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OIG expenses for out-of-state conferences, conventions far exceeds that spent on in-state investigations, records show

Posted in Corruption, Crime, Ethics, Finances, Transparency on December 8, 2016| 29 Comments »

The Louisiana Office of Inspector General spent more than twice as much on attending conferences and conventions for fiscal years 2012-2016 than it did on travel for investigating public corruption, the job it is charged by statute with doing, according to RECORDS obtained by LouisianaVoice.

A former investigator for the OIG, which has experienced unusually high turnover among its investigative agents, said Inspector General Stephen Street was always “very secretive” about revealing the agency’s budget to subordinates. “He never let us see any of the agency’s finances,” the former investigator said.

By combining the yearly budgets, the totals reflect that OIG had a five-year budget of $45,475 for all (in-state and out-of-state) field (investigative) travel compared to a combined budget for all convention and conference travel of  $75,450, a difference of almost $30,000.

Five-year expenditures for both field travel and conference and convention travel fell well below the respective figures budgeted but conference and convention travel expenditures of $63,735 were more than double the $30,011 spent on investigating reports of wrongdoing by public officials.

By breaking the budgets down to expenditures for only in-state field travel and out-of-state conferences and conventions, the contrast was even more glaring.

Only $11,200 of a total budget of $30,315 was spent on in-state field travel for the five years (an average of $2,240 per year) while the $52,535 spent on out-of-state conferences and conventions ($10,509 per year) exceeded its $42,135 total budget for that purpose by nearly 25 percent.

In looking at yearly budget line items, Street’s office exceeded its budget for out-of-state conferences and conventions by 50 percent in 2013 and by 68 percent the following year.

The budget for travel to out-of-state conferences and conventions was $10,210 for each of those years but in fiscal year 2013, Street’s office spent $15,350 and spent even more—$17,181—in fiscal 2014 on non-investigation related out-of-state travel

Also for both 2013 and 2014, the OIG’s budget for in-state field travel was $11,933 but the agency spent only $2,811 in 2013 and $4,447 in 2014 for that purpose.

TRAVEL RECORDS provided by the OIG’s office show that beginning in August 2012, Street, often accompanied by as many as three or four other OIG personnel traveled on the state dime to such places as West Palm Beach, Clearwater, Destin and Jacksonville, Florida; Austin and San Antonio, Texas, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Boston, Detroit, Memphis, Baltimore, Charlotte, Washington, D.C., Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Newark, New Jersey.

Of those 22 trips taken by Street and OIG staff members, five (taken by someone other than Street) were described as “investigation related.” All the others were said to have been for training or for Association of Inspectors General (AIG) functions.

Street is the AIG national president and also serves as an adjunct instructor for the National White Collar Crime Center and the Inspector General Investigator Academy. “Whenever I teach for those organizations,” he said, “they cover 100 percent of travel and lodging.”

Still, at the end of the day, one has to wonder how an agency charged with investigating public corruption in a state so riddled with public corruption as Louisiana can possibly justify racking up expenditures for out-of-state convention and conference travel that more than doubles that spent on in-state investigative travel.

But then again, we may have answered our own rhetorical question with that “so riddled with public corruption as Louisiana” line.

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State OCD figure partnered with firm that blocked repairs to Road Home project; Shelter at Home follows same formula

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Contract, Contracts, Corruption, Courts, Crime, Ethics, Fraud, GOHSEP, Governor's Office, Judges, Lawsuits on September 23, 2016| 5 Comments »

Before you accept the state’s Shelter at Home program, you may want to consider the quality of workmanship—or lack thereof—that some 2016 flood victims who have participated are experiencing. http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_3116e8b6-7abb-11e6-91c5-d3139b79d965.html?sr_source=lift_amplify

While you should beware of shoddy work by contractors, you should also consider that all work done will likely need to be re-done and makeshift (inferior) plumbing will have to be replaced at your cost.

If that is not enough to convince you, you may wish to follow an important trial scheduled to begin in the 19th Judicial District courtroom of District Judge Tim Kelly on October 3.

The upcoming trial is over the foreclosure on rental property owned by Metairie resident Tony Pelicano and his company, L&T Development. Pelicano also has legal action pending against defendants the State of Louisiana through the Office of Community Development, The Shaw Group, Inc., Woodrow Wilson Construction Co., both of Baton Rouge, and Western Surety Co. of Sioux Falls, S.D.

Pelicano purchased a rental house on Turnbull Street in Metairie on April 28, 2005, just in time for it to be heavily damaged four months and one day later when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on Aug. 29.

Pelicano, like victims of the flood almost exactly 11 years later (Aug. 11-14), was solicited by the state to take part in a state-sponsored recovery program.

In the case of Katrina, it was the Office of Community Development (OCD) that oversaw the Post-Katrina Disaster Housing Assistance and Household Transition Program. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_research_041913.html

With the floods of 2016, it is the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) that took over the Shelter at Home Program.

http://gov.louisiana.gov/page/shelter-at-home-program

The Shelter at Home Program provides up to $15,000 to make a flood-damaged home habitable while the dwelling is being repaired. But the homeowner has no say in the choosing of a contractor to do the work. Nor does the homeowner receive any of that $15,000; all monies paid out go to the contractor.

Sound familiar? It should. It’s déjà vu all over again.

Despite the fact that Tony Pelicano is himself a contractor, he was told that not only could he not select his contractor for the Rental Assistance Program, but he could not even do the work himself. Nor did he receive funds to pay the contractor; that was paid by the State Office of Community Development directly to the contractor.

In both cases, the homeowner has no say about the quality of work, is unable to withhold payment should the contractor, who was not of his choosing, should do substandard work. http://www.wafb.com/story/33133888/video-raises-questions-about-shelter-at-home-program

http://www.wbrz.com/news/shelter-at-home-program-leaves-mess-in-st-amant-home/

And that is precisely why Pelicano is headed for trial the first week in October.

At the outset, a community block grant was awarded in the amount of $75,000 with the additional $14,595 in costs to be paid by Pelicano at closing.

OCD then selected Woodrow Wilson Construction Co. to serve as contractor. When Pelicano requested the ability to select his own contractor, “OCD advised him he was not entitled to have any say nor (sic) input with respect to the employment of Woodrow Wilson for the rehabilitation and reconstruction project,” one of Pelicano’s court filings says.

In September, 2009, Pelicano was personally solicited by the State of Louisiana, through Mark Maier, Program Director of the Small Rental Property Program for OCD and a principal of Maier Consulting, to submit an application to become the first test applicant with the Small Rental Program through the State Office of Community Development, Pelicano says in a sworn affidavit.

“This Program administers federal funds to small rental property owners in order to facilitate the reconstruction of small rental properties in order to return them to commerce, post-Katrina, and provide affordable housing for Katrina victims,” he said. “This is accomplished through a forgivable loan of $75,000.00 and we personally put up the additional sum of $14,595.00 from our own personal funds.

In May 2012, Pelicano said he attended a meeting in Baton Rouge attended by Maier, OCD Supervisor for the Small Rental Program Brad Swayze and Dan Rees, also of OCD. When Pelicano protested that construction change orders were made without his knowledge or consent, he says he was threatened and told he had no rights to his own property. Pelicano claims he was told if he contacted the media, his bank note would be accelerated and that a lawsuit would be filed against him—“threats that OCD fulfilled,” he says.

Those change orders included, among others:

  • Substituting non-pressure treated lumber instead of the pressure treated lumber called for in the building specifications;
  • Sloppy fittings of windows which allowed moisture to invade the structure;
  • Relocating the hot water heater to a location that could pose a threat of fire, and
  • Cutting a hole in the door in order to make the hot water tank fit.

Pelicano subsequently hired a professional engineering and inspection firm, Gurtler Brothers of New Orleans, to evaluate the reconstruction efforts. He presented copies of the firm’s photos-and-report and asked that immediate action be taken to remedy the conditions of the property.

“OCD refused,” he says, “and instead, contacted another construction company, Lago Construction Co. (which is not an engineering nor a qualified inspection firm) to conduct an ‘impartial’ inspection.”

Lago then issued a report passing off defects “as either minor or simply not in need of fixing,” Pelicano says.

Incredibly, Pelicano later learned that Lago was a business partner with Maier Consulting, headed by that same Mark Maier who simultaneously served as Program Director of the Small Rental Property Program for OCD. http://images.bimedia.net/documents/Lago+-+SRPP+Labor+Analysis+10-25-12.pdf

No conflict of interest there, right?

Oh, wait. It gets better.

The head of Lago, Praveen Kailas, whose family poured more than $23,000 into Bobby Jindal’s campaigns in 2003, 2007 and 2011, pleaded guilty in 2013 to federal charges of fraudulent billing in the…(wait for it)….Louisiana Road Home’s Small Rental Property Program. http://www.claimsjournal.com/news/southcentral/2013/08/22/235416.htm

Jindal’s office said it launched an internal investigation but dropped the probe when Mark Maier, the consultant (and, did we mention, coincidentally, Program Director of the Small Rental Property Program for OCD?) wrote a note absolving Lago of any wrongdoing.

He wrote a note, folks, clearing his business partner of wrongdoing but relied on that same business partner to block recovery by a man ripped off by the very program he headed.

Perhaps someone should have written a note for Richard Nixon, or John Wayne Gacy, or Mark David Chapman, or John Hinckley, Jr., or former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, or former Federal Judge Thomas Porteous.

We could go on but you get the idea: He wrote a damned note to clear his partner but that same tainted relationship played a major role in events that today see the state trying to foreclose on Tony Pelicano.

What could possibly be wrong with this picture?

What could possibly go wrong with the Shelter at Home Program?

And did Jindal return any of that $23,000 from the third (at a minimum) convicted felon who contributed big bucks to his campaigns?

Or did he write a note on their behalf?

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Certifiable nutcase claims BR cop shootings were fake; LouisianaVoice has forwarded his email to authorities

Posted in Crime, Governor's Office, State Police on July 31, 2016| 9 Comments »

You’ve seen ‘em in your email inbox: Those offers from the widow of a Nigerian prince to deposit millions of dollars into your account or some variation thereof—an offer that seems too good to be true (it is).

More recently, I’ve become the recipient of a blitz of text messages from someone who apparently thinks my cell number is that of the Beastie Boys, whatever a Beastie Boy is (oh, stop it. I know they’re a boy band even though I wouldn’t know them from those boys from the Backstreet).

Then there are those calls from Carmen representing something called Card Services and offering to reduce my credit card interest rate. Those wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t so persistent as to call me four or five times a week.

And we’ve all received those emails that begin with, “This is a true story…” Right away, you know it isn’t.

But Saturday night I received the most despicable, outrageous, disgusting—and frightening—email yet. Out of an abundance of caution I have forwarded the email to State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson, Baton Rouge Sheriff Sid Gautreaux and Attorney General Jeff Landry.

Normally, when I receive these kinds of emails, they are asking me to pursue some kind of fantastic theory involving some conspiracy or other in hopes I will do a story—apparently to legitimize or validate their whack-o story, I immediately delete them. It is those from which I run fast and far.

The one I received Saturday falls into that category and normally would be deleted with never another thought. But this nut case is so out-there and offers up such an absurd, obnoxious scenario, I felt it necessary to write about it—not to appease him but to put others on alert that these people really do walk among us, albeit wearing aluminum foil hats.

In a nutshell (and we do mean nut), this is his story: There were no shootings that took the lives of three police officers and wounded three others, one critically. The entire thing was something called a “Multi-Jurisdictional X-Plan Drill” financed by Homeland Security and is an example of “stolen valor at its worst,” an “Oceans (sic) Eleven-style rip-off.”

If that enough to make your skin crawl, there’s more.

This weirdo’s objection was to the $250,000, plus $25,000 for each surviving child being paid to the widows of the three slain officers—and U.S. Rep. Garrett Graves and U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy are trying to secure an additional $340,000 for each of the three families, he points out, apparently blaming Cassidy for his daughter’s unsuccessful audition for a singing part in a 2010 Suess (sic) play (honest: that’s what he wrote).

And of course, he never reveals his identity, using only this email address:


batonrougehoax@gmail.com

“I need assistance exposing this hoax, which includes the entire State Government of Louisiana as well as the entire Government of the United States Corporation,” he wrote. “We need to move quickly before they get away with this gigantic pigeon drop game of theirs.”

What?!!? I mean, WHAT?!!???

            Hold on. It gets more bizarre. Much more bizarre. I’m telling you folks, this guy’s a few croutons short of a full salad. In need of a little more special sauce for his Big Mac. A couple of Thou Shalt Nots shy of a Commandment. Here is more of his claim :

  • “The ‘officers’ (meaning the three who were killed and, presumably, the one still in critical condition) are FAKE!!! They are not real people at all. These images (their photos, shown by media nationwide—and included with his incoherent rant) are photo-shopped (sic)!!!”

In his mind (or what’s left of it), he may somehow believe that. But I know for a certainty they are real. The three who were killed and the one who is still fighting for his life as I write this are all residents of Livingston Parish, where I live. I know the subdivision in which each lives. I know their neighbors. My daughters attended school with Nicholas Tullier who is a native of Denham Springs and who clings to life after multiple surgeries. He was shot in the head with a real bullet and he is a real person with a real family, this real idiot’s claim notwithstanding.

In a grassy knoll, we-didn’t-really-send-astronauts-to-the-moon twisted method of reasoning, he writes:

  • “You pay for the hoax, and then you pay for the protection. It’s the old Chicago-style mobster mentality…You pay for the initial Homeland Security Exercise, which scares the hell out of everybody because the media broadcasts it on the ‘news’ as if it’s real. And then you pay for militarized police protection from the boogie man. And then they get you out the back side with your feelings of compassion with their disgraceful and shameless pleas for donations for the ‘victims’ when they’ve got you pegged as the victim the whole time!”

Incredibly, he poses the rhetorical question, apparently forgetting for the moment that the shooter was killed at the scene: “If this were true, don’t you think that there would have been an arrest of some sore here? This is all fake scripted out nonsense designed to try and control and manipulate your emotional capacities. There is no truth to any of this. The entire drama that was acted out on the streets of Baton Rouge was a parade. And if you think it’s real…you have literally been played like a fiddle.”

Here’s more:

  • “…First, they scare the s–t out of everybody with their fake video shooting of Alton Stirling (sic) by the Baton Rouge City Police. Then they tie it together with this ridiculous, asinine video of the fake murder of Philando Castile by the police in St. Anthony, Minnesota. And to top it all off, we go to Dallas, Texas for that incredibly spectacular Multi-Jurisdictional X-Plan Drill, and then to top it all off (how many toppings was that?), we’re back here in Baton Rouge with the grand finally (sic): the exciting and dramatic event at the B-Quick on Airline Hwy.
  • “Truth is: No one shot. No one dead.”

DISCLAIMER: Folks, I remind you, the foregoing diatribe is in no way affiliated with LouisianaVoice or any of its representatives. It is the ranting of a demented person who is so full of venom and hatred as to be completely and totally disoriented—and potentially dangerous. Again, I remind you that the ONLY reason for presenting this (and this is the condensed edition of his rant, by the way) is to illustrate that there are those out there, probably next you in line at Wal-Mart or the drug store (check that: they’re probably off their medication), or next to you in traffic or perhaps even in the office cubicle next to yours who are riding on the Disoriented Express.

While our initial reaction to his frothing at the mouth may be to laugh it off as just another nut job, it isn’t funny in the least. This is very kind of thinking that prompts mass shootings at elementary schools that take the lives of the most innocent among us.

Times have changed. When I was in school, we had fire drills. Later, they had those ridiculously naïve atomic bomb drills where the kids would crawl under their desks (I missed out on that). Today, Louisiana State law requires that schools conduct lockdown drills within the first couple of weeks of the new school year and periodically thereafter in preparation for one of these maniacal assaults. Children shouldn’t have to concern themselves about what they would do to protect themselves from a shooter.

It would behoove us as adults to be ever-vigilant, to make ourselves aware of any action on the part of anyone what appears out of the ordinary. This person’s wild-eyed, profanity-laced invective is just the sort of thing that should keep us alert and aware.

 

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Operator of 1990s Ponzi scheme outed by Ruston newspaper re-surfaces quarter-century later as major Trump fund-raiser

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Corruption, Courts, Crime, Elections, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, PACs, Politicians, Transparency on June 21, 2016| 14 Comments »

When it comes to financial shell games and political flim-flam, it seems that the two have a lot in common, oftentimes including the same personality mixes whose names keep cropping up. Sometimes those names can materialize like a deadly vapor in proceedings separated by a couple of decades. And somehow, those years and events mysteriously converge to affect the lives of thousands—or millions—of people.

It was in late 1990 that the late John Hays, the cantankerous publisher of the weekly Morning Paper in Ruston began writing stories that raised questions about Towers Financial Corp. and its chairman, one Steven Hoffenberg.

At first, his stories attracted little interest. On paper, as the sportswriters would say, it was a mismatch. Hays, described by NEW YORK TIMES in an April 1993 story as “a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, cowboy-booted newspaper publisher” was pitted against Hoffenberg, who briefly ran The New York Post, eventually taken over by Rupert Murdoch. Hoffenberg owned two jets, a yacht, limousines, mansions, and a Fifth Avenue office. Hays drove an old van well past its prime. It quickly shaped up as an epic battle between a small-town publisher operating on a shoestring and a sophisticated New Yorker who had, it seemed, more money than God.

But investors were getting nervous in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some of them called Hays who had a penchant for taking on phony investment schemes. Hays, as was his wont, began making calls that piqued the interest of Securities and Exchange Commission investigators as well as state regulators. He had worked with these same regulators in other scams, so he had the credentials necessary to make them sit up and pay attention whenever he called.

Hays even managed to attract the attention of major newspapers like the WASHINGTON POST

Hoffenberg had all the right political connections. He was a business ally of former Texas Gov. John Connally and with a former co-chairman of the Republican National Committee. Other friends in high places included Victoria Reggie, daughter of powerful Crowley Judge Edmund Reggie and the future wife of Sen. Edward Kennedy, New York City Mayor Mario Cuomo, and Mickey Kantor, President Bill Clinton’s trade representative. Heavy hitters, one and all.

Some of his connections, however, tended to hang back in the murky shadows of a darker side of society. https://porkinspolicyreview.com/tag/steven-hoffenberg/

http://gawker.com/501354/exposed-the-leon-black-jeffrey-epstein-connection

http://www.mediaite.com/online/vanity-fair-editor-reportedly-removed-underage-girls-allegations-about-jeffrey-epstein-from-2003-story/

When a Shreveport brokerage firm started peddling high-yielding notes for Towers in 1990, Hays said he immediately wondered “if some fellow up in New York has such a good deal, what would inspire him to come down here to northern Louisiana and make the local people rich?”

He started making calls and writing stories—stories that obviously did not sit well with Hoffenberg.

If Hays was suspicious of Hoffenberg, the feeling was more than mutual. “He’s not a credible person,” Hoffenberg said of Hays. “He runs a newspaper that is full of lies. I have never heard from anybody that John Hays was somebody we should take seriously. I mean, he gives his newspaper away; he throws it on people’s driveways.” Twenty-five years later, one could close his eyes and almost hear Donald Trump talking about another candidate or some reporter covering his campaign.

(Oh, just as a heads-up, keep that Trump comparison in mind. He’ll come up later in this story.)

Hoffenberg was correct in that last statement. Hays did indeed toss about 25,000 free copies a week in the driveways of Lincoln, Union, Bienville, and Jackson parishes.

But Hays also became a national clearinghouse for information between state regulatory agencies. He was credited by Arkansas authorities as providing information to them that allowed them to keep Hoffenberg and Towers Financial Corp. out of that state.

But not all states. Hays began making calls to regulators and learned that Towers was selling notes in states where it had failed to meet registration requirements. Enter the feds. More stories followed.

So, who won the war of words?

Well, Hoffenberg eventually entered a guilty plea to running a $475 million Ponzi scheme, the largest on record until Bernie Madoff dwarfed Hoffenberg’s financial chicanery. In 1997, Hoffenberg was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for defrauding thousands of investors. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/08/business/hoffenberg-gets-20-year-sentence-in-fraud-case.html

His nemesis who he said “runs a newspaper that is full of lies” and a man he said he never heard “from anybody that John Hays was somebody we should take seriously,” was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Someone once said never start a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel and newsprint by the boxcar. Apparently Hoffenberg wasn’t listening.

The Hoffenberg/Towers Investment saga was the subject of a lengthy abstract by Gene Murray, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Grambling State University. http://list.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A3=ind9710a&L=AEJMC&E=7BIT&P=1328897&B=–&T=TEXT%2FPLAIN;%20charset=US-ASCII

But let’s fast forward to 2016. John Hays has been dead for a year now, the Morning Paper stopped publication several months before his death when his cancer weakened him to the point he could no longer peddle his ads or chase down a good story.

Hoffenberg couldn’t get out of jail in 1996 because, he said, he was so broke he couldn’t post the $100,000 bail. http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/money/sec-hoffenberg-pay-stay-jail-article-1.730715

Twenty years later, however, he is back in the money—and he wanted everyone to know it. It’s almost enough to make you wonder if he may have had a few dollars stashed safely offshore all that time.

The man who couldn’t make $100,000 bail a couple of decades ago has recently pledged $50 million to his super PAC set up to coordinate a marketing campaign in support of Donald Trump. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ponzi-schemer-steven-hoffenberg-pledges-50-million-to-help-trump/article/2593931

Hoffenberg, who professes to be a born-again Christian (funny how prison can do that; just ask Chuck Colson), is also in the business of marketing something called the Christ Credit Card to more than 700,000 registered Christian churches through Towers Financial.

http://whaminc.us/investor-questions-wham-answers

In addition to pledging $50 million of his own money to his super PAC, he also says he intends for his PAC to raise more than $1 billion in support of Trump. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/convicted-ponzi-schemer-ill-conduct-50-million-marketing-campaign-for-trump-224350

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-super-pac-predicts-raising-1-billion/article/2592210

So much for Trump’s claim that he is financing his own campaign—or for Hoffenberg’s earlier claims of poverty.

The announcement by Hoffenberg was the first time he has explained why he founded the Get Our Jobs Back, Inc. PAC back in April. He is listed as treasurer and custodian of records by the Federal Election Commission. http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00616078/1070515/

Could this be déjà vu all over again? Can you imagine someone like Hoffenberg having the ear of a President Trump?

We have only a few random observations to make about this latest development, this unholy alliance between two high-rolling carnival hucksters of dubious trustworthiness:

  • Watch closely how he raises that much campaign cash.
  • Does his credit card scheme figure in the mix?
  • Old habits sometimes can be hard to break.
  • Where is John Hays when we really need him?

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Lobbyist with close ties to Troy Hebert, ATC, Beer League indicted by fed. grand jury on child porn, bestiality counts

Posted in ATC, Contract, Contracts, Corruption, Courts, Crime, Elections, Ethics, Politicians, Senate on May 13, 2016| 7 Comments »

A lobbyist with close ties to former Louisiana Alcohol and Tobacco Control Commissioner Troy Hebert has been indicted by a Baton Rouge federal grand jury on more than 30 counts of bestiality and distribution and possession of child pornography. http://news.co.cr/u-s-owner-costa-rica-hotel-faces-online-child-porn-charges/47325/

Christopher G. Young, 53, a prominent lobbyist for the Beer Industry League of Louisiana, is also a brother to former Jefferson Parish President and assistant prosecutor John Young who was an unsuccessful candidate for Lieutenant Governor last fall.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1697&dat=20030620&id=bCgqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MUgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6713,2339971&hl=en

Young is part owner of a hotel in the Central American country of Costa Rica where he was a frequent visitor on business and vacation trips, says Costa Rica Star reporter Jaime Lopez. The indictment says Young received two videos depicting prepubescent boys engaged in bestiality from an associate in that country. From from 2013 through 2015, Young then distributed the pornographic videos to 38 different individuals on 33 separate occasions via his cellphones, the indictment says.

Young is a registered lobbyists for a number of interests, most of which have strong ties to the alcohol and entertainment interests in Louisiana. Young was listed as Executive director of the Louisiana Association of Beverage Alcohol Licensees for which he also was listed as a lobbyist.

Here is a list of Young’s lobbying clients provided by the State Board of Ethics:

CHRISTOPHER GERARD YOUNG
2016: Local / Legislative / Executive
P.O. BOX 55297
METAIRIE, LOUISIANA 70055
504-915-5953
DAVID BRIGGS ENTERPRISES, INC.
Legislative / Executive
Active: 1/25/2009 – current
641 PAPWORTH AVENUE
METAIRIE, LOUISIANA 70005
BEER INDUSTRY LEAGUE OF LOUISIANA
Legislative / Executive
Active: 1/25/2009 – current
575 N. 8TH STREET
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA 70802
LOUISIANA ASSOCIATION OF BEVERAGE ALCOHOL LICENSEES, INC.
Legislative / Executive
Active: 1/25/2009 – current
P.O. BOX 55012
METAIRIE, LOUISIANA 70055
WINE AND SPIRITS FOUNDATION OF LOUISIANA, INC.
Legislative / Executive
Active: 1/25/2009 – current
575 N. 8TH STREET
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA 70802
TIPITINA’S FOUNDATION, INC.
Legislative / Executive
Active: 1/25/2009 – current
4040 TULANE AVENUE, SUITE 8000
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA 70119
RXPATH
Legislative / Executive
Active: 1/23/2012 – current
641 PAPWORTH
METAIRIE, LOUISIANA 70005
FRENCH QUARTER BUSINESS LEAGUE
Legislative / Local
Active: 4/1/2014 – current
119 MULBERRY DRIVE
METAIRIE, LOUISIANA 70005

I attempted to obtain a comment from one of Young’s biggest clients, the Louisiana Beer Industry League. When I called the number, we had to navigate the usual menu. We were given options to dial different extension numbers to reach Executive Director John Williams, office representatives Nicole Patel and Toni Villa (titles unknown), and finally, Chris Young.

After punching the number for Young, I got several rings and then a voicemail for his extension number (no name). I called back three more times and in succession, punched the numbers for Williams, Patel and Villa. I got only Williams’ voice mail and with Patel’s number, I was routed back to the main menu so I then punched Villa’s number and, voila! She answered. After identifying myself and telling her who I was with, the conversation unfolded this way (my questions in italics; her answers in boldface type):

“I was calling for a comment on the indictment of Chris Young.”

“We have no comment at this time.”

“Is he still employed by the Beer League?”

“He is not an employee.”

“As of when?”

“He has never been an employee.”

“He’s not?” (I’m thinking of that menu option for Young’s telephone extension.)

“He’s a contractor.”

“Is he still under contract?”

“We have no comment.”

So all I got was he (a) is not an employee, he (b) is/was a contractor, but he (c) does/did have his own telephone extension at the Louisiana Beer Industry League.

In addition to his lobbying activities, Young also serves as  legal counsel for most, if not all, bars and restaurants coming before ATC for permits to sell alcohol.

One source told LouisianaVoice that after Hebert was named to succeed Murphy Painter as ATC Commissioner, “Young never showed his face at a hearing on permit requests.”

The source, a former ATC agent, said Young was required to appear at the ATC hearings to represent his clients during Painter’s tenure but when Hebert became commissioner, “everything was done behind closed doors.”

How did Young come to represent virtually all applicants for permits to sell alcohol?

Well, it’s easy when you have a close relative in the right place to help.

Chris Young’s sister, Judy Pontin, was installed by Hebert as a $71,000-a-year “Executive Management Officer” for ATC’s New Orleans office in November of 2013. As such, she is in a perfect position to help her brother.

ATC insiders told LouisianaVoice that when an establishment wants to apply for an alcohol permit, or whenever a business experiences problems with ATC, Pontin invariably refers them to Chris Young for legal representation.

We covered that angle back in February when we learned that Hebert intervened in an investigation by ATC agents into a fatal accident in which a man with a blood alcohol content of .307 percent (more than 3½ higher than the .08 percent legal definition of intoxication in Louisiana) and driving at a high rate of speed, struck two bicyclists, killing Nathan Crowson and severely injuring his riding companion, Daniel Morris.

Branch, who had a previous DWI conviction in 2006 and was given a six-month suspended sentence on that occasion, was convicted of vehicular homicide and first degree vehicular negligent injuring and sentenced to 7½ years in prison.

http://theadvocate.com/news/11878236-123/baton-rouge-man-joseph-branch

There remained the issue of whether or not The Bulldog, a bar where Branch had been drinking with two friends just before the accident, might be legally liable for continuing to serve Branch after it was evident that he was intoxicated.

Anytime there is an alcohol-related auto accident involving a fatality, the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC) investigates whether or not the driver had been served alcohol after it was obvious he was intoxicated. Such customers are supposed to be eighty-sixed, or cut off from being served more alcohol.

The investigation, which would routinely require weeks upon weeks of interviews, document and video review and which normally produce written reports 30 to 40 pages in length, was unusually short in duration and produced a report of a single page.

One page that completely exonerated the bar of any violation.

http://www.wbrc.com/story/16903763/bar-cleared-in-fatal-crash

Initially, two ATC agents, neither of whom now work for the agency, began the investigation by requesting a video of the night in question to determine if Branch displayed any obvious signs of intoxication. They also asked owners of The Bulldog, located on Perkins Road in Baton Rouge, for certain other documents and information, including copies of any and all receipts of alcoholic beverages purchased by Branch.

When the bar initially refused to cooperate, the agents who customarily investigate such cases, obtained a subpoena and served it on the bar.

Enter ATC Commissioner Troy Hebert who, as it happens, is a declared candidate to succeed David Vitter in this year’s election for U.S. Senate.

In an unprecedented move, Hebert, who had zero experience as an investigator, decided he would be the lead investigator of the Bulldog.

What possible motive would Hebert have in rushing through an investigation and issuing a press release on Feb. 9 absolving the bar of any responsibility? Why would he instruct the lead agent on the case to limit his report to one page?

Why would Hebert watch the video footage for only a few seconds before proclaiming he “saw nothing” there? Why not watch the entire video to see if Branch did, in fact, appear intoxicated?

Even more curious, why would Hebert instruct that same agent to return to The Bulldog and retrieve the subpoena the agent had served on the establishment for video and records, thus freeing the bar of any responsibility to turn over key records?

Is it possible that the answer to each of these questions can consist of two words?

Might those two words be Chris Young?

Chris Young was the legal counsel for The Bulldog prior to and throughout the ATC investigation. https://louisianavoice.com/2016/02/10/why-did-atc-commissioner-troy-hebert-intervene-as-lead-investigator-in-fatal-accident-was-it-to-protect-bar-owner/

Baton Rouge television station WAFB said in its online story about the Young pornography indictment that the case “is being investigated by the FBI.” http://www.wafb.com/story/31961141/baton-rouge-attorney-indicted-for-allegedly-distributing-bestiality-porn

LouisianaVoice said in January that the FBI was investigating Hebert for claims that he used his office to extort sex from a female restaurant manager in New Orleans in exchange for fixing her licensing problems. https://louisianavoice.com/2016/01/26/fbi-said-investigating-troy-hebert-for-using-office-to-extort-sex-from-woman-in-exchange-for-fixing-licensing-problems/

All of which leaves two unanswered questions:

  • Are we talking about two separate FBI investigations or is there only one and the Young indictment only the first of more to come?
  • Was Young indicted in order bring pressure upon him to implicate others further up the food chain?

Only time will provide the answers to those questions.

But one thing is for certain: If Hebert were a serious candidate for U.S. Senate, with even a ghost of a chance for election, you can bet his opponents in this fall’s election would be in a scramble mode today for records, reports and witnesses—anything to tie Hebert to this latest sordid affair, considering his close association with Young.

But in all likelihood, none of the candidates feel that sense of urgency.

 

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