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Missing checks, public records litigation, aborted deposition, and AG slapped with fine all in one confusing, muddled story

Posted in Attorney General, Corruption, Courts, Ethics, Fraud, Judges, Lawsuits, Politicians, Public Records, State Police, Transparency on November 16, 2016| 3 Comments »

This is a story with no readily apparent good guys.

It’s a story about charges of theft of heavy equipment.

It’s a story about thousands of dollars floating around unaccounted for by public officials.

It’s the story of the attorney general’s office abruptly halting a confrontational deposition.

It’s a story about a Baton Rouge judge having the decency and courage to impose (finally) a stiff financial penalty against a state agency over the agency’s failure to complete the deposition or to produce legally required public records.

It’s a story of how the superintendent of State Police was unable to account for the receipt of two checks totaling nearly $150,000 and how the state attorney general’s office and its former rogue investigator wound up with egg all over their already questionable reputations.

And, of course, it’s a story of how the taxpayer and not the public official responsible ultimately will bear the cost of those penalties.

It all began in May 2014 with the indictment of Joseph Palermo of Sulphur on five counts of possession of stolen things, destruction of serial numbers and forgery.

http://www.kplctv.com/story/25298149/five-count-indictment-unsealed-against-sulphur-businessman

Palermo previously got crossways with state police over operation of casinos in Calcasieu Parish and he settled that civil matter back in 1998 but prosecutors, apparently still nursing a grudge over the casino gambit, brought up the 1998 trouble in connection with his more recent problems. Things have a way of playing out that way for some people.

In February 2015, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of receiving “ill-gotten gains” in a plea bargain in which he agreed to paying civil penalties of $1.2 million over three years with expenses to the Calcasieu Parish District Attorney’s office coming off the top. After expenses, the $400,000 per year was to be divided equally between the Calcasieu DA, the attorney general and State Police ($133,333.34 each). An additional $14,792.55 was what remained after the district attorney’s expenses were paid.

Identical checks of $14,792.55 and $133,333.34 were then issued to Louisiana State Police and the attorney general’s office. State Police, however, initially had no record of receipt of the funds.

Moreover, neither of the checks to the attorney general’s office was ever negotiated and it took more than a little effort to get State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson to acknowledge his office had received the money. State Police’s financial section has no record of the checks, nor is there any record of the checks having been deposited in state police accounts.

In February of this year, Palermo began efforts to obtain certain records from the attorney general’s office, specifically those pertaining to the criminal investigation of his case by Scott Bailey, then employed as an investigator for the attorney general’s office.

Bailey, in addition to being a central figure in the botched CNSI investigation of a couple of years back, holds the dubious distinction of being the investigator who photographed Jimmy Swaggart exiting his infamous rendezvous with the hooker in that seedy Metairie motel three decades ago. (Some claims to fame you just want to hang onto for whatever reasons).

Bailey resigned from the attorney general’s office the very day he was directed to provide all his time management records for all his investigations.

The records by Palermo from the attorney general were insufficient to meet the parameters of his request, so he tried again and this time he was met with a response that the records, after all, were exempt from public disclosure despite the investigation of Palermo having been completed for more than a year.

The legal back and forth jockeying continued with two separate legal actions by Palermo—one for public records and the other to force deposit of the checks into the court’s registry pending a determination of to whom the money actually belonged—being consolidated into a single lawsuit. Finally, it culminated in a deposition scheduled for October 27 in Lake Charles.

Alas, it was not to be.

State attorney Chester Cedars abruptly called an end to the deposition only a few minutes into the proceedings, acknowledging he was doing so at his own peril.

On Monday, 19th Judicial District Judge Don Johnson of Baton Rouge came down hard on the attorney general’s office and we would be less than honest if we didn’t admit we are delighted (so much for any pretense of objectivity).

It was such a beautiful order, we’re reproducing some of the wording here:

“Judgment is hereby entered herein in favor of Joseph R. Palermo, Jr. and against Jeff Landry, in his official capacity as the Attorney General of Louisiana, in the amount of twenty-five thousand and no/100 dollars ($25,000.00) payable within 30 days from November 14, 2016.”

Here is the judgment in its entirety.

One courtroom observer speculated that Cedars would likely take writs to the Louisiana Supreme Court on the matter of the amount of the fine.

That’s unlikely, however, because of Cedars’s own admission at the time he suspended Bailey’s deposition.

It is part of the transcript of the deposition and Cedars tells opposing counsel Christopher Whittington, “…I do so at the defendant’s peril. I fully understand that if I’m incorrect in the assertions and the law as I understand it, or in the facts as I understand it, then we are going to have to pay the appropriate sanctions.”

WHITTINGTON: “Okay. And we will move for those sanctions pursuant to Article 1469.”

http://www.laboards-commissions.com/MCBD.pdf

You have to wonder how that little on-the-record exchange and Judge Johnson’s ensuing fine are going to sit with Cedars’s boss, Attorney General Jeff Landry (Of course Landry has his own problems, having recently dodged service on a subpoena in the ongoing litigation with Gov. John Bel Edwards over the governor’s non-discriminatory executive order).

Now, if we can just find out what happened to those two checks after they arrived at State Police headquarters…

(Special thanks to Robert Burns for scurrying around and digging up valuable court documents for this story.)

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Cowardly Supreme Court sends message in LouisianaVoice matter: ‘don’t bother responding to public records requests’

Posted in Contracts, Corruption, Courts, DOA, Ethics, Governor's Office, Judges, Lawsuits, Legislature, Legislators, Media, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency on November 14, 2016| 6 Comments »

There are those who will label this post as sour grapes.

That’s okay. You can call it Tinker Bell, Rambo or anything you choose. I don’t care because it won’t change the fact that the Louisiana Supreme Court is dominated by gutless hypocrites.

There’s a guy in New Orleans who will agree with me even if no one else does.

His name is Ashton R. O’Dwyer, Jr. and he is an attorney. Or at least he was.

You see, like me, he sounded off to and about the wrong people—judges, to be precise—but unlike me, he was in a vulnerable position in that he was a partner at the prestigious New Orleans law firm Lemle & Kelleher. As such, anything he said about the judiciary could be—and was—met with instant retaliation.

O’Dwyer’s sin was that he had the idea to file a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over its lack of adequate preparedness for Hurricane Katrina. For good measure, in case it should be determined that the Corps was immune from litigation, he also named the State of Louisiana as a defendant for its pitiful oversight of the various politically inept and corrupt levee boards.

But other attorneys who were politically connected to the presiding judge wanted to be the plaintiff attorney. The judge eventually disqualified O’Dwyer and the rival attorney filed his suit. The only problem is the other attorney also represented the state so he could not, because of the obvious conflict of interests, file against the state.

It was little consolation to O’Dwyer that the Corps of Engineers was, as feared, determined to be immune from being sued which left the other attorney with no case. O’Dwyer was furious and went slightly ballistic.

He was eventually terminated by Lemle & Kelleher and things escalated quickly. Jailed on a questionable charge of making threats, he was held for mental evaluation. It was his second stint in jail. The first came because he refused to leave his St. Charles Avenue home during Katrina—even though a network news crew was allowed to remain in a house next door during the storm.

The courts were far from finished teaching him a lesson. Subjected to monitoring of his emails for years, suspended from the practice of law after being fired, he was later disbarred altogether. http://www.tulanelink.com/stories/o’dwyer_11a.htm

Today, O’Dwyer is not only fired, suspended and disbarred, but also bankrupt—all because he refused to hold his tongue. And today, he still won’t shut up.

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2010/12/disbarred_attorney_not_as_craz.html

After all, what else can they do to him?

Fast forward to November 7, 2016.

Among the writ applications denied by the Louisiana Supreme Court was Case No. 2016-C -1263 (TOM ASWELL v. THE DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATION, OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA AND KRISTY NICHOLS, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS THE COMMISSIONER OF ADMINISTRATION). http://www.lasc.org/news_releases/2016/2016-065.asp

I filed my writ after the First Circuit Court of Appeal in an equally cowardly act, struck down the penalties against Nichols while acknowledging that the state was negligent in complying to our public records request in a timely manner.

As a refresher, here’s what happened. With the Division of Administration under Nichols already dragging its feet with several pending requests we had submitted, we decided to conduct a test to see if we were being targeted via slow compliance.

In October 2014, we submitted a detailed request for information pertaining to a complicated third party administrator contract between the Office of Group Benefits and a California bill processing firm. On the same day, we had a friendly legislator (who asked not to be named) submit an identical request through the House Legislative Services Office.

The House member received the requested information the very next day. Again, that was in October 2014. In January 2015, I still had not received the documents so I filed suit. Kristy Nichols then had a CD containing the information delivered to my attorney, J. Arthur Smith, III, the day after the suit was filed.

By our calculations, with state law providing penalties of $100 per day for failure to comply to the state’s public records law (remember: Bobby Jindal was touting the state for its “gold standard of transparency), the Division of Administration owed us about $40,000, including that request as well as others that were still outstanding.

District Court Judge Mike Caldwell, in his infinite wisdom, awarded us something on the order of $1200 and Kristy appealed. The First Circuit gutted even that award and we applied for writs to the Supreme Court.

Among those on the Louisiana Supreme Court who would have granted my writ were Jeannette Knoll of the Third District, Jeff Hughes of the Fifth District and John Weimer of the Sixth District. For that, I thank them.

The brain-dead justices who declined to do the right thing, who distorted the state’s public records law to their own satisfaction and who showed they possess no moral compass insofar as the public’s right to know is concerned were Chief Justice Bernette Johnson of the Seventh District, Greg Guidry of the First District, Scott Crichton of the Second District, and Marcus Clark of the Fourth District. For that, I thumb my nose at them.

Let’s recap: I’m not an attorney, I’m retired, and for the moment, the First Amendment, which guarantees my freedom of speech, is still firmly intact. Moreover, since Supreme Court justices are elected, that makes them politicians first, and judges second, which means their title of justices takes on about as much significance as a justice of the peace as far as I’m concerned. They are no more or any less human than anyone else who toils at an occupation. They are mortals endowed with no greater wisdom than my grandfather who had a sixth-grade education. (In fact, truth be known, he was probably light years ahead of most lawyers in terms of moral wisdom.)

In short, the Supreme Court jusrtices can’t do a damned thing to me for calling them imbecilic morons.

Now, lest you think this diatribe is about me, be assured it most definitely is not. It also is not about LouisianaVoice. Nor is it about $1200 in penalties—or even $40,000. The $1200 awarded by Judge Caldwell will neither make me nor break me.

This boneheaded decision, from district court all the way up to the Supreme Court’s decision to deny writs, is about something much larger than me, LouisianaVoice or $1200.

This is about the public’s right to request—and obtain—information about what its government is doing, how it is spending the taxpayers’ dollars, and how its government is meeting—or failing to meet—its responsibility to the public it is supposed to be serving. This rant also raises the obvious question: what purpose do laws serve if they are not enforced? Indeed, what use are judges (other than to look wise when photographed in their robes for their official portraits—at taxpayer expense, of course) when they selectively ignore the law?

With the manner in which our litigation was mangled by the judiciary, governmental agencies and those who run them—from the governor down to the mayors of Shongaloo and Paincourtville—may now take their cue from Case No. 2016-C -1263 (TOM ASWELL v. THE DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATION, OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA AND KRISTY NICHOLS, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS THE COMMISSIONER OF ADMINISTRATION) and provide as much—or as little—as they choose in the way of public records without fear of financial penalties.

The only recourse we have at this point is to find another friendly legislator to write—and a friendly governor to support—new legislation tightening and re-defining the public records laws and the public’s right to know what its elected and appointed officials are doing in the name of representation of constituents.

We have the friendly governor, we believe, as evidenced by John Bel Edwards’s office prompt response to the public records requests we have submitted to him and to the Division of Administration.

So now, like Diogenes, we are seeking an honest man in the form of a legislator who will take on a difficult, if not impossible task.

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Even as America elects a new President, LSTA ignores spirit of democracy; leadership votes to expel 4 dissident members

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Civil Service, Corruption, Ethics, Governor's Office, State Police on November 8, 2016| 4 Comments »

On Tuesday, millions of Americans marched to the polls to cast ballots for President in what is a clear demonstration to the rest of the world that we live in a free society where citizens can say what they want about their leaders without fear of reprisals.

Someone should remind the Louisiana State Troopers’ Association (LSTA) of that.

If additional evidence that the LSTA does little else than attend parties and conventions while brooking no dissention from its membership, there is the ongoing purge of retiree members who dared question activities of its board which LouisianaVoice just learned about.

At the same time LouisianaVoice learned of the reprisals against dissent, we also examined LSTA TAX RETURNS which show that the organization devotes only a small portion of its revenue to charitable causes despite its claims to the contrary. Instead, LSTA has placed about $1 million in trusts, equities and options, mutual funds and money market funds while doing little for the welfare of its members.

LSTA operates Louisiana State Troopers Charities as a 501(c) (3) charitable organization

It also invested more than $200,000 in fundraising activities during 2013, the latest year for which records are available. At the same time, it spent about $28,000 in “grants and other assistance to governments and organizations.”

Among its other expenses were $184,000 for salaries and benefits; $112,400 for conventions, conferences and meetings and nearly $82,000 for travel.

The LSTA is a fraternal organization representing the men and women of the Louisiana State Police. The LSTA represents approximately 97 percent of the commissioned officers as well as a “substantial portion of the state police retirees.”

But those who dare think for themselves need not apply.

The number of retired members has just been reduced by at least four.

LouisianaVoice has learned that four retirees who questioned the authority of LSTA to make political contributions through its executive director in 2015 have been sent letters informing them they are no longer welcome as members of the fraternal organizations they devoted their working lives for.

State civil service rules, which extend to state troopers, prohibit political activity (including campaign contributions) on the part of classified employees.

This precision surgical procedure being carried out on its membership—to remove an inconvenient wart—is evidence of the influence that State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson has over LSTA despite Edmonson’s repeated contention that he has no direct involvement in the association’s activities.

As further illustration of the influence of Edmonson—and LSTA’s propensity to ignore the wishes of its membership—affiliated troops throughout the state voted against expulsion, LouisianaVoice has learned. The only vote to expel the retired members came from headquarters in Baton Rouge.

So much for the democratic process.

One of those retirees, Bucky Millet of Lake Arthur, has been a particular source of irritation to the association, attending monthly meetings of the Louisiana State Police Commission since last December to challenge actions by both the commission and association.

“I was a member of LSTA for 40 years,” Millet says. “Now they tell me I’m not welcome.”

Millet was instrumental in prodding the commission to at least go through the motions of a pseudo-investigation of the association’s funneling campaign contributions to political candidates through its executive director David Young.

That investigation was turned over to Natchitoches attorney Taylor Townsend, a confidant of Gov. John Bel Edwards, who essentially punted. Townsend declined to even issue a written report, which would have become a public record. He also neglected to include a digital recording—a recording that he possessed then and possesses now—of an admission by LSTA officers that they had violated state ethics regulations in contributing to several political candidates through Young.

So, when Millet and other retirees who were members of LSTA questioned the propriety—and the legality—of the contributions, the lines were effectively drawn. Those trouble-making retirees had targets on their backs from that moment on.

And now, even as 100 million Americans cast their votes in the greatest democracy the world has ever known, we learn there is no room for dissention in what should be a beacon of democracy and freedom of expression—the Louisiana State Troopers Association, the fraternal organization that represents those who are supposed to be the very guardians of our freedoms, our protectors.

Perhaps the leadership of LSTA should take a high school civics refresher course.

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Boustany receives contributions from Dem. Senate opponent: Could he be a ‘dummy’ to torpedo Dems. Campbell, Fayard?

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Finances, House, Senate, Politicians, Senate, Transparency, Vitter on October 17, 2016| 24 Comments »

Colorful. Vindictive. Unorthodox. Illegal. Underhanded. Flamboyant. Egotistical. Unethical. Dishonest. Freewheeling. No holds barred. Down and dirty. Deceitful. Unprincipled. Crooked. Bombastic. Pompous. Arrogant. Self-serving. Zealous.

These are just a few adjectives (believe me, there are many, many more) used by various news reporters down through the ages to describe Louisiana politics and its practitioners.

It may not compare to the quote about U.S. Rep. Claude Pepper by George Smathers, his opponent for the U.S. Senate in Florida way back in 1951:

“Are you aware,” Smathers told a rural, largely unsophisticated gathering, “that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy and that he and his wife matriculated together before they were married.”

But there are other ways to undercut a political opponent without ever resorting to smear tactics, half-truths, or innuendo and U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, a Republican, may have just found a way to damage the aspirations of two of his Democratic opponents for the U.S Senate seat being vacated by David Vitter.

Besides the descriptions applied to Louisiana politics in the opening paragraph, astute politicians—particularly conservative Republicans—have allowed two other words to creep into the political lexicon: Evangelicalism and Privatization—as homage to two blocs that have gained considerable stroke in recent years: the religious right and disciples of Milton Friedman’s free market economy.

Boustany, however, also is effectively employing Subterfuge and Misdirection in the tried and true fashion of a slight of hand stage magician and no one has noticed.

Until now.

So, in light of his somewhat low-key TV ads, how is he attempting to obtain an edge through furtive means?

Two words: Joshua Pellerin.

Since 2012, Pellerin, manager of Pellerin Real Estate Holdings and of Pellerin Energy Corp., has contributed at least $8,800 to Boustany’s campaigns for the U.S. House and, since 2015, another $6,800 to his campaign for the Senate.

PELLERIN’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOUSTANY’S HOUSE CAMPAIGNS:

boustany-1 boustany-2 boustany-3 boustany-4 boustany-5 boustany-6

PELLERIN’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOUSTANY’S SENATE CAMPAIGN:

PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC SEE MEMO ITEM/ VERIFIED NON-CORPORATE/CONTRIBUTION FROM PARTNERSHIP. PARTNERS EXCEEDING REPORTING THRESHOLD ITEMIZED AS MEMOS. LAFAYETTE LA 70503 08/06/2015 $1,000
PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC SEE MEMO ITEM/ VERIFIED NON-CORPORATE LAFAYETTE LA 70503 10/20/2015 $500 X
PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC SEE MEMO ITEM/ VERIFIED NON-CORPORATE LAFAYETTE LA 70503 08/06/2015 $1,000 X
PELLERIN, JOSHUA PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC OWNER SEE MEMO ITEM/ VERIFIED NON-CORPORATE/PARTNERSHIP ITEMIZATION MEMO BROUSSARD LA 70518 08/06/2015 $900 X
PELLERIN, JOSHUA PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC OWNER SEE MEMO ITEM/ VERIFIED NON-CORPORATE/PARTNERSHIP ITEMIZATION MEMO BROUSSARD LA 70518 08/06/2015 $100 X
PELLERIN, JOSHUA PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC OWNER [MEMO ITEM] PARTNERSHIP: PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC BROUSSARD LA 70518 10/20/2015 $500 X
PELLERIN, JOSHUA PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC OWNER [MEMO ITEM] PARTNERSHIP: PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC BROUSSARD LA 70518 08/06/2015 $900 X
PELLERIN, JOSHUA PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC OWNER [MEMO ITEM] PARTNERSHIP: PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC BROUSSARD LA 70518 08/06/2015 $100 X
PELLERIN, JOSHUA PELLERIN ENERGY GROUP, LLC OWNER BROUSSARD LA 70518 02/09/2015 $2,600

Pellerin also is the former manager of Preventive Vascular Screenings, LLC, and Pellerin Imaging Group, LLC.

Boustany is a cardiovascular surgeon, which makes the connection between the two men logical and explains why Pellerin would give financial support to Boustany’s campaigns for the U.S. House and now the U.S. Senate.

Wait. The U.S. Senate?

If you scroll down the list of the 24 candidates vying for the U.S. Senate, you will see that number 21 on that list (they’re in alphabetical order) is none other than Democrat Joshua Pellerin.

So we have a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate contributing $5,600 to the campaign of one of his leading opponents for the position—a Republican, no less.

That doesn’t make any since.

Unless….

Unless Pellerin is a “dummy” candidate inserted into the race in an effort to draw votes away from fellow Democrats—Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell and Caroline Fayard.

So who is the “dummy” candidate on the Republican side to draw votes from Boustany’s biggest challenger, fellow physician and Republican U.S. Rep. John Fleming? Why, that would be none other than the ultimate dummy, David Duke. Fleming and Duke are battling for much of the same constituency—the Trumpers—and while Duke is destined to finish near the bottom, Fleming’s biggest hope is to pull enough votes from the former high potentate, imperial wizard, exalted grand sovereign (or whatever they call themselves these days) to sneak into the runoff.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time such a dummy candidate has been propped up to split an opponent’s vote. There were rumors, denied by Edwin Edwards, that he had his supporters contribute to the campaign of Tea Party Republican Lenar Whitney two years ago in an attempt to boost her into the runoff which would have greased the skids for him to waltz into Congress. If true, it didn’t work as Garrett Graves ran a strong second to Edwards in the crowded primary and then easily defeated the former governor in the runoff.

The biggest problem facing Boustany is getting Pellerin’s name out there before a sufficient number of Democrat voters. For his part, Pellerin, who has amassed a war chest of only about $300,000 (as opposed to more than $4.3 million in contributions to Boustany), has been making the rounds of Democratic forums in South Louisiana.

With only three weeks before the Nov. 8 election and with such a meager bank account (much of which was contributed by several physicians in the Lafayette area), Pellerin’s best hope to gain name recognition will be those public forums. And with so few Louisiana voters inclined to vote for Democrats these days, it won’t take much chipping at the Campbell-Fayard base to deal crippling blows to their campaigns.

And typical for Louisiana, all it may take is a dummy.

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Baton Rouge Mayor-President candidate White pledges the impossible; used legislative position for favorable land deal

Posted in Corruption, Education, Elections, Ethics, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators on October 15, 2016| 11 Comments »

Contests for the U.S. House and Senate are going virtually unnoticed as the nation becomes more and more transfixed, shocked—and disgusted—at each new charge of sexual abuse and deleted emails that arises in a sordid presidential race no one dared imagine could ever happen in this country.

Also generally overlooked are scores of local elections scattered across Louisiana’s landscape.

One of those is the race for Mayor-President of East Baton Rouge Parish.

Incumbent Mayor-President and erstwhile candidate for Lieutenant Governor Kip Holden is term-limited and has now set his sights on the 2nd Congressional seat now held by U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond.

Predictably, the job has attracted quite a few applicants—12 to be precise. One of those is Republican State Sen. Bodi White of Central, coincidentally, the largest fundraiser to date.

With just over three weeks to go before the Nov. 8 election, White has begun his TV ad blitz. And like candidates before him (including Holden in his initial run) has included a campaign promise to “improve public education” by “building more schools.”

White knows full well there is no way he can make good on such a preposterous promise because the mayor-president has absolutely zero to do with education. That’s the responsibility of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board into whose operations the mayor and parish council have no input.

He knows that but to voters who do not know, it sounds wonderful, like a promise from on high. And that’s the sad part; voters are generally uneducated on the issues and their decisions are often based on cockamamie sound bytes like the one currently being aired by White. He could just as easily say he’s going to build a wall along our southern border and make Mexico pay for it. There are, I’m certain, voters who would buy into that just as quickly.

But there’s more to white than blustering campaign rhetoric.

In 2008, he introduced a bill in the Legislature to create the Central Recreation and Park District and take Central out of BREC (BREC is an acronym for Baton Rouge Recreation—we don’t get it, either).

On May 6, 2008, he revealed his ownership interest in a tract of land BREC wanted for a park. Then on May 14, 2008, White and BREC director Bill Palmer announced a “compromise” under which White would withdraw this legislation to take Central out of BREC.

That “compromise” consisted of a resolution for BREC to purchase some of White’s business partner’s land and develop the adjacent land for the company by whom White was employed.

Not too shabby a deal if you can swing it and apparently his position as a state representative gave him just the political stroke to pull it off. No abuse of his office there.

In addition, BREC agreed to pay Parcel 52, LLC, $130,000 to help build a 750-foot-long road with curbs and sidewalks to the BREC site. The road goes through the center of the eight-acre commercial property owned by Parcel 52, LLC, and adds significant value to the commercial property, which could be developed for 10-20 commercial sites or offices. http://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/politics/bodi-white-proof-that-louisiana-has-low-standards-brec-bribed-him/28772800/

Parcel 52, LLC was registered with the Secretary of State. The partners in the company were Brandon and E. Gordon Rogillio, Jr.  and Rep. Mack (Bodi) White. White, who later relinquished his interest in the property, is a realtor who works for Brandon Rogillio. http://centralcitynews.us/?p=3373

Gordon Rogillio later explained that White invested nothing in the property and received nothing in the transaction. http://centralcitynews.us/?p=3427

White’s boss prospered nicely, however, and therein lies the possible quid pro quo.

A timeline provided by a local newspaper, the Central City News, published by former State Rep. Woody Jenkins, further revealed details of the entire transaction: http://centralcitynews.us/?p=3373

In a throwback to the days of raging newspaper wars (days we sorely miss, by the way), a rival publication, Central Speaks, attempted to exonerate White from any wrongdoing in the BREC flap. http://www.centralspeaks.com/old/rep-bodi-white-brec-sports-park-just-the-facts/

Just another day in good old-fashioned Louisiana politics.

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