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Iberia Sheriff’s life is hotter than Tabasco on a fever blister after beatings, deaths, political payoffs, fight with reporters

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Congress, Corruption, Courts, Crime, Elections, Ethics, Jobs, Lawsuits, Media, Politicians, Prison, State Police on March 2, 2016| 3 Comments »

Though it is probably far too late, Louis Ackal would be wise to take the advice of an adage steeped in indisputable wisdom of the ages.

The sheriff of Iberia Parish, however, apparently has never heard the expression attributed to a host of well-known politicians, amateur philosophers and gifted writers: “Never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel.”

We’ll get to Ackal momentarily, but first a little background on that famous quote.

Mark Twain didn’t say it, though he is often cited as the one who coined the phrase. Neither was the quote original with publicist William Greener, Jr., as quoted in the September 28, 1978, Wall Street Journal.

The phrase of uncertain origin has also been attributed to the late Louisiana Congressman F. Edward Hebert, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1941 to 1977. A former newspaper reporter and editor for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Hebert, who died in 1979, covered the Louisiana Hayride scandals of 1939 that led to the convictions of Gov. Richard Leche and LSU President James Monroe Smith. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Edward_H%C3%A9bert

Hebert, according to legend, added to the phrase when he said, “I never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel and paper by the trainload.” (Emphasis added.)

The quote was intended to illustrate just how futile it is to pick a fight with a crusading newspaper. Some clarification is needed here for our younger readers: the term crusading newspaper is passé, long gone from the vernacular used to describe the style of journalism depicted in the classic movies The Front Page (the 1931 original starring Pat O’Brien and Mae Clark or the 1974 remake starring Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Susan Sarandon, Charles Durning, and Carol Burnett); 1940’s His Girl Friday, starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell and Ralph Bellamy; or of course, All the President’s Men, the 1976 movie about Watergate and the fall of Richard Nixon, starring Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, Jack Warden, Hal Holbrook, Martin Balsam, Ned Beatty and Jane Alexander.

No, sadly, those days are long gone. Newspapers have felt the impact of the perfect storm of shrinking ad revenue and declining circulation along with waning influence as reflected in inverse proportion to the explosion of the Internet and the fourth estate. Once the epitome of independence, newspapers now find themselves subjected more to corporate pressure than to any need to inform its readership. The same gots for television news, of course, only if anything, to an even greater degree.

That famous and once chillingly accurate phrase could now be replaced by any one of several similar but equally relevant versions currently floating around out there in cyberspace:

  • Never pick a fight with someone who buys their bandwidth by the gigabyte.
  • Never pick a fight with someone who has a camera and a Twitter following.
  • Never pick a fight with someone who knows how to use the Internet better than you.
  • Never pick a fight with someone who has access to Google to prove you wrong immediately.
  • Never pick a fight with someone when your own video cameras or those of witnesses may contradict you.

To those might be added another pearl of wisdom: Never underestimate the intelligence of your constituency (the emergence of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz notwithstanding).

Ackal previously served as a Louisiana State Trooper where he served for awhile as a captain and Commander of Troop I. He retired abruptly in 1984 after being placed in charge of the narcotics squad of Region II which covered all of Southwest Louisiana.

He later resurfaced as a private investigator before running for High Sheriff of Iberia Parish in 2007. Now, not even four months from winning re-election sheriff, he seems not to have absorbed an iota of any of that advice about picking quarrels with those possessing generous supplies of ink and paper—and online access.

Even before he beat challenger Roberta Boudreaux last November in a runoff election, Ackal was already fighting a public relations disaster that culminated in his choosing to pick a fight with the Acadiana Advocate, sister publication of the Baton Rouge Advocate.

In March of 2014, a 22-year-old black man, Victor White, III, died after being shot while handcuffed in a sheriff’s department patrol car. Deputies said he pulled the gun and fired one round, striking himself in the back. The Iberia Parish coroner, however, ruled he was shot in the chest, immediately raising the question of how he could shoot himself in the chest with his hands handcuffed behind his back. The Iberia Parish district attorney, following a State Police report that the wound was self-inflicted, has declined to pursue criminal charges against deputies. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/da-charges-handcuffed-man-police-car-shooting_us_56b8f75de4b08069c7a8548b

The U.S. Attorney’s office likewise concluded an investigation of more than a year with the announcement that it would not pursue charges against the sheriff’s office. http://www.iberianet.com/news/feds-no-charges/article_087eda70-9e8f-11e5-a1e6-03aa54a2fd19.html

None of those findings, however, kept the Advocate group from publishing a May 6, 2015, story revealing that eight prisoners had died in Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office custody over a 10-year period. http://theadvocate.com/news/neworleans/neworleansnews/12248374-123/8-die-in-custody-of

The family of one of the victims, Robert Sonnier, settled its resulting lawsuit with the sheriff for $450,900 and the family of Michael Jones was awarded $61,000 in his wrongful death. There were other incidents, all of which prompted U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond’s May 19, 2015 LETTER TO ATTORNEY GENERAL LORETTA LYNCH requesting an investigation “into alleged civil rights violations of members of the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office.”

Moreover, incriminating video of beatings of and dog attacks on prisoners were reported on by the Acadiana Advocate https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2015/05/04/disturbing-video-surfaces-highlighting-pattern-of-abuse-and-death-in-louisiana-jail/

Easy to see why Ackal may not be too enamored with the Acadiana Advocate, but to declare the paper and its reporters as “persona non grata” is foolish at best. http://theadvocate.com/news/acadiana/13886833-37/iberia-sheriff-mum-on-salary

It’s a war he can’t possibly win. As much adverse publicity as LouisianaVoice has given to the Louisiana State Police administration, Superintendent Mike Edmonson has never gone that far.

But, as those cheesy late-night TV commercials say: wait, there’s more.

First, there was his re-election campaign last fall.

He nearly won in the first primary, pulling in 47 percent of the vote. Parish Jail Warden Roberta Boudreaux got 25 percent and Spike Boudoin received 18 percent. Joe LeBlanc and Bobby Jackson won 7 and 3 percent, respectively.

That was on Oct. 24. On Oct 30, just six days later, Ackal hired Boudoin as something called director of community relations at a salary of $50,658 a year. http://theadvocate.com/news/14013818-123/iberia-sheriff-to-pay-defeated

Coincidentally, Boudoin announced at the same time his endorsement of Ackal in the runoff against Boudreaux. But other than the distribution of a news release announcing Boudoin’s hiring, Ackal said he would not entertain questions about the newly-created position.

Ackal won the runoff election on Nov. 21, receiving 56 percent of the vote against Boudreaux’s 44 percent.

To Jackson, it was déjà vu all over again. In 2007, he finished third with 11 percent of the vote behind Ackal and David Landry, both of whom got 42 percent. LeBlanc, who also ran in 2007, got the remaining 5 percent. After that primary, Jackson endorsed Ackal and was rewarded with a job as intelligence analyst, a role he had held in the U.S. Army. The difference with the sheriff’s department was he was denied working space, equipment and any direction as to his duties, all while being paid. He quit in disgust after little more than two months walking around “with my thumb in my rear,” he said, adding that he now sees “history repeating itself.”

Public servants are prohibited from using their positions to “compel or coerce any person or other public servant to engage in political activity,” according to the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics. Political activity is defined, in part, as “an effort to support or oppose the election of a candidate for political office in an election.”

It is also illegal for anyone to give money or anything of value “to any person who has withdrawn or who was eliminated prior or subsequent to the primary election as a candidate for public office, for the purpose of securing or giving his political support to any remaining candidate or candidates for public office in the primary or general election.” (Emphasis added.)

Robert Travis Scott, president of the Public Affairs Research Council, told the Acadiana Advocate that Ackal’s simultaneous hiring and endorsement raises questions of whether taxpayer money, i.e. Boudoin’s salary, was used to secure an endorsement.

Tomorrow: ethics complaint, sexual harassment lawsuit and guilty pleas over beatings and dog attacks are beginning to clutter embattled Louis Ackal’s desk.

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Wal-Mart: feeding at the public trough while underpaying workers, destroying Louisiana’s mom and pop businesses

Posted in Auditor, Business, Corruption, Economy, Ethics, Exemptions, Incentives, Finances, Incentives, Jobs, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Revenue, Taxes on February 24, 2016| 6 Comments »

The past is prologue

                                    —William Shakespeare (The Tempest)

In 1936, Mississippi Gov. Hugh White successfully pushed through the state legislature his answer to President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal so despised by southern states.

Mississippi could grow and prosper through his landmark “Balance Agriculture with Industry” program, according to Mississippi native Joseph B. Atkins, author of the little-known but important book Covering for the Bosses. The book is an examination of how newspapers in the South refused to give fair coverage to labor unions in their attempt to gain equitable working conditions for workers first in the textile mills and later the automobile industry.

https://books.google.com/books?id=o6AfWT79t2MC&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=shadows+in+the+sunbelt+1986&source=bl&ots=7Wb_bKCn48&sig=FIjJetyw-Li-lCk0c3zN_muV3MA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjL-Ob4k4_LAhWFPiYKHchPD50Q6AEIUDAJ#v=onepage&q=shadows%20in%20the%20sunbelt%201986&f=false

According to Atkins, White figured he could attract industry to Mississippi through the then-radical concept of offering attractive tax incentives and promises of low wages—and, of course, no unions.

The program, Atkins writes, eventually became a model for the entire South and today, Mississippi, in the latest rankings of the best states for business, can be found sitting firmly in….47th place among the 50 states, ranked ahead of only (in order) Kentucky, Louisiana, and West Virginia. In fact, the South can lay claim to six of the bottom 10 spots in the national rankings. They also include Arkansas (42nd) and Alabama (45th). Tennessee was only slightly better at 38th. Virginia (10th) and North Carolina (15th) were the only southern state in the top 20. http://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/02/17/the-best-and-worst-states-for-business-2/

So what went wrong with White’s grand scheme for Mississippi? Simply put, the same thing that doomed Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee to the bottom one-fourth of the heap. They gave away their tax bases while at the same time condemning their citizens to lives of low wages and poor benefits. And Wal-Mart was first in line to fully exploit the plethora of incentives, be they the 10-year property tax exemptions, Enterprise Zone initiatives or some other inducement.

Wal-Mart, described by Wall Street Journal writer Bob Ortega in his book In Sam We Trust as “an amoral construct with one imperative: the profit motive.”

In October 2005, Atkins writes in Covering for the Bosses, that an internal Wal-Mart memo was leaked which revealed the true, impersonal attitude of the corporate office toward its 1.3 million American workers, 30 percent of whom are part-time workers.

In her memo to Wal-Mart executive vice president M. Susan Chambers complained of the costs of long-term workers. The company, she said, spent 55 percent more on them than on one-year workers even though “there is no difference in (the employee’s) productivity.” She said because Wal-Mart pays an associate “more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases, we are pricing that associate out of the labor market, increasing the likelihood that he or she will stay with Wal-Mart….The least health, least productive associates are more satisfied with their benefits than other segments and are interested in longer careers with Wal-Mart,” she said.

In plain language, she was advocating throwing older workers to the curb in favor of newer, lower-salaried workers.

Yet Wal-Mart has shoved its way to the public trough, securing some $100 million in economic development subsidies from the state in 20 cities from Abbeville ($1.67 million) to Vidalia ($1.65 million), from Shreveport ($6.3 million) to New Orleans ($7 million), from Monroe ($3.9 million) to Sulphur ($1.8 million).

Nationally, estimated annual subsidies and tax breaks to Wal-Mart and the Walton family total $7.8 billion per year. This for six Walton heirs whose collective net worth of $148.8 billion is more than 49 million American families combined. http://www.americansfortaxfairness.org/files/Walmart-on-Tax-Day-Americans-for-Tax-Fairness-1.pdf

A congressional report estimated that each Wal-Mart store in America generated an average of $421,000 in Medicaid, SNAP and public housing costs to taxpayers. That’s in addition to the estimated $1 billion taxpayers anted up in local and state government subsidies to have a Wal-Mart in their communities. Wal-Mart workers, who earn less than $10 an hour (about $18,000 per year), are offered a family health care plan with a $1,000 deductible costing $141 per month.

And remember that warm fuzzy “Made in USA” advertising campaign of Wal-Mart in which Wal-Mart in 2013 said it was starting a 10-year plan to increase spending on U.S. made products by $250 billion? Well fuggeboutit. It didn’t happen and last October, the company removed the “Made in the USA” logos from all product listings on its Web site after the Federal Trade Commission caught the company (gasp) lying. http://fortune.com/2015/10/20/walmart-made-in-the-usa/

Instead, much of its merchandise, clothing in particular, comes from third-world sweatshops where workers are paid pennies per hour in wages and children work up to 20 hours per day to make the clothing we purchase from Wal-Mart. https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-sweatshops

And here’s a real eye-opener.

In her book Cheap, author Ellen Ruppel Shell reveals a dirty little secret most consumers are unaware of: name-brand clothing sold at Wal-Mart aren’t quite what consumers think they are. “Discounting dilutes brands, making it less certain that they are a mark of quality,” Shell writes. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/books/review/Shapiro-t.html?_r=0

Hundreds of brands “slice and dice their offerings for various markets, selling different products in different types of stores for different prices under the same brand,” she said. “Chains such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and Home Depot have items manufactured ‘to their specifications,’ meaning that the brand name is almost devoid of meaning.”

That means a television with a model number available only at Wal-Mart is not really a Sony or a Samsung, for example, but a Wal-Mart television.

“Brands have become an end in themselves,” she writes. “…It is not the brand alone that entices discount shoppers; it is the high value we link to the brand versus the low price we pay that is so seductive.”

In recent years, Louisiana taxpayers have subsidized the construction of Wal-Mart stores in two affluent suburbs to the tune of a $700,000 tax credit. A tax credit is a dollar for dollar reduction of a tax liability meaning a $1 tax credit reduces one’s taxes by a full dollar. Bear in mind, these subsidies were Enterprise Zone projects. The Enterprise Zone program is designed specifically to lure business and industry into areas of high unemployment in order to help economically depressed areas. Instead, one of these stores were built in St. Tammany, one of the most affluent communities in the state.

Likewise, $330,000 in Enterprise Zone tax credits were awarded in 2013 to Lakeview Regional Medical Center in St. Tammany Parish for an upgrade to its facilities which created a grand total of five new jobs.

As far back as 2012, then-Secretary of the Department of Economic Development Stephen Moret said the Enterprise Zone program no longer fulfilled its purpose. http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/12/louisiana_economic_development_1.html

A Legislative Auditor’s report agreed, saying that 75 percent of new jobs, 68 percent of new businesses and 60 percent of capital investments were made outside the EZs. http://app1.lla.state.la.us/PublicReports.nsf/92629A33AAE8C55F862579EB0072ACEB/$FILE/00029DFA.pdf

That’s because unlike other states, Louisiana’s Enterprise Zone program allows the generous five-year tax breaks for retail establishments, businesses whose salaries traditionally are at the low end of the pay scale. Those include, besides Wal-Mart, chain stores like Walgreens and Raising Cane’s chicken outlets.

“Most of the projects are larger companies investing in relative affluent areas in Louisiana today,” Moret said in something of an understatement. He said that fact alone underscored the importance of making changes to the program.

Were changes made? No. In fact, in 2013, the year after his comments, the state awarded EZ tax credits totaling $19.6 million for projects that produced 4,857 new jobs which in turn generated about $10 million in state income taxes, or a net loss of more than $9 million to the state.

Meanwhile, Atkins quotes author Bill Quinn as saying Wal-Mart “has done more to stomp out Middle-class America than all other discount houses put together.”

Yet, the official policy of Louisiana has been to continue to give generous tax breaks to a company that underpays its employees, deceives customers into thinking they are “buying American” when in reality, they are propping up third-world sweatshops whose workers churn out second line brand names under slave-like working conditions.

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Bobby Jindal’s parade of lies and distortions about state’s wonderful business climate exposed in yet another survey

Posted in Business, Corruption, Economy, Education, Ethics, Exemptions, Incentives, Finances, Governor's Office, Incentives, Jobs, Politicians on February 23, 2016| 20 Comments »

After eight years of Bobby Jindal’s whiz-kid ALEC-backed policies of awarding tax incentives, exemptions, and inducements to the business and industry lobby and his constant boasting to Iowans and to Fox News of his smashing successes, Louisiana remains mired as the second-worst state in the nation for business.

So says the latest report of 24/7 Wall St., a financial news and opinion company headquartered in Delaware which publishes more than 30 articles per days on economics, health, and politics.

For its most recent survey, 24/7 compiled 47 measures into eight separate categories to determine the business climate for each state: business costs, cost of living, economy, infrastructure, labor and human capital, quality of life, regulation, and technology and innovation.

The U.S. has seen 71 consecutive months of private sector job growth through January, the report noted. Despite the consistent improvement, which dates back to February 2009 (the month after Jindal was first sworn in as governor), the recovery has been uneven and some states have experienced substantially less growth than others.

One of those is Louisiana, where the gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 1.5 percent was 21st lowest in the nation and average wages and salaries of $46,136 was 24th lowest.

Both of those ratings put the state at about the middle of the pack but other indicators showed a much bleaker picture. But only one other state, Maine, has experienced an annualized GDP decline over the past five years.

The 434 patents issued to residents in 2014 was 14th lowest in the nation. The projected working-age population growth through the year 2020 of minus 3.2 percent was seventh lowest and the 22.9 percent of adults with bachelor’s degrees was fifth lowest.

A decreasing working-age population, combined with the relatively low educational attainment means trouble for employers to fill positions with qualified job candidates. That could explain the high number of tax incentives to industries with low-paying, unskilled workers such as chicken plants and Wal Marts.

Almost 20 percent of Louisiana’s population lives below the poverty line, a statistic Jindal refused to address during his entire eight years of running for president. Moreover, the state unemployment rate was 6.4 percent. Both figures are higher than the national rates.

So, if Louisiana was second worst for business, which state was worst? Well, this time it wasn’t Mississippi which traditionally holds down the anchor spot. In this case it was West Virginia with lower GDP growth, lower average salaries, lower percentage of adults with a bachelor’s degree (actually the lowest), lower number of patents issued to residents and a lower projected working-age population growth than Louisiana.

The best state for business? That would be Utah. Where Louisiana and West Virginia each had a minus projected working-age population growth rate, Utah’s projected working-age population growth of 20.5 percent was second-highest. Despite the healthy projected population growth, Utah had an unemployment rate of 3.8 percent, fourth lowest in the nation.

Just more evidence of how Jindal was perfectly willing to twist and distort numbers to fit his ambitious but hopeless agenda.

Does anyone still wonder whether he was simply clueless or callously committed to his own ambitions?

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Story of attempted contractor shakedown broken 2 years ago by LouisianaVoice results in $20 million verdict against state

Posted in Corruption, Courts, Crime, Fraud, Governor's Office, Jobs, Judges, Lawsuits, Media, State Agencies, TV News on December 5, 2015| 18 Comments »

Nearly two years ago, LouisianaVoice broke a story about a Mangham contractor’s claims that the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) had bankrupted his company when it denied payments for his work. https://louisianavoice.com/2014/04/09/contractor-claims-in-lawsuit-that-dotd-official-attempted-shake-down-for-cash-equipment-during-monroe-work/

The reasons payment were denied? Because, contractor Jeff Mercer said, he resisted shake-down efforts by a DOTD inspector who demanded cash and equipment from him.

On Friday, after eight years of legal battles, Mercer won a unanimous $20 million judgment from a 12-person jury in 4th Judicial District Court in Monroe.

Work for which Mercer says he was not paid included:

  • Two projects on I-49 in Caddo Parish ($1.6 million);
  • A Morehouse Parish bridge project ($7.1 million);
  • Louisville Avenue in Monroe ($79,463);
  • Well Road in West Monroe ($50,568);
  • Airline Drive in Bossier City ($57,818);
  • Brasher Road in LaSalle Parish ($70,139).

While the Monroe News-Star gave substantial coverage to the court decision, LouisianaVoice was the first media outlet to give Mercer the time of day back in April of 2014 when we first learned of his troubles with DOTD. Monroe television station KTVE did a brief interview with Mercer following our initial story, but that was it—until yesterday’s decision. http://www.thenewsstar.com/story/news/local/2015/12/04/contractor-wins-20m-suit-against-dotd/76813444/

In our 2014 story, Mercer said that three of his employees filed sworn affidavits with the court in which all four say DOTD inspector Willis Jenkins demanded that Mercer either “put some green” in his hand or that Mercer place a new electric generator “under his carport” the following day.

One employee, John Sanderson, said he was approached by Jenkins who informed him that he “could make things difficult” on Mercer. “He indicated that this burden would not necessarily be on the Louisville Avenue project but on future jobs awarded to Jeff Mercer, LLC,” Sanderson said. “I replied, ‘You didn’t mean to say that,’” whereupon, Sanderson said, Jenkins repeated his threat. “During that conversation, I heard Willis tell Jeff that he ‘wanted green,’” Sanderson said.

Incredibly, Jenkins admitted making the comment but said it was a joke. Despite getting complaints about the shakedown attempt, DOTD never investigated the allegations. (Note to Jenkins: don’t joke like that in airports.)

Another Mercer employee, Bennett Trip, said in a signed statement that he heard Jenkins tell Mercer he “wanted some green.” He said he also heard Jenkins tell another Mercer employee that Jenkins, pointing to a generator in Tripp’s truck, said he “wanted one of those under his carport.”

Following complaints by Mercer, Jenkins was subsequently removed from the Louisville Avenue project by DOTD Engineer Marshall Hill who said it was not the first time he’d heard such claims about Jenkins. But Tripp said the shakedown continued when another state official told Mercer employees, “Y’all had my buddy removed and we’re going to make the rest of the job a living hell.”

Mercer claimed in his lawsuit there was collusion among DOTD officials to “make the jobs as costly and difficult as possible” for him. He told LouisianaVoice in April of 2014 that after receiving verbal instructions on the way in which one project was to be done, it was subsequently approved but later, DOTD officials, including defendant John Eason, advised that the work was not acceptable.

He said that DOTD officials provided false information to federal investigators; that he was forced to perform extra work outside the contract specifications; that a prime contractor, T.J. Lambrecht was told if he continued to do business with Mercer, closer inspections of his jobs would result, and that job specifications were routinely changed which in turn made his work more difficult.

Doughty said DOTD officials in Baton Rouge threatened his client with federal prosecution when he asked for payments for work he’d done. An FBI investigation initiated by DOTD was subsequently dropped.

Mercer eventually was forced to shutter the doors on his construction firm which had employed 20 to 40 people.

DOTD interoffice emails obtained by LouisianaVoice seem to support Mercer’s claim that he was targeted by DOTD personnel and denied payment on the basis that the agency was within its rights to “just say no.”

One email from DOTD official Barry Lacy which was copied to three other DOTD officials and which stemmed from a dispute over what amount had been paid for a job, made a veiled threat to turn Mercer’s request for payment “to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General.”

Still another suggested that payment should be made on a project “but never paid to Mercer.”

“I did everything they told me to do,” Mercer told LouisianaVoice. “But because I refused to allow one DOTD employee to shake me down, they put me out of business. They took reprisals and they ostracized me and broke me but now I’m fighting back.”

Both Mercer and his Rayville attorney David Doughty indicated they had reported the events to the governor’s office but no one in the Jindal administration, which has spent eight years touting its ethics record, offered to intervene or even investigate his allegations.

Not only did the jury hold DOTD liable for damages, but it also held four individual DOTD employees—Willis Jenkins, Michael Murphy, Eason and Barry Lacy—personally liable.

That, of course raises the obvious question of will there now—finally—be a criminal investigation of the four individuals? After all, the jury’s verdict centered on Mercer’s claims of extortion, bribery and plain old shakedowns in the purest sense of old-time Louisiana politics.

Granted, civil and criminal trials are vastly different. In a civil trial, a verdict can be reached on the lower standard of a “preponderance of the evidence” while criminal charges must be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

In a civil suit, the plaintiff must only prove that there was a greater than 50 percent chance, based on all reasonable evidence, that the defendant committed the action that caused damages. In criminal matters, however, there is a higher standard. The prosecutor must prove that the accused committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.

But even with required higher standard of proof, the fact that a civil jury was unanimous in its decision should be sufficient to prompt at least a criminal investigation by the Ouachita Parish District Attorney’s office. Because federal funds were involved in the construction projects, and because Mercer was a contractor under the federal Disability Business Enterprise (DBE), a federal grand jury probe should ensue. “Who protects the DBE from the DOTD?” Doughty asked. “The people who are supposed to guard DBE companies are within DOTD itself (and) he didn’t get any help from them.”

Additionally, offenses committed under the funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 carry even stiffer penalties. ARRA funds were used on the I-49 projects.

The civil award puts the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office in an awkward position. The AG’s office defended the state’s interests in Mercer’s lawsuit and now that the jury has cited public corruption in its award, the office now finds itself in the unenviable position of being required to investigate public corruption in a case it had just defended in civil court. http://www.ag.state.la.us/Article.aspx?articleID=6&catID=8

“It’s been a long fight,” Mercer told the News-Star. To LouisianaVoice, he exulted, “We waxed their butts.”

He still has two more suits for more than $10 million in contractual losses pending in Baton Rouge district court.

Doughty told the News-Star that people “are tired of corruption and tired of reading about this type of thing” and that the jury “was sending a message.”

DOTD is expected to appeal the jury verdict to the Second Circuit Court of Appeal and if the state court decision is upheld, most likely the state will apply for writs with the Louisiana Supreme Court. If the decision is upheld in the higher courts, the State Legislature would then have to appropriate the payment.

All that means it could be years before Mercer sees a dime but judicial interest continues to run from the date the lawsuit was filed and the state ultimately could be forced to pay as much as an additional 50 percent.

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Bob Mann has separated the wheat from the chaff in this year’s governor’s race by invoking a single word: poverty

Posted in Economy, Education, Elections, Governor's Office, Guest Columnist, Health Care, Higher Education, Huey Long, Jobs, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians on September 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Folks, if you don’t read anything else today, please read Bob Mann’s post. It should strike a chord with every person in Louisiana who struggles to make his or life a little better. It will break the hearts of teachers who see the effects that abject poverty has on children’s ability to learn. It will resonate with those who are unable to afford health care. It should infuriate those forced to pay higher tuition at our colleges and universities because the politicians can’t seem to find the funds to support higher education.

But it will clang with an empty thud with those who want to absolve themselves of any responsibility, who fail to see society’s problems as their own and who, instead of striving to find solutions, choose only to blame the federal bureaucracy in a sweeping dismissal of the ills that afflict us all—economically, physically, emotionally, and morally.

A survey released on Thursday (Sept. 17) shows that Louisiana is the 8th poorest state in the nation. With the abundance of natural resources that we have in this state, that should never be. It should an extreme embarrassment to our leaders, especially one so oblivious as to believe he is presidential timber. Here is the link to that survey: http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/09/17/richest-and-poorest-states/?utm_source=247WallStDailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=SEP172015A&utm_campaign=DailyNewsletter

Bob Mann has said the things that I have wished a thousand times for the skill and the proficiency to articulate. Go here to read today’s post:

http://bobmannblog.com/2015/09/18/the-real-immorality-in-the-governors-race-is-not-david-vitters-prostitution-scandal/

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