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Archive for the ‘Ethics’ Category

Ongoing investigation of drug task force capped by today’s FBI raid playing out like Denzel Washington’s ‘Training Day’

Posted in Corruption, Crime, Ethics on December 15, 2016| 4 Comments »

  • Theft of seized drugs and cash.
  • Shakedowns of drug dealers.
  • Selling confiscated drugs.
  • Witness tampering.
  • And just for good measure, sex and violence.

Plot lines out of the Denzel Washington movie Training Day or Martin Scorese’s movie The Departed?

Nope and nope. Some or all of the above are possible reasons behind a massive RAID on the Hammond Police Department and the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Hammond substation by upwards of 100 FBI agents on Thursday.

The raid was conducted as part of an ongoing—and widening—investigation of members of the joint Tangipahoa Sheriff’s Office and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) drug task force, several of whom had earlier been either arrested or suspended.

The New Orleans Advocate last month published a story about former task force member and Tangipahoa Parish deputy sheriff KARL E. NEWMAN who is charged by a federal indictment with robbery, possession with intent to distribute cocaine and Oxycodone. He and fellow task force member Johnny Domingue are slated for trial in February after Domingue pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy charges and agreed to cooperate with investigators.

Domingue told authorities that he and Newman split several thousands of dollars from the sale of narcotics, as well as cash seized in raids by the task force.

Newman is also accused of using violence against a woman following a sexual liaison with her.

The leader of the task force, DEA agent Chad Scott, a 17-year DEA veteran, has been suspended and stripped of his badge and security clearance in connection with the far-reaching investigation.

Tangipahoa Sheriff Daniel Edwards, brother to Gov. John Bel Edwards, and Hammond Police Chief James Stewart were said to be cooperating with the FBI and the DEA as the investigation continues.

Stewart was employed by the FBI for 30 years before retiring to become Hammond police chief last June.

Under our system of justice, of course, the accused are considered innocent in the eyes of the law unless and until convicted by a jury of their peers.

But still, one has to wonder about those who are entrusted with the responsibility and placed in the position of protecting us.

 

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National Review writer Dan McLaughlin just won’t let it go; writes pro-Bobby Jindal columns saying Piyush got bad rap

Posted in Boards, Campaign Contributions, Contract, Contracts, Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, Governor's Office, Legislators, Media, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, Privatization, State Agencies on December 13, 2016| 15 Comments »

In the parlance of the criminal justice system, money laundering is sometimes called “washing” or “scrubbing.”

But dirty money is always dirty money, no matter what efforts are taken to make it appear legitimate.

The same is true of politics. Having just gone through a gut-wrench senatorial campaign, we’ve seen up close and personal how political ads come in all manner of misleading half-truths and outright lies. Case in point: the absurd promises of State Sen. Bodi White (R-Central), who ran ads during his recent unsuccessful campaign for Mayor-President of Baton Rouge about how he was going to improve schools, cut the dropout rate, and attract better teachers.

The problem? Neither City Hall nor the mayor have squat to do with public education; that’s the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board’s turf. What’s more, White was fully aware of this, so his ads amounted to nothing more than pure B.S., or, to be more blunt: bald face lies.

And now, thanks to Stephen Winham, our human Early Warning System who often tips us off to interesting stories, we have the laundering of Bobby Jindal’s image by some groupie/writer for the National Review named Dan McLaughlin.

The scrubbing, however, comes a tad early; even in Louisiana, the citizens aren’t likely to forget the carnage wreaked by Jindal so quickly.

McLaughlin, it seems, is an attorney who practices securities and commercial litigation in New York City. He also is a contributing columnist at National Review Online (Go figure). He is a former contributing editor of RedState (No surprise there), a columnist at the Federalist and the New Ledger. During his spare time he is a baseball blogger at BaseballCrank.com.

McLaughlin has written at least a dozen or so insipid pro-Jindal pabulum-laden claptrap-filled columns, all of which could just as easily have been written by Timmy Teepell.

In his most recent contribution to National Review (the entire story is not contained at this link because I’m too cheap to subscribe), McLaughlin WRITES that “Jindal took on the enormous challenge of cutting government in a state that is culturally deep-red but economically populist, and he paid a great political cost for his efforts.”

Apparent, he wrote that garbage with a straight face.

There’s more from McLaughlin who wrote in an earlier column for RedState that Jindal was the BEST CANDIDATE for the Republican presidential nomination and that (get this) Jindal ruled in one of the presidential debates (never mind Jindal never got past the undercard debates in which all participants were weak also-runs).

McLaughlin wrote that Jindal’s low approval ratings “and the desperate wails of his Democratic successor over the condition of the state’s budget seem to support” the view that Jindal left the state in financial disarray.

Seriously? McLaughlin conveniently overlooks the fact that the “view” that Jindal’s leaving the state in disastrous shape took shape long before John Bel Edwards and long before Jindal abandoned his post for his delusional pursuit of the presidency.

McLaughlin made no mention of Jindal’s administration coming up with a contract to give away two of the state’s learning hospitals that contained 50 blank pages.

He ignores the matter of how Jindal doled out plum board and commission positions to big contributors to his campaign, how he rolled over anyone who disagreed with him by either firing or demoting them, how he took tainted campaign contributions from felons and refused to return the money, or how he gutted the reserve fund of the Office of Group Benefits in order to try to close gaping budget deficits that occurred every single year of his governorship.

“The path to smaller government requires persistence, backbone, and a willingness to accept compromises and a lot of defeats,” he wrote.

Correction, Mr. McLaughlin: the path to Bobby Jindal’s version of smaller government requires ruthlessness, vindictiveness, and unparalleled selfishness.

While one might justifiably think that Jindal’s political career is dead and buried, is it even remotely possible that he might be plotting a comeback?

Already, there are the first rumblings that Jindal is eying the 2019 gubernatorial campaign.

Just in case, perhaps someone should send McLaughlin a copy of my book, Bobby Jindal: His Destiny and Obsession. Not that he would change his mind, but at least he would have no excuse for not knowing.

And just in case you’ve not ordered your copy yet, click on the image of the book at upper right and place your order immediately.

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LouisianaVoice exclusive: State Ethics Commission hits State Troopers’ Association with fine of $5,000 over contributions

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Retirement, State Police on December 10, 2016| 8 Comments »

LouisianaVoice’s disdain for the State Ethics Board has been no secret since Bobby Jindal gutted the board’s power only days after taking office in 2008, causing the board’s membership to resign as a group.

But even the toothless Ethics Board did what Natchitoches attorney Taylor Townsend, paid thousands of taxpayer dollars to conduct an investigation, could not do, according to a Thursday (December 8) newsletter from none other than the Louisiana State Troopers Association (LSTA).

Almost a year to the day after LouisianaVoice broke the STORY on December 9, 2015, of illegal campaign contributions made by LSTA through its executive director and lobbyist David Young, the Ethics Board imposed a $5,000 fine on LSTA for its clumsy manner of funneling more than $45,000 in campaign contributions to various candidates over a period of several years.

LSTA is a tax-exempt organization and is allowed to make political contributions but the manner in which it did so has raised major legal issues and may even have prompted a federal investigation, LouisianaVoice also learned.

While the Ethics Commission has yet to issue a formal announcement of the fine, word was received via a newsletter sent to LSTA members.

At the same time, word was learned for the first time of a federal investigation of LSTA, presumably also over the association’s method of making the prohibited contributions. In the paragraph immediately below word of the fine the newsletter said: “Federal Grand Jury—Nothing new to report.”

The newsletter also announced for the first time the troop-by-troop vote to oust four retired troopers who lodged the initial complaint about the political contributions:

Louisiana Board of Ethics complaint – The Ethics Board has completed its investigation and has ruled against the LSTA. The LSTA was fined $5,000.00 on how political contributions were made in the past.

Federal Grand Jury – Nothing new to report.

Troop A made a motion to remove LSTA members (REDACTED), Blaine Matte, Leon “Bucky” Millet, and Tanny Devillier and for each member to be voted on separately. Troop L seconded the motion.

  • (REDACTED TO PROTECT RETIREE): Troops B & C voted no, Troops A, D, E, F, G, L, & HQ voted yes. (Troop I and the Retiree Representative were absent for the board meeting) Motion passed 7-2.
  • Leon “Bucky” Millet: Troops B & C voted no, Troop E Abstained from voting, Troops A, D, F, G, L, & HQ voted yes. Motion passed 6-2.
  • Tanny Devillier: Troops B & C voted no, Troop E Abstained from voting, Troops A, D, F, G, L, & HQ voted yes. Motion passed 6-2.
  • Blaine Matte: Troops B & C voted no, Troop E Abstained from voting, Troops A. D, F, G, L, & HQ voted yes. Motion passed 6-2.

A letter will be sent to all four members who have been removed from the organization advising of such.

The cowardly action to revoke the membership of the four troopers who served honorably only serves to underscore LSTA’s determination to:

  • Silence the voice of dissenting opinion within the organization, a course that flies in the face of the law enforcement organization’s oath to protect the rights of citizens, including the First Amendment right of free speech;
  • Throw a cloak of secrecy over LSTA’s agenda and its actions;
  • Facilitate the transformation of LSTA’s mission from a benevolent organization to one with significant political clout.

LSTA laundered the political contributions by having Young write personal checks to candidates, including more than $10,000 each to Bobby Jindal and John Bel Edwards. Young would then submit an invoice for “expenses” equal to the amount of the contributions so as to conceal the true source of the campaign contributions—LSTA members who are active and retired state troopers but who are prohibited by law to engage in political activity.

Upon learning how the contributions were laundered through Young’s personal bank account, Edwards returned his contribution but Jindal apparently did not.

Young subsequently admitted to the Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC), the state police equivalent to the State Civil Service Board, but which has oversight only of state police, that the method was employed as a means of circumventing state law which prohibits political activity by individual state troopers.

LSPC eventually voted to retain former State Senator Townsend, now a private attorney in Natchitoches, to conduct an investigation of the contributions and to report back to the commission. Instead, after a cursory investigation, Townsend declined to submit a written report and recommended verbally that no action be taken.

His failure to find enough evidence against individual members of (LSTA) was nothing short of a shameful whitewash, given the thousands of dollars the questionable investigation cost Louisiana taxpayers.

When LouisianaVoice made a public records request for Townsend’s report and a copy of a key audio recording of a meeting of one of the affiliate members of LSTA at which it was openly admitted that the organization had “violated the law,” Townsend responded that there was no report and that the recording was “never entered into evidence,” and therefore was not a public record.

Because of the manner in which Townsend’s “investigation” received such superficial treatment, skeptics immediately speculated that the probe was quashed from a higher authority, possibly by Edwards himself. State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson, who is closely allied with the LSTA leadership, was reappointed by Edwards who in turn, is closely tied to Townsend.

But the sham of an investigation by Townsend takes on even more significance in light of the message sent by the Ethics Commission’s action and raises serious questions about the wisdom of engaging an ally of the governor for such a politically explosive matter as illegal contributions.

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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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Western District Federal Judge Patricia Minaldi has series of cases removed; intoxication on bench said suspected reason

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Judges, Uncategorized on December 7, 2016| 2 Comments »

It will be exactly six years tomorrow that a federal judged was ousted from office by impeachment. It so happens that it was a Louisiana judge, Thomas Porteous of New Orleans, a Bill Clinton appointee, was removed by vote of the U.S. Senate on Dec. 8, 2010, for taking bribes and making false statements under oath.

Porteous is the only federal judge among the 15 who have been removed by impeachment who was from Louisiana.

Could it now be that a second Louisiana judge, an appointee of Clinton’s successor, may face a similar fate? Well, no one has gone so far as to suggest that just yet, but the rumor mill about U.S. District Judge Patricia Minaldi’s reported drinking problems is at full throttle in the Lake Charles area.

One of the grounds for impeachment of federal judges, who are appointed for life, is intoxication on the bench and two have been removed for that reason, the most recent almost 150 years ago.

The first was John Pickering, an appointee of George Washington, who was impeached and removed in 1803 for mental instability and intoxication on the bench. The other was and Abraham Lincoln appointee, Mark Delahay, likewise removed in 1873 for intoxication on the bench.

It is important to explain the difference between an official’s being impeached and removed. Impeachment is simply the bringing of formal charges against an officeholder. He is then tried by the U.S. Senate and that body’s vote of guilty or not guilty determines if the accused is removed from office.

In the case of the charges against Porteous, senators voted guilty unanimously—96-0—for his failure to recuse himself in a case involving a former law partner with whom he was accused of trading favors for cash. On the charge of accepting meals, trips and car repair from a bail bondsman, the vote was 69-27 in favor of conviction. The Senate then voted 94-2 that he should be disqualified from ever again holding federal office.

LouisianaVoice has received reports that Minaldi, a federal judge for the Western District of Louisiana in Lake Charles had a criminal case over which she was the presiding judge REMOVED following a series of procedural errors, including assigning some of her duties to a prosecuting attorney.

A native of Somerset, Massachusetts, she is a 1980 graduate of Wesleyan University and a 1983 graduate of Tulane University Law School.

From 1983 to 1986, she served as an assistant district attorney of New Orleans before accepting a similar post at the 14th Judicial District in Lake Charles until 1996, when she became a state district judge in the same district.

She was nominated for a federal judgeship by President George W. Bush on January 15, 2003. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 6 and assumed office three days later, succeeding Judge James Trimble when Trimble reached senior status.

As federal judge, she dismissed a case in 2009 against a man who mailed anthrax and bomb threats following 9/11. The man had been convicted by a federal jury in 2004 on charges of threatening to use weapons of mass destructions but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his conviction and his 30-year prison sentence in April 2009.

She was arrested on January 23, 2014, for having an open alcoholic beverage inside her vehicle and less than a month later, on February 14, she was charged with DWI. She refused a field sobriety test but ultimately pleaded guilty to DWI.

One source, an attorney, said Minaldi has been appearing on the bench intoxicated and unable to perform her duties. On at least one such occasion, the attorney said, the case was removed from her court and transferred to the federal court in Alexandria.

“I’ve heard the stories,” said another. “We all have. In our professional circle, it would impossible not to hear them. There were a lot of questions about a criminal case that was removed from her courtroom.

In fact, Judge Minaldi has been pulled off several cases this year, the latest of which occurred just yesterday.

ASSOCIATED PRESS reported that the trial of a man accused of producing kiddie porn and of crossing state lines to have sex with a minor was cut short less than an hour after court convened with no reason provided for the mistrial.

The only clue, and a sketchy one at that, was in the form of a single-page order from Chief Judge Dee Drell that he was “exercising (his) prerogative” in terminating proceedings. That trial is scheduled to resume on Jan. 3 in Alexandria.

In that case, Frankie Maldonado is the defendant. His attorney, Randal McCann, as well as the prosecuting attorney, have not commented on the sudden unexpected termination of Maldonado’s trial.

Nor has Judge Minaldi commented on the chief judge’s actions or of reports about her alleged problem with alcohol. LouisianaVoice attempted to contact her by telephone but was told she was not in her office. So far, she has not responded to our request that she return our call.

The biggest case pulled from Judge Minaldi—again, after trial proceedings were underway—was that of Iberia Parish Sheriff LOUIS ACKEL, accused of beating prisoners in his jail. His trial was moved to Shreveport and he was subsequently acquitted.

A third attorney contacted by LouisianaVoice was more circumspect than the others. “Let me say this,” the attorney said. “I personally like Judge Minaldi and when she’s okay, she’s a good judge. She’s very personable and a likable person. I knew she had a problem at one time but did not know she’d started drinking again. That’s very unfortunate.”

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