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Archive for the ‘Ethics’ Category

Second source comes forward to detail shortcomings in Fire Marshal’s investigation of fatal fire in St. Tammany Parish

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, State Fire Marshal on July 21, 2017| 13 Comments »

A second individual has come forward with more information which illustrates the manner in which the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal (LOSFM) mishandled a suspected arson investigation in St. Tammany Parish late last week.

The bodies of Nanette Krentel, 49, and two of her pets were recovered from a residential FIRE last Friday. She was the wife of St. Tammany Fire District No. 12 Chief Stephen Krentel. Early but unconfirmed reports indicate she had a bullet wound to the head.

State law requires that any agency investigating a homicide assign as its lead investigator a certified arson investigator but LOSFM instead assigned an inspector, Henry B. Rayborn, to the investigation.

A former LOSFM investigator voiced his concern to LouisianaVoice over the lack of professionalism and inadequate training in that fire and a string of fires set in an Avoyelles Parish nursing home. The fire marshal’s investigation of the nursing home fires has resulted in the arrest of an apparent innocent nurse employed at the facility and the suspension of her license. Her case is scheduled to go before an Avoyelles Parish Grand Jury next Thursday.

https://louisianavoice.com/2017/07/20/losfm-botches-two-fire-investigations-one-involving-a-suspicious-death-other-in-bogus-charges-against-nurse/

A second former employee of LOSFM has now come forward to provide more information to LouisianaVoice. Among the blunders committed by the fire marshal’s office in that investigation:

  • A perimeter was not set up to secure the crime scene;
  • Fire Marshal investigators lacked proper equipment and experience to handle such a complex scene;
  • The lead investigator had no experience and was not comfortable handling a death investigation;
  • Private industry fire investigators secured more evidence than the numerous SFM deputies on scene;
  • Private investigators contacted Brant Thompson, who immediately reassigned the case to Jason Johnston. This was after the investigation was already screwed up;
  • Rayborn, one of the State Fire Marshal investigators on the scene, resigned after confronting Thompson on the issues of lack of training, experience, etc.;
  • The still-active investigation is now being handled by Rick Jones.

“This investigation is very complex and believed to have foul play involved,” our latest source said. “The State Fire Marshal’s office is slacking big time. This will eventually come forward as we believe the victim’s husband, who knows State Fire Marshal Butch Browning well, is extremely disappointed with the investigation so far.”

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LOSFM botches two fire investigations, with one involving suspicious death, aother producing bogus criminal charges

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Politicians, Public Records, State Fire Marshal on July 20, 2017| 27 Comments »

LouisianaVoice has been receiving reports of questionable expenditures and inadequate training of inspectors and investigators at the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal (LOSFM) for several months, the most serious, of course, being the charges of inadequate and improper training.

Rebuilding from last August’s flood has delayed the story, which understandably involves considerable time with investigations and interviews.

But now, fires in two different areas of the state—one involving a suspicious death which resulted in the angry resignation of a top LOSFM inspector, and the other which resulted in the arrest of an innocent nurse on 77 counts in five separate fires at a nursing home—have clearly illustrated not only that the claims of inadequate training or accurate but that there may be a serious argument for malfeasance in office on the part of LOSFM upper command.

That’s a strong accusation for LouisianaVoice—or anyone—to make, but let’s examine the facts.

In both cases, a residential fire in which the wife of a local fire chief was found dead in the St. Tammany Parish town of Lacombe, reportedly with a bullet wound to her head, and the multiple fires at Bayou Chateau Nursing Home in Simmesport in Avoyelles Parish, LOSFM failed to send a certified arson investigator, assigning instead fire marshal inspectors who are not certified as arson investigators or qualified to perform those duties.

In the case of any homicide investigation such as the death of NANETTE KRENTEL, 49-year-old wife of St. Tammany Fire District No. 12 Chief Stephen Krentel, the fire marshal’s office is required by law to assign as its lead investigator a certified arson investigator. Instead, Henry B. Rayborn, a 10-year veteran LOSFM inspector was given the assignment.

“He (Rayborn) is one of the very best inspectors the fire marshal’s office has,” one former co-worker told Louisiana

Voice. “Everyone considers him as top-notch, but he is an inspector, not an arson investigator. There’s a huge difference. He was in over his head and he tried to convey that to Chief Brant Thompson.”

The former co-worker said that during a conference call between Rayborn, Thompson and other unidentified participants, Thompson became abrasive and Rayborn responded by telling Thompson he could consider the conversation as his resignation.

Reports from LOSFM indicate that State Fire Marshal Butch Browning, apparently fearing Rayborn will talk to the media, is pleading with him to reconsider his resignation.

When a series of fires broke out at Bayou Chateau Nursing Home late last year and earlier this year, LOSFM Inspector Kevin Billiot was dispatched to investigate. Like Rayborn, Billiot, a part-time minister, is not qualified as an arson investigator and sources say he never removed any articles from the fires for analysis.

LPN BRITTANY DUPAR, 27, of Simmesport, was subsequently arrested on two counts of attempted first-degree murder, five counts of aggravated arson and 70 counts of cruelty to the infirm.

The first fire was on Nov. 10, 2016. Two fires were set on March 25, at 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., and two more on March 26, at 10 a.m. and 4:40 p.m. Two of the fires were to bedding. Others were under a bathroom sink, to a supply closet, and in an undisclosed location in a patient’s room.

“He was also in far over his head,” a former arson investigator said of Billiot, who has been with the fire marshal’s office only a short time.

When other personnel began their own investigation, the time sheets of Dupar were pulled and it was learned that on the days of four of the fires, including the one in December, she was not even at work.

Moreover, a lighter was found in a patient’s bed.

Meanwhile, the Louisiana State Board of Practical Nurse Examiners has SUSPENDED Dupar’s license pending the outcome of her criminal charges.

Evidence such as her time sheets and the lighter discovered in the possession of a patient, in legal parlance, is called exculpatory evidence, meaning it is evidence that would held an accused in proving his or her innocence and under law, those accused are entitled to all such evidence.

But with an Avoyelles Parish Grand Jury scheduled to consider the charges against Dupar next Thursday (July 27), that evidence has yet to be given the district attorney’s office.

A recent email thread between Thompson, son of State Sen. Francis Thompson, and other LOSFM personnel reveal a disturbing lack of concern for Dupar on the part of Thompson.

Asked if the DA’s office should be informed of LOSFM findings that would clear Dupar, Thompson declined, suggesting that the office should let events “play their course with the Grand Jury.”

Thompson, something of a political survivor and apparently one with all the right connections, would appear to be more concerned with protecting the image of his office than in protecting the rights and the career of a wrongly-accused woman.

Perhaps the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney would find that email thread interesting reading.

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If LSPC member did threaten trooper with reprisals, he should resign—but Caruso-Riecke should leave with him

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Commissions, Corruption, Ethics, Governor's Office, Media, State Police on July 18, 2017| 11 Comments »

After viewing WVUE-TV Lee Zurik’s report on the Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC), several things are abundantly clear:

  • If a State Police report is accurate, commission member Calvin Braxton must go but it has to be a package deal with fellow member Jared Caruso-Riecke also being shown the door.
  • The commission, embroiled in tawdry political theatrics, is no longer functional if, indeed, it really ever was. It is incapable of autonomy and must be abandoned and Louisiana State Police (LSP) brought back under the management of the Louisiana Civil Service Commission.
  • In the alternative, if it is to remain intact, there must be put in place a prohibition against a state trooper’s serving as chairman.

LouisianaVoice has been upfront in its past support of Braxton, primarily because he is something of a maverick who refused to take his marching orders from former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson. He often bucked the rest of the board and he asked probing questions that made some other members more than a little uncomfortable. The commission needed such a member.

Our 180-flip, based in large part on Zurik’s excellent REPORT Monday night, isn’t because Braxton had a couple of tickets fixed—or that he apparently imposed on then-LSPC Executive Director Cathy Derbonne to write letters on his behalf in efforts to put the fix in.

Who among us has never had a ticket taken care of by friends in the right places? In the spirit of full disclosure, I have on a couple of occasions. My first was as a 21-year-old and was issued as the result of an accident that I still maintain, after 52 years, was not my fault. Not knowing any better, I showed up in court in Farmerville in Union Parish only to have District Attorney Ragan Madden (he represented the 3rd Judicial District, which includes Union and Lincoln, my home parish) meet me at the back of the courtroom. “What’re you doing here? I dismissed your ticket. Go home.”

Wow. And I didn’t even ask. Guess he felt the accident wasn’t my fault either.

In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that I also paid a few tickets along the way, even though in two cases, I was offered the fix, but politely declined. Also in the interest of full disclosure, none of the tickets were for anything major (other than the accident)—a rolling stop and a couple of speeding offenses but only about 15 mph over the limit.

When fellow blogger and occasional LouisianaVoice contributor Robert Burns suggested the ticket-fixing would force Gov. John Bel Edwards to remove Braxton from the commission, my first rhetorical question was: How many tickets do you suppose the governor’s brother, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards, may have fixed over the years?

No, it wasn’t the attempt to get tickets fixed that concerned me. It was Zurik’s revelation that Braxton had apparently attempted to have the state trooper who arrested his daughter for DUI transferred and that he implied that as a member of LSPC, he might be disinclined to help the trooper should he ever find himself before the commission for disciplinary action.

Those allegations were contained in a lengthy report by Troop E Commander Captain J.D. Oliphant to the Region 3 Command Inspector that was brandished by Zurik.

Such behavior on the part of a member of the commission that oversees the actions of Louisiana State Troopers in unacceptable. Period.

Granted, Zurik blindsided Braxton at the LSPC meeting last Thursday. Some call it “ambush journalism,” but Braxton has exhibited a reluctance to talk to anyone in the media, LouisianaVoice included, and the direct approach was apparently the only one available to Zurik.

And Braxton’s sudden memory loss concerning his communications with Derbonne was clumsy and was certainly less than convincing.

So why would I insist that Caruso-Riecke be removed from the commission along with Braxton?

Not because he has been a divisive force since his appointment by Gov. Edwards, though he has certainly been that.

My contention is that while Braxton has been issued tickets and then tried to get them fixed, Caruso-Riecke has made it a point of considerable pride that he avoids tickets because…

He cheats. He openly violates the law and even boasts about it on his internet Web page.

You can hear it in his own words HERE and about his wager with Team Texas HERE.

You see, Riecke, who is worth an estimated $70 million, has a lot of time on his hands to pursue his hobby as a star in a TV reality show in which he uses his modified Mercedes in cross-country rally competition, tearing down the nation’s highways at speeds of up to 140 mph.

His vehicle is equipped with two in-dash police scanners with more than 1,000 channels—concealed by a fake dashboard, a handheld scanner and several cellphones, all used to evade law enforcement on public highways.

But here’s the real clincher: his car has 10 separate license plates to help evade law enforcement.

That raises the obvious question of how one gets 10 separate license plates issued to the same vehicle. Or does he pull plates from other cars to use to escape police?

Well, he is a licensed auto dealer, so perhaps he has access to plates from other vehicles. Or maybe he registered the vehicle in multiple states—sort of like Donald Trump’s claim of multiple-state voter registration fraud.

But no one appears to be concerned about that. When Floyd Falcon, attorney for the Louisiana State Troopers Association (LSTA), fired off a LETTER to Gov. Edwards on July 11, 2016, asking that Braxton be removed from the commission, he included a laundry list of 20 specific complaints and also included a four-page State Police Incident Report by Oliphant and submitted to Region 3 Command Inspector Kevin Reeves (since named as Edmonson’s successor as Superintendent of State Police with Oliphant promoted to Major and moved to Reeves’ former post as Region 3 Command Inspector) which detailed Braxton’s alleged threats against the State Trooper who arrested his daughter.

Falcon has been strangely quiet about Caruso-Riecke’s somewhat cavalier attitude about speeding, eluding law enforcement by illegally switching license plates (and yes, it is definitely illegal). But there seems to be no indignation over his thumbing his nose at the law.

But Riecke won’t be removed by Edwards.

Why? A little thing called campaign contributions. Riecke is a close friend of Sheriff Daniel Edwards and between the sheriff and his brother, Riecke has contributed $10,000 in campaign cash. He ain’t going anywhere.

Which brings me to my final point. T.J. Doss is a state trooper. He is a mostly ineffective chairman of the LSPC but as such, is in position to control investigations (or non-investigations in the case of those illegal campaign contributions by the LSTA) of trooper misconduct.

But not once did he attempt to investigate the actions of his former boss, Mike Edmonson. Not once was that infamous San Diego trip raised before the commission. But who in his right mind would want the dubious task of investigating one’s boss?

Which is precisely why there should be a prohibition against a State Trooper serving as chairman of the LSPC. It’s too much of a hot seat—or should be—for a State Trooper. Yes, the LSTA should be represented on the commission, which hears appeals of disciplinary action by troopers. But chairman? No indeed.

 

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New low reached in attempts to smear former LSPC director to stymie lawsuit; but still no report on LSTA contributions

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Commissions, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Lawsuits, State Police on July 17, 2017| 9 Comments »

There’s an ongoing hatchet job that is remarkable only in the clumsy, amateurish manner in which it is being carried out.

But the thing that is really notable, considering the stumbling, bumbling effort is that it apparently is being executed (if you can call it that) by either the Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC) or the Louisiana State Troopers Association (LSTA)—or both.

Several weeks ago, LouisianaVoice received an anonymous letter critical of our coverage of the LSPC’s lack of credibility and integrity in the manner in which it punted on an investigation of illegal political contributions by LSTA.

First of all, there is nothing illegal per se in an association making political contributions except in this particular case, the decision was made to do so by officers of the association who are by virtue of their very membership in LSTA, state troopers. State troopers are, like their state civil service cousins, prohibited from political activity, including making campaign contributions.

To conceal their action, they simply had the LSTA Director David Young make the contributions through his personal checking account and he was then reimbursed for his “expenses.” Former LSPC member Lloyd Grafton of Ruston labeled that practice “money laundering.”

Then came the dust-up with LSPC Director Cathy Derbonne who, in performing her duties as she saw them, attempted to hold the commission members’ feet to the fire on commission regulations.

The commission, led by its president, Trooper T.J. Doss, mounted an effort to make Derbonne pay for her imagined insubordination. After all, no good deed goes unpunished. A majority of the commission quickly convened a kangaroo court to fire her but, told she didn’t have the votes to survive the coup, she resigned under duress.

She has since filed a lawsuit to be reinstated with back pay and damages but the LSPC simply turned up the heat first when two members of the commission paid a private detective to follow her in order to learn who she was talking to and meeting with. LouisianaVoice has been told that the private detective was paid for by the two commission members and not with state funds.

That anonymous letter to LouisianaVoice also accused Derbonne of having sexual relationships with a state trooper, a claim she has vehemently denied.

In some quarters, that would be called character assassination and it does tend to follow a pattern of behavior that has emerged over the past two years with certain commission members, the LSTA, and even the State Police command. Just in the past year, five commission members, the commission director, State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson has resigned, his second in command reassigned and 18 members of LSTA were subpoenaed by the FBI.

Now, New Orleans TV investigative reporter Lee Zurik has apparently been contacted to drive the stake through Derbonne’s heart, i.e. completely discredit her in order to destroy her pending litigation.

Zurik was scheduled to air a piece at 10 p.m. today (Monday) that is speculated to include descriptions of Derbonne’s attempts to fix a ticket for commission member Calvin Braxton of Natchitoches, one of the remaining members friendly to Derbonne. From all accounts, Braxton is the thrust of Zurik’s story with Derbonne being collateral damage—convenient for Doss, et al.

We have no idea what Zurik’s story will say, but he requested—and received—a lengthy list of email correspondence between Derbonne and Braxton, the contents or which are not clear but which Zurik is expected to elaborate on tonight.

The odd thing about that is Derbonne’s successor, Jason Hannaman, told the commission during its meeting last Thursday that the commission server had crashed and that all emails and all other documents were lost permanently.

If that’s the case, how were Derbonne’s email exchanges with Braxton recovered so easily and quickly for Zurik?

As if all that were not enough to keep one’s mind reeling, there is also this:

When Natchitoches attorney Taylor Townsend was hired at a price of $75,000 to investigate the LSTA campaign contributions, his contract specifically required that he file a report on his findings. Instead, he came back with a verbal recommendation that “no action be taken.”

That might have been the end of the story had it not been for retired State Trooper Leon “Bucky” Millet of Lake Arthur who kept pounding the drum at each monthly meeting, insisting that Townsend was required to file a written report. Millet, moreover, was victorious in his assertion that all information, materials, and items produced by Townsend’s investigation were property of the state and must be submitted to the commission.

That would include a tape recording of an LSTA meeting in which it was allegedly admitted that the association had violated the law in making the contributions. Townsend has that recording and it should be among the materials submitted to the commission—provided the recording didn’t also “crash,” with its contents destroyed.

So, in summation, we have a sham of an investigation of the LSTA, the orchestrated ouster of the LSPC director who was the only one knowledgeable about commission members’ activities, the hiring of a private detective to follow her, an anonymous letter intended to tarnish her reputation with one of the only news outlets that would tell her story, the forced resignation of the State Police Commander, and now the recruitment of a New Orleans TV reporter to abet the commission in taking down Braxton and further smearing Derbonne.

What could be more Louisiana?

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Tom Schedler and Clay Higgins offer clear illustration of the abyss that separates class behavior from crass boorishness

Posted in Congress, Ethics, Politicians, Uncategorized on July 6, 2017| 17 Comments »

Two Louisiana elected officials, both Republicans, have demonstrated starkly contrasting examples of responsible leadership this week.

First, the good news about an elected official doing the right thing.

Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler staunchly refused a request from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to provide it with highly personal information about Louisiana voters, including social security numbers, birth dates, and certain family history.

The commission was formed by President Frump in investigate what he claims was fraud in the presidential elections last November. Could anything have been so inappropriately named? It’s like calling the KKK a commission on human dignity and equal rights.

President Grump seems to think that widespread voter fraud prevented him from winning the popular vote. That claim seems a tad far-fetched, given the fact he lost the popular vote by about three million. Next thing you know, the Trumper will be trying to convince us that pro wrestling is real.

About two dozen states have refused outright to provide such information and another 20 or so have either not made a decision or only partially complied with the request.

Mark Ballard, writing in the Baton Rouge ADVOCATE, quoted Schedler as saying, “The President’s Commission has quickly politicized its work by asking states for an incredible amount of voter data that I have, time and time again, refused to release. My response to the Commission is, you’re not going to play politics with Louisiana’s voter data, and if you are, then you can purchase the limited public information available by law, to any candidate running for office. That’s it.”

Louisiana’s public voter list, Ballard wrote, includes only names, addresses, party affiliation and voter history. Voter history only indicates whether or not people participated in previous elections but not how they voted.

Schedler deserves credit for making the decision to comply with state law instead of trying to see if he could circumvent the law and cater to the wishes of a president who seems to have taken a ride on the Disoriented Express and checked into the Hotel Silly.

Too bad the same can’t be said of U.S. Rep. Clay (Barney Fife) Higgins, that rootin’-tootin’, gun-wavin’ former deputy (as in public information officer) sheriff who once threatened to single-handedly take out all the drug lords of St. Landry Parish only to wind up being forced to resign by an embarrassed sheriff.

Higgins somehow managed to get himself elected as something of a wannabe Trumpette and now the good folks of the Third District are saddled with him for the next 18 months. Surely, common sense will prevail and he will be denied a second term—unless, of course, they feel sorry for him and want to keep him in office until his $200,000 in delinquent child support payments are caught up.

In the meantime, he has advocated murdering all radical Islamics, radical being a relative term most likely applicable to all Islamics in Higgins’ demented mindset.

And now, this ignorant ass-clown has tried to turn a visit to the AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL into some kind of personal political statement in violation of posted plaques that requested respectful “mournful” silence inside the most infamous concentration camp where more than a million Jews were gassed by Nazis during World War II.

Higgins posted a video on YouTube in which he walks through different areas of the Poland camp, explaining that it took only about 20 minutes to kill the Jews inside the gas chambers. “This is why Homeland Security must be squared away, why our military must be invincible,” he said on the video.

“The world’s a smaller place now than it was in World War II,” Higgins said. “The United States is more accessible to terror like this, horror like this. It’s hard to walk away from gas chambers, ovens without a very sober feeling of commitment, unwavering commitment, to make damn sure that the United States of America is protected from the evils of the world.”

The Auschwitz Memorial tweeted, “Everyone has the right to personal reflections. However, inside a former gas chamber, there should be mournful silence. It’s not a stage.”

Well, the folks at the Auschwitz Memorial need to quit wasting their time with tweets about Higgins’ lack of decorum. They have to realize that this is the country that gave the world Donald Trump and Louisiana is the state that gave the U.S. Congress Clay Higgins.

Dignity and decorum are passe to these two. You could throw both into a sack, shake it up and the only way you could tell the difference between the two when you poured them out would be the orange hair and a money clip.

Trump is an insufferable egomaniac and we may as well accept that fact. Higgins is an insufferable buffoon and we may as well accept that fact.

Higgins has been in office just a tad more than six months and he’s already making transcontinental junkets.

A mere six months in office seems a little soon for him to be taking one of those “fact-finding” trips for which members of Congress are famous.

So what I’d really like to know is this:

  • What was he doing in Poland?
  • Was he on official business?
  • If so, what was the nature of that business?
  • Or was part of the official support group for the Tweeter in Chief’s Poland trip?
  • Did U.S. taxpayers pay for that trip or did he receive a free trip from some campaign supporter or lobbyist?

Or perhaps he was just hot on the trail of a St. Landry Parish drug lord.

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