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Archive for the ‘Lawsuits’ Category

Like Dental Board, LSBME survives on licensing fees, incentive for fining doctors for perceived violations

Posted in Boards, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Lawsuits, Public Records, Revenue on March 18, 2016| 8 Comments »

First it was the State Dental Board exposed by LouisianaVoice as serving in the multiple capacity of prosecutor, judge and jury in investigating complaints against dentists, filing charges and then judging on their guilt or innocence. https://louisianavoice.com/2014/03/07/state-board-employs-intimidation-harassment-to-generate-funds-to-pay-for-lucrative-contracts-worth-millions-of-dollars/

Then there was the Auctioneer Licensing Board and the manner in which it failed to defend an 84-year-old widow against a case of shill bidding (efforts to drive prices up by a  plant) or to protect her from unscrupulous actions by an auctioneer.

Now we have another board, the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners (LSBME) which, through its executive director, is being accused of tactics similar to those of the dental board. The result has been a spate of lawsuits, ethics complaints, and court hearings, all revolving around charges brought against a Baton Rouge doctor and encouraged, he says, by his competitor who sits on the board that brought the charges against him.

The one common thread running through each of the regulatory boards is that they receive no state funding. And with the dental and medical examiners boards, at least, there are expenses: staff, including attorneys, investigators and executive directors, and rent of nice, upscale offices in New Orleans central business district.

The lack of state funding coupled with the aforementioned high costs means the boards must necessarily generate funding—lots of it—through licensing fees and disciplinary actions against dentists and physicians. No dentist or physician in the state wants make waves because the boards literally hold the fate of their livelihoods, indeed their licenses to practice, in their hands.

In the legal profession, rainmakers are those within a firm who generate business by enlisting well-heeled clients who can afford expensive legal representation. Legal fees, after all, are the lifeblood of a law firm and the bigger the firm, the greater the pressure to bring clients through the door.

Taking the comparisons between the dental and the medical examiners board even further, the board acts in the capacity of investigator, accuser, and judge in disciplinary cases and, again like its counterpart, depends to a certain extent on penalties imposed on doctors for its operating revenue. Consequently, there is an undeniable incentive to generate revenue to ensure the boards’ survival.

So when it comes down to adding needed revenue to the coffers, it matters little whether the dentist or physician is guilty; if the need for revenue is present, as it usually is, then the boards, to paraphrase British politician and businessman Sir Eric Campbell-Geddes, “will squeeze the lemon until the pips squeak.” https://richardlangworth.com/pips

LouisianaVoice has previously documented strong-arm tactics by the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry whereby a dentist may first be assessed a modest fine for some supposed transgression. Should the dentist resist, he may quickly learn that that modest fine of a few thousand dollars somehow has run into six figures because he is also assessed the costs of the investigation of his practice—and because the board can. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/04/16/13976/

Sitting members of the dental board are allowed to initiate charges against a competing dentist in the same town—and often do just that.

And while physicians may not actually initiate charges against one of their peers, LouisianaVoice has learned that a board member who was a direct competitor with a doctor under investigation may have participated in the investigation, board discussions and votes affecting his competitor.

Baton Rouge pain management physician Dr. Michael Burdine, an LSBME member, has emerged as a key figure in the board’s investigation of Dr. Arnold Feldman, also of Baton Rouge because of his apparent reluctance to recuse himself from discussing Dr. Feldman’s case pending before the board.

The board’s legal counsel did produce somewhat belatedly a document that purported to recuse Dr. Burdine from participating in proceedings relative to Dr. Feldman’s case but board minutes indicate “unanimous” votes on matters pertaining to Dr. Feldman even as Dr. Burdine was supposedly recused. Moreover, Dr. Burdine repeatedly participated in executive session discussions when the subject of the closed session was Dr. Feldman’s case. Board member Dr. Mark Dawson, however, insists that Dr. Burdine did, in fact, recuse himself. “The pain management doctor’s attorneys are playing you for a fool,” he told LouisianaVoice.

The Dental Board until recently brought charges at the recommendation of a private investigator retained by the board whose offices were housed in the dental board’s suite on Canal Street in New Orleans. LSBME, on the other hand, employed its investigator as a full time employee. Following Dr. Burdine’s selection as vice president of the board, investigator Cecilia Mouton, a physician also, was appointed executive director of the board and immediately requested—and received—a 10 percent pay increase to $211,600.

Mouton, while still employed in 2010 as an investigator who looked into complaints about doctors, married attorney Jack Stolier who at the time represented physicians who were subjects of investigations and who had disciplinary action pending before the board and Mouton. Stolier ceased representing physicians before the board following his marriage to Mouton, Dawson said.

Taking the comparisons between the dental and the medical examiners board even further, LSBME acts in the capacity of investigator, accuser, and judge in disciplinary cases and, again like its counterpart, depends entirely on penalties imposed on doctors for its operating revenue.

Dr. Burdine’s Spine Diagnostics of Baton Rouge, one of the largest pain management clinics in the state, had annual receipts of slightly less than $9 million compared to Dr. Feldman’s $6 million in 2012. The two clinics are only about five miles apart. Dr. Feldman maintains that closure of his facility would necessarily mean that Dr. Burdine would inherit much of his caseload, thus enhancing the size of his clinic and providing an economic windfall for him.

The federal Healthcare Quality Improvement Act of 1986 provides that physicians are entitled to a professional review action “before a panel of individuals who are appointed by the entity and (who) are not indirect economic competition with the physician involved.”

Not only has the board, with the active participation of Dr. Burdine claimed by Dr. Feldman, plowed ahead with its prosecution of Dr. Feldman, Mouton, first as board investigator and later as executive director, denied Dr. Feldman access to his investigative file in order that he might formulate a defense, said Dr. Feldman in a 42-page complaint filed with the State Board of Ethics.

The specifics of the board’s complaint against Dr. Feldman have never been revealed but appear to stem from the death of a patient while in Dr. Feldman’s clinic even though the death was determined to be from natural causes and not connected to pain treatments being administered to the patient by Dr. Feldman.

The Ethics Board found no ethics violation in a decision that has become all too familiar since the ethics laws were amended in 2008, effectively gutting the ethics board. But that hasn’t stopped Feldman from seeking justice from what he feels is malicious prosecution, abuse of due process and violation of Louisiana commerce statutes.

He filed suit against Dr. Burdine in Civil District Court in New Orleans last August and the children of one of his patients has filed a separate suit in CDC naming LSBME, Mouton and board investigator Leslie Rye as defendants.

That lawsuit, filed by Alexia Senee James and Albert Lewis James of Baton Rouge, claims that Mouton and Rye intervened in Dr. Feldman’s treatment of their mother, Tonja Guitreau James.

After Tonja James was convinced by Mouton and Rye to leave the care of Dr. Feldman, she subsequently died from a prescription drug overdose, the petition says, adding that Mouton and Rye “violated the doctor-patient privilege, confidentiality and sacrosanct relationship between Tonja James and her physician.”

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One week after LouisianaVoice story, feds hand down three-count indictment of Iberia Parish Sheriff Ackal, top deputy

Posted in Corruption, Courts, Crime, Ethics, Lawsuits, Politicians, Prison on March 9, 2016| 2 Comments »

As much as we would love to take credit, the three-count federal indictment of Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal and Lt. Col. Gerald Savoy was in the works long before our initial story on March 2. https://louisianavoice.com/2016/03/02/iberia-sheriff-burning-hotter-than-tobasco-on-a-fever-blister-after-beatings-deaths-political-payoffs-fight-with-reporters/

Our story, after all, was about one incident, that god-awful video of the deputy beating a prisoner and then turning a vicious dog loose on the man as he lay on the floor helpless to defend himself.

There were others, in the prison chapel, of all places, because there were no video surveillance there.

If the charges contained in the grand jury indictment are true, Ackal would have to be considered something of a sadist with a penchant for meting out—or at least condoning—particularly harsh punishment to black prisoners. http://www.katc.com/story/31430512/iberia-sheriff-indicted-for-their-parts-i

In a related issue, Roberta Boudreaux has yet to receive a response from the Louisiana Board of Ethics over her official complaint against Ackal. https://louisianavoice.com/2016/03/03/between-beating-guilty-pleas-sexual-harassment-lawsuit-and-ethics-complaint-iberia-sheriff-louis-ackal-has-his-plate-full/

Ackal defeated Boudreaux in the general election last November after giving a job to the third place finisher who subsequently endorsed him for re-election—the second consecutive election in which he hired the third place finisher in exchange for an endorsement in the general election. Giving anything of value in exchange for a political endorsement is against state law.

Boudreaux, contacted by LouisianaVoice, said it has been 60 days since she lodged the ethics complaint but the commission has been strangely silent in its response. That apparently is the legacy left us in Bobby Jindal’s “gold standard of ethics” about which he was so quick to boast in his ludicrous quest for the Republican presidential nomination.

“This is a sad day for law enforcement and for Iberia Parish,” Boudreaux said, adding that it was her understanding that there will be “more to follow” she said, adding, “I just hope the good guys at the department stick around.”

LouisianaVoice will continue to monitor the Ethics Commission to determine if it is actually staffed by warm bodies or Jindalesque see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys.

But back to the INDICTMENT, which brings to 10 current and former Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office (IPSO) employees who have been charged in the federal investigation of the department.

It was the plan and purpose of the conspiracy that Ackal, deputies and supervisors “would punish and retaliate against inmates and pre-trial detainees by taking them to the chapel of the (Iberia Parish Jail), where there were no video surveillance cameras, to unlawfully assault them,” the indictment said. “It was further part of the agreement that the officers and supervisors who witnessed these unlawful assaults would not intervene to stop them.”

The document charged that deputy Byron Lassalle, “understanding that Ackal wanted him to assault the detainee to retaliate against him for (a) lewd comment, Lassalle, in the presence of Ackal and Savoy, asked (Wesley) Hayes where there was a place at the jail without cameras, and Hayes responded, ‘the chapel.’”

The indictment said while the prisoner was being hit “multiple times with a baton, he “was compliant and not posing a threat to anyone” and no officer in the chapel attempted to stop “the unlawful assault.”

It said that up learning another prisoner was in jail for a sex offense, “Lassalle took his baton, held it between his own legs as if it were a penis, and forced it into (the prisoner’s) mouth,” causing him to choke.

As first and then another prisoner, while being beaten, blamed the lewd comment on someone else, deputies would bring the newest accused into the chapel to be beaten, apparently without making any real effort to determine who actually made the comment. In short, punishment, not seeking the truth, seemed to be the top priority.

If convicted, Ackal and Savoy could face up to 10 years in prison, plus fines of $250,000 for each count.

As further evidence of the complete deterioration of law and order in Iberia Parish, LouisianaVoice has obtained additional documents that show unrestrained lawlessness on the part of the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office.

In that case, which will be laid out in greater detail in a future post, LouisianaVoice will chronicle how deputies not only raided the home of an Iberia Parish Teach of the Year on the basis of an informant who was paid $45 by a deputy, but one of the deputies later pleaded guilty to stealing jewelry, a gun, money, and knives from the teacher’s home during the raid.

In perhaps the most implausible thing to come out of that raid was a list of evidence found in the teacher’s home that included “counterfeit five dollar bills,” prompting a retired state police officer to simply shake his head in disbelief. “Who makes counterfeit five dollar bills?” he asked rhetorically. “I’ve never seen counterfeit bills in denominations smaller than twenties.”

There is probably no more interesting sight than seeing the expression on one’s face the moment he realizes he is wrong. That look most surely crossed the face of the district attorney at some point in time.

The raid and the ensuing charges against the teacher, which cost him his job, are so egregious in nature that the district attorney’s office has offered him the opportunity to plea to a misdemeanor with no jail time, no probation, and complete expungement of his record. No such deal would ever be offered if prosecutors weren’t fully aware they had laid an egg.

The significance of that move was not lost on the teacher, Darius Sias, who has a civil lawsuit pending against the sheriff’s office. He rolled the dice in turning down the plea offer so that he could pursue his civil suit. “I want to go to trial on this,” he said.

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Between beating guilty pleas, sexual harassment lawsuit and ethics complaint, Iberia Sheriff Louis Ackal has his plate full

Posted in Courts, Crime, Elections, Ethics, Lawsuits, Politicians on March 3, 2016| 1 Comment »

The hiring of David “Spike” Boudoin by Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal to the newly-created position of director of community relations, while prompting an official complaint with the State Board of Ethics, would appear to be the least of Ackal’s problems.

Boudoin finished in third place behind Ackal and parish jail warden Roberta Boudreaux in the October 24 primary election and on Oct. 30 Boudoin was hired and simultaneously announced his endorsement for Ackal’s re-election.

And though Boudreaux fired off a three-page letter to the ethics commission in filing an official complaint of a possible felony in connection with the hiring/endorsement, Ackal has plenty other matters on his plate.

For starters, a half-dozen current and former Iberia Parish deputies recently entered guilty pleas to five felony charges and one misdemeanor in Western District Federal Court in Lafayette in connection with inmate beatings. http://theadvocate.com/news/acadiana/14969306-123/three-former-two-current-iberia-parish-sheriffs-employees-plead-guilty-in-beating-inmates-at-the-par

This, of course, was after a prisoner allegedly managed to shoot himself in the chest, according to a coroner’s report, as he sat in a sheriff’s department patrol car with his hands handcuffed behind his back.

Five of the six, former deputies Wade Bergeron, 40, of Milton, Wesley Hayes, 36, of St. Martinville, and Jesse James Hayes, 36, of St. Martinville and current employees Ben LaSalle, 34, of Erath, and Brett Broussard, 35, of Broussard, face up to 10 years in prison and fines of $250,000 each while former deputy Robert Burns, 46, of Youngsville, could be sentenced to up to a year in prison and fined $100,000.

Along with Boudreaux’s ethics complaint and the federal indictments and resulting guilty pleas, Ackal also has just been hit with a federal sexual harassment lawsuit by a former female employee who says one of Ackal’s protégés made repeated sexual advances even though Ackal was aware of the problem but did nothing to stop it.

In her ETHICS COMPLAINT, Boudreaux, who said she intends to seek the sheriff’s office again, cited a Louisiana statute which addresses election offenses involving bribery, threats or intimidation of election officials or candidates.

The section referenced by her says “No person shall knowingly, willfully, or intentionally:

“Give or offer to give, directly, or indirectly, any money or anything of apparent present or prospective 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.

“When such person is a candidate for public office who has withdrawn or was eliminated prior to or subsequent to the primary election, accept(s) or offer(s) to accept directly or indirectly, any money, or anything of apparent present or prospective value that is given 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.

“Whoever violates any provision of this section shall be fined not more than $2000 or be imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than two years, or both, for the first offense. On a second offense, or any subsequent offense, the penalty shall be a fine of not more than $5,000 or imprisonment at hard labor for not more than five years, or both.”

What makes this particularly knotty for Ackal is this is his second trip down that same road. The good news is no complaint was filed when he did the same thing four years ago. In the 2011 election, he hired third place finisher Bobby Jackson as an intelligence analyst but never gave him working space, equipment or any direction as to his duties, said Jackson, who quit after only two months on the job because he said he had no desire to walk around “with my thumb in my rear.” As for Ackal’s most recent hire of third-place finisher Boudoin, Jackson said he sees “history repeating itself.”

Boudreaux said she believes that Ackal violated the provisions she cited by offering Boudoin the captain’s position at a salary of $50,658 “in exchange for Mr. Boudoin’s endorsement in the Nov. 21, 2015, runoff election.

Boudoin signed his oath of office as Iberia Parish deputy on Nov. 2, 2015, only two weeks after the primary election and less than three weeks before the runoff, records show. DAVID BOUDOIN OATH OF OFFICE

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

            The SEXUAL HARASSMENT LAWSUIT, filed by former employee Laurie Segura, said Bert Berry, Chief of the Criminal Department began in 2012 and lasted for 10 months. She said she attempted to avoid Berry when possible but did not report him for 10 months because she feared retaliation, a fear she said was realized once she did complain.

Segura, who began working at the sheriff’s office in July 2008, resigned in January 2015 when the work environment became intolerable, she said.

She says in her petition that Berry, who moved into her suit of offices in 2012, rubbed his hands and crotch against her body and that he would sneak up on her and kiss her and that he made “inappropriate inquiries” about her sex life. She said he talked “graphically about his fantasies of having sex with her, (tried) to convince her to engage in phone sex with him,” and that he simulated sex acts in her presence and talked about his penis.

She said he ignored her repeated requests that he leave her alone, so she began evasive tactics. “When the security cameras showed he was coming into the office, she immediately picked up the phone and pretended she was in the middle of a phone call,” her petition says.

“In order to intimidate her from taking action,” the suit says, “Berry constantly brought up his relationship with Sheriff Ackal and how the sheriff had practically raised him.”

After she finally reported him to Human Resources, “retaliation was swift and sustained,” the petition says. She said that Ackal “sanctioned” Berry’s behavior even though Berry admitted to Ackal that he had committed the harassment.

Instead of reprimanding Berry, Ackal instead met with the sheriff office’s legal counsel, Ackal’s chief deputy and Berry (by telephone), and prepared a letter of accusations against Segura in an effort to get her to drop her complaint.

Ackal met with Segura the following day, the petition says, and accused her of exposing her breasts in public and of bragging about her sexual activities. “Even though Segura had anticipated retaliation, she was shocked at this letter and asked who had made these false allegations,” the lawsuit says. While Ackal refused to reveal his source, he did tell her that he would communicate with Berry that she denied the allegations, “making clear that Berry was involved with the letter,” she said.

“Instead of taking action and dismissing a man who had admittedly engaged in egregious harassment, the sheriff tried to make Segura guilty for making the complaint,” the petition says. “He talked about how hard this situation was for him because he basically raised Berry. He would not even put a reprimand in Berry’s file after he learned it would be part of Berry’s public record.” She said Ackal refused to move Berry, claiming there was nowhere to put him, “which was absolutely untrue,” she said.

She says Ackal gave raises totaling $35,000 a year to three subordinates who immediately “tried in a variety of different ways to intimidate Segura into dropping her complaint” and that the sheriff’s legal counsel tried to pressure her to quit her job.

She said Ackal approached the situation not as her problem but one that might hurt his chances of re-election “and he needed four more years on the job.”

She said that Berry ordered an audit of her computer following her filing of an EEOC complaint against him.

After the retaliation reached the point of physical threats, she said, she finally left her job in January of 2015. “But even then the retaliation did not cease,” she said. Instead Ackal began “falsely accusing her of stealing his campaign funds.”

When Ackal failed to respond to her EEOC complaints, she finally resorted to her federal lawsuit.

 

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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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Why did ATC Commissioner Troy Hebert intervene as lead investigator in fatal accident? Was it to protect bar owner?

Posted in ATC, Corruption, Courts, Crime, Ethics, Lawsuits, Public Records, Senate, State Agencies, Transparency on February 10, 2016| 11 Comments »

In the early morning hours of Jan. 22, 2012, Joseph Branch, with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .307 percent (2½ higher than the .08 percent, the legal definition of intoxication in Louisiana) and driving at a high rate of speed, struck two bicyclists, killing Nathan Crowson and severely injuring his riding companion, Daniel Morris.

Branch, who had a previous DWI conviction in 2006 and was given a six-month suspended sentence, was convicted of vehicular homicide and first degree vehicular negligent injuring and sentenced to 7½ years in prison. http://theadvocate.com/news/11878236-123/baton-rouge-man-joseph-branch

That should be that, right?

Well, no. There remained the issue of whether or not The Bulldog, a bar where Branch had been drinking with two friends just before the accident, might be legally liable for continuing to serve Branch after it was evident that he was intoxicated.

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

So, how are investigations carried out?

Meticulously. Carefully. Thoroughly.

Think again.

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

One page that completely exonerated the bar of any violation. http://www.wbrc.com/story/16903763/bar-cleared-in-fatal-crash

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

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

Enter ATC Commissioner Troy Hebert.

This is the same Troy Hebert who allegedly once admonished an agent for not shooting an unarmed man. When an ATC agent attempted to question a man who appeared to be intoxicated in the Tigerland area near the LSU campus where a number of bars and clubs are located, the man dove at the agent’s feet in an attempt to take him down. He was quickly overpowered and handcuffed by agents who reported the incident to Hebert. They said Hebert asked, “Why didn’t you shoot him?”

It is also the same Troy Hebert who another Baton Rouge bar owner says set his establishment up for selling to underage customers.

In December, his bartender refused to sell alcohol to an underage patron working undercover in tandem with an ATC agent. When the bartender refused to sell alcohol to the underage customer, the female ATC agent purchased the drink and gave to the younger girl and then cited the bar for selling alcohol to underage patron.

“That server is taught that they are to remove the drink from the individual who is underage,” Hebert said.

“She slides the beer to the underage girl,” bar owner Andrew Bayard said. “She assumed possession and gives it to the underage girl. I don’t feel that is a fault of my employee.” http://www1.wbrz.com/news/bar-owner-at-odds-with-state-alcohol-agents-claims-his-employee-was-set-up

Hebert officially resigned as commissioner, effective Jan. 10, the day before the new governor, John Bel Edwards, took office. He since has announced he will seek the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. David Vitter who is not seeking re-election.

But we digress.

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

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

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

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

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

Might those two words be Chris Young?

The New Orleans attorney represents scores of clubs and bars (and convenience stores) before the ATC and his sister, Judy Pontin, is the executive management officer for ATC’s New Orleans office, earning $71,000 per year.

John Young, the brother of Chris Young and Pontin, is the former president of Jefferson Parish and was an unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor in last fall’s statewide elections.

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

Chris Young was the legal counsel for The Bulldog prior to and throughout the ATC investigation.

Daniel Morris, who was severely injured in the accident, retained the representation of Lafayette attorney Patrick Daniel who issued his own subpoena to ATC for certain records to bolster his litigation against The Bulldog.

In February 2013, more than a year after the accident which left Morris disabled, Daniel sent a letter to ATC general Counsel Jessica Starns noting that ATC FAILED TO PROVIDE RECORDS TO MORRIS

“Your response is considered incomplete as it does not contain certain items referenced in the produced documents,” he said.

It was not immediately determined if the records were finally produced but it does raise the obvious question of why did ATC not comply with that subpoena in the first place, thus necessitating a follow up letter from the attorney?

Could those records have contained information that conflicted with ATC’s one-page report of Feb. 9, 2012, the report that supposedly cleared The Bulldog?

A lot of questions were left hanging out there and someone deserves some answers.

We’re guessing that would be the families of the two cyclists.

But we may never know those answers.

In June 2014, the First Circuit Court of Appeal upheld a Baton Rouge state district court in tossing Morris’s lawsuit on the basis that the responsibility for intoxication lies with the individual, not the establishment.

Thus was added insult to Morris’s considerable injuries.

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