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Archive for the ‘Crime’ Category

Terrebonne Sheriff, denied immunity for unconstitutional raid on critical blogger, prudently decides to settle lawsuit

Posted in Corruption, Crime, Ethics, Judges, Lawsuits, Politicians on September 7, 2017| 14 Comments »

Karma, you gotta love it.

A lawsuit brought by a Houma couple against Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter has been settled for an undisclosed amount, according to a story posted online by the Houma DAILY COURIER.

The couple, Houma police officer Wayne Anderson and wife Jennifer, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New Orleans after Larpenter obtained what was quickly determined an unconstitutional search warrant in order to carry out an equally unconstitutional raid on the couple’s home and to cart off computers and cellphones while investigating ExposeDAT, an anti-corruption website that was critical of Larpenter.

Also named as defendants in the Anderson’s lawsuit were Parish President Gordon Dove, the Terrebonne Parish government, the Terrebonne Levee District and levee board member and local businessman Tony Alford. Alford and the levee district were subsequently dismissed by the Andersons and U.S. District Judge Lance Africk dismissed Dove and the parish as defendants after the parties reached a $50,000 settlement, the newspaper said.

The order signed by Africk dismissed the lawsuit without prejudice, which means the suit can be re-instituted should Larpenter not honor the settlement terms.

Wayne Anderson, whose blog was critical of Larpenter and which prompted the illegal raid, told New Orleans WWL-TV, “I think the sheriff’s finally learned that he can’t bully people and violate people’s constitutional rights. In our case, he stepped on the wrong people’s constitutional rights because we knew our rights. Hopefully, he thinks twice the next time he gets his feelings hurt.”

The paper said that Larpenter filed a request in May to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds of qualified immunity.

That has to go down as one of the more ironic twists in the entire episode: Larpenter, ignoring the Constitutional guarantee of free speech of citizens as laid out in the First Amendment, took offense at criticism contained in a web blog and raided a person’s home on no more substantial probable cause than that and yet thinking he was protected by qualified immunity.

Judge Africk correctly denied that motion on July 19 and Larpenter, seeing the handwriting on the wall, chose to settle rather than go to trial and most likely subject himself to another judicial lecture on the Constitution.

Terrebonne, this is your sheriff.

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17-year-old girl raped in Union Parish jail cell files lawsuit; meanwhile, AG still hasn’t completed probe after 17 months

Posted in Attorney General, Crime, Ethics, Lawsuits, Media, Politicians, Prison on September 7, 2017| 8 Comments »

The 17-year-old girl who was raped twice in a Union Parish jail cell in April 2016 has filed suit in Third Judicial District Court, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by LouisianaVoice.

The Third JDC comprises the parishes of Lincoln and Union.

Meanwhile, nearly 17 months after the rapes occurred, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry’s office still has not completed its investigation.

The girl, who was thought to be high on meth, was being held in an isolation cell when Demarcus Shavez Peyton, 28, of Homer, who was awaiting sentencing after being convicted of aggravated rape in a separate case, was allowed to leave his cell and assault the girl twice in her cell.

Named as defendants in her lawsuit are the Union Parish Detention Center, the Union Parish Police Jury (which operates the detention center), the Union Parish Detention Center Commission (made up of Union Parish Sheriff Dusty Gates, District Attorney John Belton and Union Parish municipal chiefs of police).

The lawsuit says another prisoner, Darandall Eugene Boyette was also allowed into her cell with the intent to sexually assault her but “departed before committing any criminal act.”

Because the district attorney is a member of the commission that governs the detention center, Belton rightfully recused his office from any investigation and instead, requested the attorney general’s office to conduct the investigation.

And while Attorney General Landry on Tuesday issued one of his regular press releases in which he “applauded President Donald Trump’s decision to phase out of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program,” he still has not wrapped up what should be a routine investigation of a rape that occurred in the limited confines of a jail cell, a case where he knows the identities of the victim, the rapist, and witnesses.

Apparently, Landry is far too busy issuing press releases to worry about the victimization of a 17-year-old girl—or the obvious liability to which the defendants are exposed.

Among the claims asserted by the victim through her Monroe attorney, Jeffrey D. Guerriero, are:

  • Failure to provide a reasonably safe and secure facility for the custody of women, especially minor women;
  • Failure to protect female inmates from male sexual assault;
  • Failure to provide adequate training to employees and personnel;
  • Failure to property monitor, observe and keep proper surveillance of prison inmates;
  • Failure to properly monitor and supervise employees;
  • Failure to provide, implement and enforce proper policy and procedure for the reporting of, handling, investigation and treatment care rendered to female inmates who have been victims of sexual assault while incarcerated;
  • Failure to provide proper services to inmates who have been victims of sexual assault while incarcerated;
  • Failure to properly secure inmate cell doors;
  • Allowing convicted rapist inmates to move within the facility unmonitored and without supervision;
  • Inadequate or negligent supervision of inmates within the facility;
  • Failure to provide adequate staff to supervise and monitor inmates;
  • Failure to provide adequately trained staff and employees to maintain a safe environment for female inmates, particularly minor female inmates.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Landry on Thursday (Sept. 7) issued a press release saying, “All welfare fraud needs to be found and ended.”

But he can’t seem to complete a simple rape investigation after nearly 17 months.

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LouisianaVoice has obtained federal court documents on plaintiff in SLAPP lawsuit against Welsh alderman Perry

Posted in Corruption, Crime, Ethics, Fraud, Lawsuits, Public Records on September 7, 2017| 4 Comments »

Subsequent to Wednesday’s report that one of the people suing Welsh Alderman Jacob Colby Perry for defamation because Perry had caused harm to his “long-standing positive reputation in his community and parish” was himself a convicted felon, LouisianaVoice has obtained copies of the judgment, the terms of his pleas agreement and the discharge of his supervised release.

William Joseph Johnson, Jr., his sister, his mother and the Welsh police chief, using the same attorney, each filed Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) actions against Perry after Perry and other members of the Welsh Board of Aldermen raised questions about the police department’s budget and other apparent irregularities in town operations. The petitions are all strikingly similar:

Click to access 3c6d9d70-6f92-486f-8178-f23865a4d4b4.pdf

Click to access b60afd4c-5495-4c08-8937-42ee11b353a7.pdf

Click to access a376b7f0-23ca-4ec8-9e38-3a2011944359.pdf

Click to access 49ad6c5b-fc47-4d03-ad27-4f7c88f0d5f0.pdf

Johnson’s mother, Carolyn Louviere, is mayor of Welsh and is the subject of a voter recall petition.

As for Johnson’s claim of a “long-standing positive reputation,” documents from U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana, indicate that Johnson entered into a plea bargain on three of 14 federal indictments on Nov. 20, 2011.

The three charges to which he entered guilty pleas all occurred in 2006 and stemmed from his defrauding a Natchitoches hotel of $77,000 by means of identity theft. Specifically, he entered guilty pleas to:

  • Two counts of bank fraud;
  • Nine counts of counterfeit securities;
  • Fourteen counts of aggravated identity theft.

Counts 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13 were dismissed as part of the plea bargain.

PLEA AGREEMENT

The charges stemmed from his theft from a Natchitoches hotel where he had gained employment using stolen identity and then proceeded to perpetrate fraud against the hotel.

He was sentenced to 34 months imprisonment on counts 2 and 9 to run concurrently, and 24 months as to count 14 to run consecutive to counts 2 and 9. He was also sentenced to five years supervised release upon release from prison and was ordered to make restitution in an amount to be determined by the court after a review of evidence and not necessarily limited to the amounts stolen from victims.

JUDGMENT

A concurrent sentence is not served but entered as a record and used in determining further sentencing. That means he was to serve only 34 months combined for counts 2 and 9. Consecutive terms are served, meaning his combined sentence was 58 months, or four years, 10 months.

At the time of his sentencing, Johnson was wanted on similar charges in Spokane, Washington, where he was said to have used identity theft to con his way into employment as financial controller for the Davenport Hotel in that city, a position that gave him access to the hotel’s financial operations.

The plea agreement was signed before Federal Judge Dee D. Drell by Johnson, his attorney, Billy J. Guin, Jr., of Shreveport, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Cytheria D. Jernigan.

Johnson was paroled on March 30, 2015 and began his term of supervised release for a period of five years. On July 27 this year, on recommendation of his probation officer, Jill R. Wilson, Judge Drell discharged him from supervised release.

DISCHARGE OF SUPERVISED RELEASE

So now, his stellar reputation on the line, Johnson, along with his mother the mayor, his sister and the police chief, is going after a 24-year-old alderman for the Town of Welsh whose main concern is protecting the town’s treasury.

All things considered, who could blame Perry for being a little skittish about the town’s finances?

 

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Your right to examine public records is fraught with exceptions to protect state boards from prying eyes

Posted in Boards, Commissions, Corruption, Crime, Ethics, Exemptions, ORM, Office of Risk Management, Public Records, Transparency on September 4, 2017| 4 Comments »

Title 44 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes is designed to guarantee citizens the right to examine copies of public documents at no cost and, if they wish, the right to purchase copies of documents at a “reasonable” cost, generally not to exceed 25 cents per page.

All that sounds well and good but for the unsuspecting activist or muckraker venturing off into these uncharted waters, there are undercurrents and unseen obstacles that can quickly throw you off course.

When perusing Title 44 and you scroll down to 44.4, you begin to see the subtle way lawmakers, in their infinite wisdom, managed to protect bureaucrats—and themselves—from the prying eyes of those who would hold them accountable.

R.S. 44.4 begins somewhat ominously in saying, “This Chapter shall not apply:”

There follows page upon page of exceptions.

We would expect information containing addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, medical information, student information, pending litigation and proprietary information to be off limits. It’s easy enough, after all, for scammers to obtain that information for the purposes of identity theft, without opening the doors for them.

But we did not expect to see exempted:

  • All risk-based capital reports filed with the Department of Insurance;
  • Any documents concerning the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice medicine or midwifery;
  • Any documents concerning the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice as a registered nurse; however, any action taken by the Louisiana State Board of Nursing, and any legal grounds upon which such action is based, relative to the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice as a registered nurse shall be a public record;
  • Any documents concerning the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice as a dentist or as a dental hygienist; however, any final determination made by the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry, and any legal grounds upon which such action is based, relative to the fitness of any person to receive or continue to hold a license to practice as a dentist or a dental hygienist shall be a public record;
  • Any documents concerning the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice as a veterinarian; however, any final determination made by the Louisiana Board of Veterinary Medicine, and any legal grounds upon which such action is based, relative to the fitness of any person to receive or continue to hold a license to practice as a veterinarian shall be a public record;
  • Any documents concerning the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice as a chiropractic; however, any final determination made by the Louisiana Board of Chiropractic Examiners, and any legal grounds upon which such action is based, relative to the fitness of any person to receive or continue to hold a license to practice chiropractic shall be a public record;
  • Any documents concerning the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice social work; however, any final determination made by the Louisiana Board of Social Work Examiners, and any legal grounds upon which such action is based, relative to the fitness of any person to receive or continue to hold a license to practice social work shall be a public record;
  • Any documents concerning the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice as a medical psychologist; however, any final determination made by the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, and any legal grounds upon which such action is based, relative to the fitness of any person to receive or continue to hold a license to practice as a psychologist shall be a public record;
  • Any documents concerning the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice as a practical nurse; however, any action taken by the Louisiana State Board of Practical Nurse Examiners, and any legal grounds upon which such action is based, relative to the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice as a practical nurse shall be a public record;
  • Any documents concerning the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice or assist in the practice of pharmacy; however, any action taken by the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy, and any legal grounds upon which such action is based, relative to the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice or assist in the practice of pharmacy shall be a public record;
  • Any documents concerning the fitness of any person to receive, or continue to hold, a license to practice optometry; However, any final determination made by the board after an adjudication hearing, other than by consent order, agreement, or other informal disposition shall be a public record.
  • Any records, writings, accounts, letters, letter books, photographs, actual working papers, or copies thereof, any of which is in the custody or control of any officer, employee, or agent of the Louisiana Cemetery Board and which pertains to an investigation of the business of a cemetery authority that is under investigation; however any such record shall be public record and subject to the provisions of this Chapter when introduced as evidence before an administrative or other judicial tribunal or when the investigation is complete.

You will notice that in the cases of the practice of medicine or midwifery, there is no provision to open records once any action is taken on a complaint. Those records are closed regardless of the outcome of any complaints lodged against a doctor of midwife.

As for the Department of Insurance, it would seem in the public’s interest that we be able to examine these risk-based capital reports. After all, quite a few Louisiana policyholders were left high and dry when companies have gone under in the past because someone obviously wasn’t minding the store. Risk-Based Capital is merely a method whereby the minimum amount of capital appropriate to support a company’s business operations is determined so as to protect it from insolvency.

Just as it is important to parse any public information request precisely as to the record you wish to examine because state agencies will not assist you by opening up their records carte blanche, it is also important to notice that the various boards’ complaint records are public if—and only if—formal action is taken. That means if there are scores of complaints against, say, a pharmacist or a dentist, or a nurse, you don’t get to see the complaints unless action is taken. So: no action, no public record. The door is closed. Please go away and don’t bother us.

Unless the complaint is against a cemetery authority. In such cases, the records become public at the moment they are introduced as evidence.

That can mean only one thing: The Cemetery Board has a weak lobby.

As for the rest of them and your right to know what’s going on, fuggedaboutit.

And if you persist, there is always the growing trend toward SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) actions which LouisianaVoice will be examining tomorrow.

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Member of Edmonson entourage on infamous San Diego trip last October one of 12 applying for Baton Rouge police chief

Posted in Crime, Ethics, State Police on September 1, 2017| 16 Comments »

A familiar name has surfaced as one of a dozen applicants to be the next Baton Rouge Chief of Police, according to a story in today’s (Friday, Sept. 1) Baton Rouge Advocate (Click HERE for story).

Lt. Col. Murphy J. Paul Jr., who holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Loyola University, currently serves as deputy superintendent of the Bureau of Investigations for Louisiana State Police (LSP). His current salary at LSP is $150,750 per year.

Besides being the recipient of several commendations and awards during LSP, he also came under scrutiny last February when it was revealed that he was among 15 or so guests who traveled to San Diego to witness then State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson receive a national award.

HERE is the link to LouisianaVoice’s story about that trip, which ultimately led to the resignation of Edmonson after nine years as Louisiana’s top cop.

Paul was photographed with his girlfriend, Lorre Claiborne, at a party during that San Diego trip. Claiborne is employed as a State Fire Marshal captain at a salary of $52,500.

LSP Lt. Col. Murphy Paul and girlfriend State Fire Marshal Captain

Lorre Claiborne at party in San Diego last October.

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