittal to the FBI for a national criminal history record check. The information obtained from the national criminal history record check conducted pursuant to this Section may be used by the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control to determine the applicant’s eligibility for an alcoholic beverage permit.”

One of the witnesses against Kaplan and Kyle Goodman was a former employee named John Givens who testified that he sliced off a man’s ear for the mob.

“”Yeah, Givens worked for me at the Gold Club,” Lyle Goodman said in an interview after his trial, “and he testified he cut a guy’s ear off. But how was I supposed to know what he did with his social time?”

Hebert never responded to an interview request by LouisianaVoice.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in ATC, Governor's Office, Notable Quotables, Revenue on March 21, 2013| 10 Comments »

“When you kick employee’s (sic) butts and make them work, sometimes you get a little crap on your boots.”

—Louisiana Alcohol Tobacco Control Director Troy Hebert, responding to a LouisianaVoice request for a one-on-one interview. (We assume that was our interview.)

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Lack of ATC background checks results in approval of multiple alcohol licenses to New Orleans-area felon

Posted in ATC, Legislature, Legislators, Revenue on March 20, 2013| 14 Comments »

A failure to properly conduct background checks by the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) resulted in the approval of alcohol licenses to a New Orleans-area man who was arrested on felony charges six times during 2004 and 2005, according to court records and ATC application forms.

Moreover, the number of citations issued by ATC for underage drinking during the Mardi Gras season has plummeted more than 92 percent since 2011, records show.

In an inter-office email obtained by LouisianaVoice on Wednesday, Department of Revenue (LDR) employees were informed that all outgoing emails by LDR employees to any ATC employee must copy Jarrod Coniglio, chief of staff to Secretary of Revenue Tim Barfield, and “before any current or former ATC employee is interviewed, hired or offered a position with LDR, the division director must receive approval from Jarrod Coniglio.”

There was no explanation why ATC employees were being singled out for such scrutiny. Apparently the powers that be at LDR are not quite up to speed on the Emancipation Proclamation.

The email also instructed that LDR regional offices “will cease requesting or utilizing any ATC agents on a cash seizures or any other field related activity.”

LDR is the umbrella agency under which ATC serves.

ATC Commissioner Troy Hebert defended his actions in an email to LouisianaVoice with the explanation that “disgruntled employees are going to complain” whenever he “kicks employee’s (sic) butts.”

Omar Hamdan was arrested for multiple counts of possession of Schedule II and Schedule IV drugs, for use of a firearm or controlled dangerous substance in the commission of a crime of violence and for bail violation.

Some of the charges against the Harvey resident, including the firearms violation, were dropped after he pled guilty to possession charges in December of 2004.

Despite his legal problems, ATC issued alcohol licenses to four convenience stores owned by Hamdan, records show.

The licenses were actually issued to Hamdan’s wife, Fatmah Hamdan, who checked “No” to the question, “Have you or your spouse ever been convicted of a felony?”

When Scott Wolfe, the individual who sold several of the convenience stores to Fatmah Hamdan, complained to ATC about the licenses issued to Hamdan, ATC at first took no action on allegations that Fatmah Hamdan was the applicant for the licenses.

State law prohibits the practice of a person interposing on behalf of another in an attempt to obtain licenses which is what Wolfe maintains Fatmah Hamdan’s applications represented.

Hebert’s office responded to Wolfe inquiry as to why the Hamdan’s were granted licenses by saying there are no background investigations conducted by his office and that applications are accepted “on the honor system.”

Even after Wolfe’s inquiry, Hebert took no action for eight months. “You could almost hear the crickets in the ATC offices,” Wolfe said.

Only after Wolfe contacted a New Orleans television station and a station reporter made his own inquiries did Hebert initiate a probe by his office and provide the public records requested by Wolfe.

But even then, ATC at first withheld some of the records requested by Wolfe, he said.

ATC, which has been embroiled in personnel issues in recent months and which has lost a couple of lawsuits brought by former agents, has seen its enforcement powers depleted significantly during Hebert’s tenure.

The agency receives grants from various federal agencies which ostensibly are to be used for enforcement purposes.

Citations issued for underage drinking during Mardi Gras, for example, have dropped off significantly since Hebert took over the agency in November of 2010, according to records provided pursuant to a public records request by LouisianaVoice.

ATC agents issued 825 Mardi Gras-related tickets during the 2011 Carnival season. That number dropped by 80.6 percent, to 160 in 2012 and this year only 62 tickets were issued for underage drinking, a drop of 92.5 percent from 2011.

Last July, Hebert appeared with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to announce a cooperative venture between ATC and the mayor’s office in which Hebert promised to hire three new full-time agents and auxiliary agents to combat underage drinking in New Orleans. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1tTdVPhNrg

To date, that grandiose promise by Hebert has remained unfulfilled. No new agents have been hired and the auxiliary agents are non-existent.

Hebert, in a March 14 email to LouisianaVoice in response to a request for a one-on-one interview, said:

“When you kick employee’s (sic) butts and make them work, sometimes you get a little crap on your boots.

“Of course these disgruntled employees are going to complain, (sic) I put a GPS on their (sic) state vehicle (sic), I stopped them from taking their state vehicle (sic) home each night, I stopped them from using state cell phones for personal use, I made them punch a time clock and I implemented a performance base (sic again) system that makes them work more productive (sigh, sic).

“As commissioner I am fighting to make sure that the taxpayers are getting their money’s worth. Incompetency and laziness will not be tolerated under my watch.”

The Commissioner has spoken. All rise.

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ATC Director Troy Hebert orders background investigation of….LouisianaVoice publisher Tom Aswell; but did we pass?

Posted in ATC, Ethics, Uncategorized on March 11, 2013| 93 Comments »

Well, folks, we’re received another letter here at LouisianaVoice Control Central and this time it’s signed.

It seems that Louisiana Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) Director Troy Hebert is experiencing yet more PR problems for himself and his beleaguered office. That’s not to say, of course, that he doesn’t bring a lot of those problems on himself.

And like any good politician, he chooses to blame the messenger for his deteriorating public image—even going to the point of spending tax dollars ordering an investigation of yours truly which, I’m told, came up empty.

“You call yourselves investigators,” he told his agents a few weeks ago as he ordered them “to investigate Tom Aswell” because my credibility apparently isn’t as good as one might believe, according to one agent he fired two weeks ago. Apparently she didn’t come up with the negative background information Hebert wanted on this writer.

It’s not that Michelle Chavis didn’t try. In an interview with LouisianaVoice today, she said she checked all the newspapers for which I formerly worked as a reporter or editor—and came up dry. “You’re pretty boring,” she joked. “Actually, I found that you were very credible as a reporter and were well-respected by the older reporters and editors who remembered you.”

Well respected? Older reporters and editors? Who remembered me? If she found someone old enough to remember me, they must be in a home somewhere with a lap blanket and shoulder shawl eating bland pudding and waiting for a sponge bath from someone named Dutch.

And I haven’t spent 40 years as a reporter to be “well respected.” What kind of wimp-out is that?

Well, she did compare me favorably to the late John Copes who once had a web blog called The Deduct Box and for that comparison, I am flattered and humbled.

Be that as it may, Ms. Chavis, a veteran of 16 years in law enforcement was given her walking papers in a one-sentence note from Hebert after only four months on the job as a training specialist.

“I never saw it coming,” she said. “I’ve worked for the Shreveport Police Department and the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office and I’ve never been terminated from a job.

“Everything I ever suggested in the way of training was rejected out of hand by Mr. Hebert. The place was a mad house. And I can tell you that it’s true that he requires his employees to stand and chirp ‘Good morning, commissioner’ every time he enters a room.”

Chavis, after repeated unsuccessful attempts to gain an audience with Hebert to get an explanation for her dismissal, finally fired off a letter to her former boss.

With her permission, we edited some of the more inflammatory content.

Otherwise, the letter is as follows.:

Mr. Troy Hebert:

Two weeks ago, per your directive, I was issued my letter of termination by SAC Banks. After spending eight days in Baton Rouge and making regular contact with you during that time, it was a shame you could not have taken a moment to discuss the thought of dismissing me from the Agency. As a dedicated employee with exceptional PBS rankings, going above and beyond in my work and no inkling of a problem, an explanation on your decision would have been courteous.

I have few very basic expectations from this Agency; however, the spontaneous last-minute training session that you required was unorganized and shoddy. As a specialist, I should have been included on the planning and organization. A schedule and itinerary with a curriculum should have been a basic starting point. In November 2012, I submitted a very detailed list of suggested classes. Instead, I showed up and was required me to “perform on demand”—which I managed. I am not blaming Director Penouilh, as I believe he was doing the best he could with your last minute, over demanding brainstorm idea for a training session.

You wandered in and out of our training, shiftless seeking fault in others. You have a sharp dressed, useless look about you that may have worked for you when Gov. Jindal appointed you, but now that you actually have responsibility to run the ATC, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for you flaring ineptitude. After your consistent and annoying harassment of my co-workers and me during our training session, with your childish accusations and finger pointing, I can only surmise that YOU are one of the few true wastes of our time and taxpayer dollars.

Asking me, a Training Specialist, to literally “read line for line” over 350 pages to college educated employees was not only a nuisance, insult and waste of time, but also a waste of precious oxygen. You want to criticize how ATC Agents waste taxpayer dollars and you give me a ridiculous directive to READ to eighteen Agents for TWO days? Adult learners respond best to visual, auditory, kinesthetic and environmental teaching. The number one style to AVOID is to READ to an adult.

I was hired because I know how to train employees. And you were apparently hired to supply amusement to Governor Jindal, who watches as you vainly attempt to understand the concept of running and agency while you sit back in your “private office” with you and your personal attorney Not all of us can play on our iPhones and chew bubble gum during your meetings without repercussions as does your legal counsel.

And last, but not least, during our meeting you quoted your height and weight and stated you didn’t understand why Tom Aswell’s readers refer to you as Little Troy Hebert. It was that moment that I realized just how incredibly naïve you are. Let me help you, sir. The readers are not referring to your physical description. They are referring to your character.

It was YOU who gave Agents the directive to read the articles posted on LouisianaVoice. Until then, I had never heard of the blog. It was also YOU who gave the directive to research Tom Aswell. Well sir, I have done my homework. I have found him to have to same humor and talent as John Copes of deductbox.com. If only John Copes were alive today …. I am sure he would have a field day with your shenanigans.

Sincerely,

Michelle Chavis

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in ATC, Courts, Ethics, Governor's Office, Judges, Notable Quotables, Uncategorized on February 11, 2013| 5 Comments »

“It is well settled that an employee of a public entity may not be discharged for exercising his constitutionally protected rights to free of expression…”

“The law has recognized that there are some types of speech, which by their very nature, address matters of public concern. For instance, the disclosure of misbehavior by public officials ia a matter of public concern and is therefore entitled to constitutional protection.”

—Excerpts from the Jan. 25 ruling by the First Circuit Court of Appeal that overturned a decision by 19th Judicial District Court Judge William Morvant in which Morvant had ruled in favor of ATC Commissioner Troy Hebert whose attorney, E. Wade Shows, argued that State Alcohol and Tobacco Control agent Randall Kling had no right of action in his claim of retaliatory firing against ATC Commissioner Hebert because, according to state arguments, Kling’s complaints did not involve “matters of public concern” and that his complaints about Hebert’s questionable actions were “in his role as an employee and not as a concerned citizen.”

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