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Archive for the ‘Fraud’ Category

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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Legislative Auditor is unsung hero of Louisiana government but findings of irregularities are often ignored by authorities

Posted in Audit Reports, Auditor, Boards, Commissions, Corruption, Education, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, Governor's Office, Higher Education, Media, Politicians, Recovery School District, State Agencies, Transparency, Waste on August 24, 2017| 6 Comments »

The most recent audit (August 2017) of the Foster Care Program of the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) found that:

  • DCFS did not conduct proper criminal background checks on non-certified foster care providers;
  • DCFS allowed nine certified providers with prior cases of abuse or neglect to care for foster children during fiscal years 2012-2016 without obtaining required waivers.
  • DCFS does not have a formal process to ensure that caseworkers actually assessed the safety of children placed with 68 non-certified providers.
  • DCFS did not always ensure that children in foster care received services to address physical and behavioral health needs.
  • State regulations require DCFS to expunge certain cases of abuse or neglect from the State Central Registry, which means those records are not available for caseworkers to consider prior to placing children with providers.

(See the DCFS audit summary HERE.)

So, the question now is this: What steps will the state take to protect these children now that the Legislative Auditor has pointed out these serious deficiencies?

If the results of a 2012 audit of the Louisiana Department of Economic Development’s Enterprise Zone Program is any indication, then the answer is nothing.

Under state statute, Louisiana’s Enterprise Zone (EZ) program is designed to award incentives to businesses and industries that locate in areas of high unemployment as a means of encouraging job growth. (The summary of that audit can be viewed HERE.)

That audit found that:

  • Approximately 68 percent of the 930 businesses that received EZ program incentives from the state were located outside of a designated enterprise zone. These businesses received nearly $124 million (61 percent) of the $203 million in total EZ program incentives during calendar years 2008 through 2010.
  • Approximately $3.9 billion (60 percent) of the $6.5 billion in capital investment by businesses receiving EZ incentives was located outside a designated enterprise zone.
  • Approximately 12,570 (75 percent) of the 16,760 net new jobs created by businesses granted EZ incentives were located outside an enterprise zone.
  • Four other states with which Louisiana was compared exclude retail businesses from EZ incentives. Louisiana does not, allowing such businesses as Walmart to take advantage of the incentives.
  • None of the four neighboring states allows businesses to count part-time employees among the new jobs created. Louisiana does.
  • Louisiana state law prohibits disclosure of the amount of incentives received by businesses.

Little, if anything, has been done to rectify these deficiencies in the oversight of the EZ program.

There has been precious little reaction from this year’s audit of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries which found that thousands of dollars in equipment had been stolen, a story LouisianaVoice called attention to last year. Go HERE for a summary of that audit report or HERE for our story.

Some remedial steps have been made in addressing a multitude of problems exposed in a 2016 audit of the Department of Veterans Affairs (See audit summary HERE).

Yet, we can’t help but wonder where the oversight was before a critical audit necessitated changes. Among those findings:

  • Payment of $44,000 to a company for improperly documented work without the required contract.
  • The use of $27,500 in federal funds specifically earmarked for the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Cemetery in Slidell for the purchase of a Ford Expedition for the exclusive use of headquarters staff.
  • The failure to disclose information of potential crimes involving veteran residents at several War Veteran homes.
  • The possible falsifying of former Secretary David Alan LaCerte’s military service as posted on the LDVA website.
  • LaCerte’s engaging in questionable organizational, hiring, and pay practices that led in turn to a lack of accountability.

Likewise, some positive steps have been taken in shaping up the Department of Corrections’ (DOC) trusty oversight programs but that resulted as much from a thorough investigative report by Baton Rouge Advocate reporters as a 2016 audit (see HERE) that found:

Because the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola’s trusty policy, 1,547 (an astounding 91 percent) trusties at Angola were not eligible for the program and even after the policy was revised, 400 (24 percent) of 1705 trusties were ineligible. All 400 were considered by DOC to be eligible as a result of having an undocumented, implicit waiver for a sex offense or time served less than 10 years.

Equally troubling, the audit found that 14 of 151 (9 percent) of trusties assigned to work in state buildings in Baton Rouge were not eligible because of crimes of violence, including aggravated battery, manslaughter, and aggravated assault with a firearm. The report further found that if those 151 were required to comply with the requirements in place for Level 1 trusties, 49 (32 percent) would be ineligible.

Indicative of the monumental waste brought about by the proliferation of boards and commissions in state government, a 2017 audit (see HERE) of “Boards, Commissions, and Like Entities) noted that the number of boards and commissions had been reduced from the 492 in 2012 to “only” 458 in 2016. Texas, by comparison, has 173, Mississippi about 200. The appointment of members of those boards and commissions take up a lot of time as the governor’s office supposedly vets each new member.

Four boards did not respond to the auditor’s request for data in 2017 and 2016.

There were 11 inactive boards which were not fulfilling established functions, five of which were also inactive the previous year.

Some of these boards, as illustrated on numerous occasions by LouisianaVoice, often go rogue and there seems to be no one to rein them in. These include the Louisiana State Police Commission, The Louisiana Board of Dentistry, the Auctioneer Licensing Board, the State Board of Cosmetology, and the State Board of Medical Examiners, to name but a few.

Take, for example, the 2016 audit of the Louisiana Motor Vehicle Commission (see HERE):

  • The commission did not have adequate controls over financial reporting to ensure accuracy.
  • The commission did not comply with state procurement laws requiring contracts for personal, professional and consulting services, failing to obtain approval for contracts for two vendors totaling $80,000.

The point of this exercise is to call attention to the one office in state government which, with little fanfare and even less credit, goes about its job each day in attempting to maintain some semblance of order in the manner in which the myriad of state agencies protects the public fisc.

The Legislative Auditor’s Office, headed by Daryl Purpera, performs a Herculean, but thankless job of poring over receipts, contracts, bids, and everything related to expenditures to ensure that the agencies are toeing the line and are in accordance with established requirements and laws regarding the expenditure of public funds.

Thousands of audits have been performed. We pulled up only a few random examples: there are others, like the Recovery School District, the Department of Education, Grambling State University (only because it has so many audits with repeated findings), levee districts and local school boards and parish governments. Untold numbers of irregularities have been uncovered—only to be largely ignored by those in positions to take action against agency heads, who, because of political ambitions, allow attention to be diverted from their responsibilities of running a tight ship.

In cases of egregious findings, the media will jump on the story, only to allow it to fade away and things soon return to normal with no disciplinary action taken against those responsible.

If all elected officials and members of the governor’s cabinet were held accountable for their sloppy work or the outright dishonesty of their agency heads, it would send a message throughout state government and this state might well save hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted expenditures and theft.

It calls to mind the lyrics of a 1958 Johnny Cash song, Big River, recorded when he was still with Sun Records:

“She raised a few eyebrows

And then she went on down alone”

Through it all, Purpera and his staff trudge ever-onward, raising a few eyebrows and then continuing (alone) to do their jobs even as those above them do not.

They—and the taxpayers of Louisiana—deserve better.

 

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Two Fire Marshal deputies conducted Crowley homicide investigation in 2012 despite lack of experience, training

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Fraud, State Fire Marshal on August 22, 2017| 16 Comments »

With the revelation by LouisianaVoice that 10 employees of the State Fire Marshal’s (SFM) office applied for waivers from Police Officers Standards and Training (POST) investigator training, backed up by dubious claims of investigative experience, new and serious questions have arisen into the investigation of a 2012 fire in Crowley that killed a mother and her 11-month-old daughter.

Twenty-two-year-old Marie McDonald and her 11-month-old daughter Bayleigh Holland, died in a fire that swept through their rent house at 2:30 a.m. on June 12, 2012 only four hours after McDonald’s ex-boyfriend had exited the house, according to Theresa Richard, McDonald’s mother, who owned the house.

“The boyfriend had threatened her at her work earlier,” Richard said. “All her co-workers heard him.”

The fire marshal’s investigation was a cruel joke, she said. “The entire investigation lasted about an hour. Keith Reed and Brant Thompson came to the scene and stayed about an hour before coming to our house to tell us the cause of the fire was undetermined.”

She said Reed had an arson-detection dog in his truck but never removed him from his truck. “I told them about the threats and they were just more or less indifferent about it,” Richard said.

Both Thompson and Reed were among 10 fire marshal employees to file for the POST Homicide Investigator Training Waiver last December 13, just two weeks before the January 1, 2017, deadline after which time “only peace officers who successfully complete the homicide investigator training program or receive a waiver of compliance based on prior training or experience as a homicide investigator shall be assigned to lead investigations in homicide cases.”

On his application, Thompson, who had been with the fire SFM for only seven months at the time of the fatal Crowley fire, indicated he had been a lead homicide investigator for 20 years and had investigated more than 100 homicides as either a lead investigator or a supervisor.

His previous experience the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control and the attorney general’s office before that would seem to cast serious doubts on his investigatory claims.

Reed, on his waiver application, indicated he had served as a lead homicide investigator for eight years and that he had been lead investigator on four homicides. Presumably, the investigation of the Crowley fire, conducted at a time when he had been with SFM for only three years, accounted for two of those investigations.

REED HOMICIDE WAIVER REQUEST

But an audio recording of radio exchanges between the Crowley police dispatcher and Reed would seem to indicate that Reed was reluctant to respond to the fire in the first place, complaining instead that his supervisor would not answer his phone.

“When the fire marshal’s office did respond, I saw only Reed,” Richard said. “I was told that Thompson was there but I never saw him. Reed came and looked around for about an hour. He collected no evidence whatsoever. He never turned over a single board.

The police radio recordings indicate that a vehicle similar to the one driven at the time by the sister of McDonald’s former boyfriend was observed driving back and forth in the area of 1008 East 8th street, McDonald’s address. The actual report of the fire begins at the 6:20 point of the police recording.

You can listen to the police radio conversation HERE.

So, what it appears here is that two employees of the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal who had only four years’ experience between them and one of whom was never actually seen, conducted a one-hour investigation of a double-fatality fire following a reported threat to one of the victims.

And given the request for a waiver of investigator training by both employees who, judging from the apparent urgency in obtaining the waivers, were lacking in both experience and training to conduct homicide investigations, their “investigation” is of dubious merit at best.

Yet, there they were.

One of them, at least.

For an hour, anyway.

As the arson-detection dog remained in the truck, never setting foot on the ground.

Making a determination that the fire was of an undetermined origin.

 

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Brant Thompson’s homicide waiver application contained no supporting documents; application filed just before deadline

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Exemptions, Fraud, Governor's Office, State Fire Marshal on August 22, 2017| 4 Comments »

More information on Brant Thompson’s back-door waiver application for homicide investigator reveals that because he had no homicide investigator training, he was up against a deadline for the granting of the waiver that would allow him status as a lead homicide investigator.

The application he submitted, signed by his boss, State Fire Marshal Butch Browning, claimed Thompson had worked as a homicide lead investigator for more than 20 years and that he had worked more than 100 homicide investigations as either the lead investigator or as supervisor.

Both numbers are suspect in light of Thompson’s apparent lack of both training and certification in his past work experience with the attorney general’s office, six years at the Department of Revenue and his five years at the State Fire Marshal’s office—none of which involved his participation in any active homicide investigations.

The application instructed that applicants “attach a list of ALL training, dates, and locations relevant to homicide investigation training” and to “attach copies of the training certificates or documentation of attendance at these courses.”

LouisianaVoice then made a public records request to the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement for copies of those certificates.

Bob Wertz, Law Enforcement Training Manager, replied by email, “There were no documents responsive to your second request. No training dates and/or locations were attached to the original waiver request for Mr. Thompson.

Wertz then referred LouisianaVoice to Act 152 of the 2015 legislative session which says, in part:

“…On and after January 1, 2017, only peace officers who successfully complete the homicide investigator training program or receive a waiver of compliance based on prior training or experience as a homicide investigator shall be assigned to lead investigations in homicide cases…” (Emphasis Wertz’s).

Wertz said all waivers are reviewed by the Homicide Curriculum Committee and that recommendations are made to the POST (Peace Officers Standards and Training) Council. The curriculum committee, comprised of board members of the Louisiana Homicide Investigations Association, advise the council and make recommendations regarding any waivers.

“While the POST Council issues a certificate for completion of the lead Homicide Investigator training course, no investigators are deemed ‘certified’ by the council,” he added.

Browning signed off on Thompson’s application on December 13, 2016, or just 18 days before the January 1 deadline, thereby conveying upon Thompson the status of lead homicide investigator even though he is apparently lacking in experience and training for the position.

In addition to Thompson, nine other State Fire Marshal employees received homicide waivers. They were:

Captains Chris Anderson, Keith Reed, Nicholas Heinen, Chad Robichaux and Brian Mashon and Senior Deputies Jason Johnston, Kristen de la Bretonne, Ronnie Sellers and Travis Goudeau.

In all but Anderson’s case, Browning, just as he had done for Thompson, signed the waiver request forms on December 13, 2016. He signed Anderson’s request form three weeks earlier, on November 23, 2017.

At least most of the nine were sufficiently creative as to not all claim 100 homicide investigations–except for de la Bretonne; she did claim 100 investigations, 35 of which she claims to have been the lead investigator. But she had worked Hurricane Katrina, including Lafon Nursing Facility of the Holy Family where there were 36 deaths and the St. Rita’s Nursing Home where 32 perished, according to one of her former co-workers. As for Goudeau, he apparently encountered a mini-crime wave in Bunkie where he previously worked as a patrolman for the city police department. He claimed four homicide investigations, serving as lead investigator on three.

Click here for HOMICIDE WAIVER REQUEST FORMS

The designations are apparently part of Browning’s grand scheme of cross-training whereby all employees are classified in all facets of the fire marshal’s office that in other states are separated as specific areas of expertise such as boiler inspections, amusement ride inspections, arson investigators, nursing home and hospital inspections, etc.

Browning was forced to rush the waiver requests through before the impending January 1, 2017, deadline because, apparently, none of the ten met the criteria that went into effect on that date.

The cross-training program has come under harsh criticism by those familiar with inspections and investigations who are either still active in or retired from the State Fire Marshal’s Office. Their primary concern that cross-training in each area of fire marshal operations weakens all disciplines and leaves the Fire Marshal’s Office prone to key mistakes that in turn leaves the office and the individual employees vulnerable to civil and criminal liability.

And while the example is extreme, the diffusion of responsibilities among all employees could conceivably create a repeat of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City in which 146 workers, mostly teenage women, either burned to death or plunged 80 feet to their deaths to escape the flames that engulfed the building.

News reporter William Shepherd, who just happened to be walking past the building when he noticed smoke, described a “more horrible sound than description can picture,” the impact of 62 speeding human bodies smacking into the sidewalk. “Thud-dead, thud-dead, thud-dead…” he would write for United Press as the only way he could describe the scene of broken, twisted bodies.

Investigators found that even though the Triangle building had passed fire codes prior to the fire, several doors in the building were either jammed shut or locked in order to ensure that the girls stayed at their jobs. Trapped in a building that had passed inspections, they were forced to choose death from the flames or by jumping.

Again, an extreme case but yet an example of what can happen when an amusement ride, a boiler or hot water heater, or a nursing home or hospital is given a once-over inspection by someone not properly trained as an amusement ride inspector, a boiler inspector, or a hospital/nursing home inspector.

And on top of all that, Browning wants those trained as fire code inspectors, ride inspectors and boiler inspectors to double as cops investigating homicides.

This is a situation that begs for the immediate attention of the governor’s office.

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Trump launches news network, Kayleigh McEnany as Minister of Propaganda; reminiscent of past dictators

Posted in Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Fraud, Politicians, Transparency, TV News on August 7, 2017| 24 Comments »

It was inevitable, I suppose. The signs were there for us to see all this time, so it certainly should be no surprise.

Donald Trump has launched his own NEWS SERVICE to give the minions the “real” news. He’s fed up with that fake stuff dished out by the networks that they back up with obviously faked video, doctored photos, falsified documents and biased stories about his bogus university, his refusal to divest himself from his business interests and his coziness with the Russians.

Well, what ostrich-head-in-the-sand couldn’t see that coming?

Of course, the real head-scratcher is why he would go to all that trouble when he has the biggest blowhard of all spewing the right wing extremist line for three hours every day on a smaller-than-before-but-still-large radio network.

But Rush (“Praise the Lord and Pass the OxyContin”) Limburger is basically a mouthpiece for the Republican Party as a whole and that party is going to have to separate itself from ol’ Orange Hair with all due haste if it has a chance to hold its ground in the 2018 elections. So, in that respect, maybe his own “news” network would seem in order to Trump.

After all, this is the man whose motto would seem to be ut per eos testacles in cordibus et in animis sequentur. That’s Latin for “Get ‘em by the testacles; the hearts and minds will follow.” (And he’s certainly known for grabbing those areas.)

Any student of history knows that a dictatorship requires a suspension of all citizens’ rights (see his efforts to clamp down on dissent) and to muzzle all criticism (his repeated attacks on the media). The third requirement, of course, is to take over the media so the dictatorship’s lies can be saturated without fear of challenge.

We may as well start referring to Trump as DEAR LEADER a-la Kim Jong-Un. Somehow, though, I just don’t think I can bring myself to call him Herr Trump.

But the signs are already there. His repeated boasts of non-existent accomplishments, his exploring the possibility of pardoning himself, his exaggerated claims of voter fraud, claims that he had the biggest inauguration crowd in history, attacks of “fake news,” and the list goes on and on ad nauseum. And all easily refutable lies but still he barges ahead with still more lies. His favorite, of course, is calling the special prosecutor’s investigation into collusion with the Russians “a witch hunt.” He uses that one on a regular basis these days.

Adolf Hitler was the first to describe the benefits of the repetitive lie, which he said people would come to believe if they heard it often enough. He called it the “Big Lie.”

In Mein Kampf, Hitler said, “…In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie…Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.” (emphasis added.)

He would go on to say in Mein Kampf:

“The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses’ attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision.

The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make and objective study of the truth, insofar as it favors the enemy, and then set before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.”

Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, would later expand on der Führer’s philosophy when he said:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Extreme examples? Perhaps. But the track that Trump is on is frighteningly familiar to students of history and should not be dismissed lightly.

After all, look at the people with whom he has surrounded himself. Not the least of these is one STEPHEN BANNON who has described Trump as a “revolutionary on the world stage,” and who described himself as a LENINIST who desired “to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

So, is Bannon Trump’s Joseph Goebbels or will he be his Martin Bormann (Hitler’s private secretary who controlled access to der Führer)? Or worse, will he be Trump’s Heinrich Himmler (commander of the Gestapo)? From this vantage point, the vote would have to go to Bormann.

All these scenarios were unthinkable 18 months ago. No one seriously thought Trump would ever be president. The day of his announcement, I confidently predicted he would “crash and burn” in six weeks.

But then, no one thought Hitler would rise to a position from which he could plunge the world into war.

But now we have an official Trump news service through which he can reach the masses with his own skewed version of reality. And for now, at least, he has an official Minister of Propaganda in Kayleigh McEnany.

 

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