Posted in Boards, Courts, Ethics, Lawsuits, Legislature, Notable Quotables, Retirement, State Police on September 4, 2014| 1 Comment »
“Despite the special counsel’s recommendation, I would strongly urge that as chairman, you ask the board to authorize the system attorneys to file the necessary documents to obtain a final declaratory judgment on this amendment. That judgment will provide the necessary finality to this matter.”
—State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson, in a letter to Frank Besson, chairman of the Louisiana State Police Retirement System Board.
Posted in Boards, Corruption, Courts, Ethics, Governor's Office, Judges, Lawsuits, Legislators, Legislature, Retirement, State Police on September 4, 2014| 18 Comments »
State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson did a sudden about-face, the Louisiana State Police Retirement System (LSPRS) Board was unanimous in its decision to allow board member and State Treasurer John Kennedy sue the board, and before the board could adjourn, State Sen. and 6th District Congressional candidate Dan Claitor filed his own lawsuit but Kennedy said he would go forward with his litigation anyway.
Just another day in the soap opera we know as Louisiana state government.
And it could only happen in Louisiana.
The LSPRS Board was meeting to wrestle with the problem of Act 859 which started out as Senate Bill 294 by State Sen. Jean-Paul Morrell (D-New Orleans), a bill ostensibly dealing with police officer disciplinary matters but which morphed into what retired state trooper Robert Landry described as an “underhanded, unethical, unconstitutional” amendment giving Edmonson an extra $55,000 per year in retirement income.
Special legal counsel Robert Klausner, a renowned pension system authority from Florida, advised the board that it had no legal standing to file suit in an attempt to have the new law declared unconstitutional but added almost parenthetically that any citizen of Louisiana could file suit.
“Could I file?” Kennedy asked. “I’m a taxpayer.”
Klausner said that Kennedy could indeed initiate litigation and if the board failed to defend it, legal expenses would be minimal and the matter could be settled once and for all as opposed to waiting to see if the legislature would repeal the act next year and if Gov. Bobby Jindal would sign such a bill.
While the board was tossing the issue back and forth and speculating whether or not Attorney General Buddy Caldwell would take it upon himself to defend such a suit should the board refuse to, Claitor left the meeting and apparently called his attorney to instruct him to file suit on behalf of Claitor.
Earlier, Claitor had spoken to the board, saying that passage of the Edmonson Amendment was not open or transparent. “It was an unconstitutional act because it was not published in advance, and was not germane to retirement issue. “I would ask that you exercise your fiduciary duty,” he said. Apologizing for having voted for the amendment because he was told that conference committee had addressed his earlier concerns about police disciplinary matters, he said, “I’m sorry to ask you to clean up this mess.”
The “mess” occurred when State Sen. Neil Riser, a member of the conference committee composed of three members each from the House and Senate, inserted the crucial language that gave Edmonson his financial windfall.
Basically, the amendment allowed Edmonson to revoke his decision years ago to enter into the state’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) which froze his retirement at 100 percent of his captain’s salary of $79,000. The revocation would have allowed him to instead retire at 100 percent of his $134,000 colonel’s salary.
LSPRS actuary Charles Hall told the board that the upfront cost of fully funding the benefits at their present, or discounted, value would be a $359,000 investment to cover the increased benefits for Edmonson and a Houma trooper who also happened to qualify under language of the amendment. That amount is $59,000 more than the original $300,000 estimated cost provided three days after the amendment’s passage. Kennedy pointed out that the actual cost would be in excess of a million dollars and he asked Hall to provide him with a computation of those figures.
Hall said he received a request to “call a trooper to discuss a bill” on the Friday before the Monday, June 2 adjournment of the legislature.
He said it became clear in his conversation with the state trooper that “they wanted to introduce an amendment to enhance (Edmonson’s) benefits.”
After a few routine questions, Kennedy asked Hall if he knew the name of the trooper whom he was asked to call and to whom he subsequently talked.
“Charles Dupuy,” Hall answered.
Dupuy is Edmonson’s Chief of Staff who has benefitted from a 52 percent increase, from $80,500 to $122,200, since Edmonson’s appointment as State Police Superintendent by Gov. Bobby Jindal in January of 2008. Dupuy’s wife, Kelly Dupuy, also has received increases in salary, from $65,000 to $80,600.
It was the first time that anyone has officially identified Dupuy as the source of the Edmonson Amendment.
Dupuy, a member of the LSPRS Board, was not in attendance at Thursday’s board meeting.
Riser, who first denied any involvement with introducing the amendment during the conference committee meeting in June but later admitted his complicity but said he did not realize it would benefit only two people.
Hall, however, in speaking to the board on Thursday cast doubt on that part of Riser’s story as well when he said it was believed that the amendment would affect only one person—Edmonson.
“This act has hurt the reputation of the state,” Kennedy said. “Someone pushed hard for this law. If I sue and the attorney general decides to defend it, I will begin taking depositions. I will send out subpoenas and we will find out who was behind this.”
Kennedy said he would foot the cost of the litigation which he said would be minimal provided the attorney general does not opt to defend the law.
The board, which had been seen as heavily stacked with Edmonson and Jindal loyalists, had been expected to display reluctance to go against the two. Instead, board members were unanimous in authorizing Kennedy to proceed with personal litigation in his “individual capacity.”
But even as Kennedy was making his offer, Claitor was already setting in motion his own litigation which he obviously had instructed Baton Rouge attorney Jack Whitehead to prepare and to stand by to file with the 19th JDC clerk’s office.
In fact, Whitehead even prepared a press release to accompany Claitor’s lawsuit, making it obvious that Claitor had planned the move well in advance of the board meeting.
Claitor, in his petition, asked the court to find Act 859 unconstitutional on four grounds:
To read the full text of Claitor’s litigation, click here: Press Release Letter & Petition
Baton Rouge Judge Janice Clark issued a temporary restraining order until she can hold a hearing on Sept. 16. To read her order, click here: CLAITOR VS LSP
The real kicker came when a two-page letter from Edmonson to the board was read. In that letter, Edmonson said he fully supports assertions “from legislators and others that the bill should be repealed.”
Then, addressing board Chairman Frank Besson, Edmonson said, “Despite the special counsel’s (Klausner) recommendation, I would strongly urge that as chairman, you ask the board to authorize the system attorneys to file the necessary documents to obtain a final declaratory judgment on this amendment. That judgment will provide the necessary finality to this matter.”
That represents a complete 180 from Edmonson’s earlier admission that a “staffer” had originally approached him about the prospects of the amendment’s benefitting him and his instructions to proceed.
It was a move of necessity brought on by a groundswell of sentiment against the amendment by retired state troopers which forced Edmonson to have a change of heart in an effort to save face and to avoid further embarrassment to his boss, Gov. Jindal. Because make no mistake, he wanted that money and Dupuy, no matter what anyone says to the contrary, did not take this upon himself as a solo act. It’s pretty obvious that Dupuy initiated the amendment at the direction of his boss who in turn had the blessings from the Fourth Floor and Riser was simply the instrument by which the amendment was inserted. That makes Jindal, Riser, Edmonson and Dupuy all complicit in a devious little scheme to reward Edmonson at the expense of every other state employee, including state troopers and retirees across the board.
That’s the way this governor and his band of sycophants work.
To read Edmonson’s letter, click here: EDMONSON LETTER
Kennedy, when told after the meeting adjourned of Claitor’s lawsuit, said, “That’s great. I’m glad. But I’m still moving forward with my own lawsuit. This is a bad law and it must be addressed.”
Posted in Boards, Corruption, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Legislators, Legislature, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Retirement, Senate, State Police on September 3, 2014| 16 Comments »
If anyone has any hopes that the matter of the Edmonson Amendment will be resolved Thursday when the Louisiana State Police Retirement System (LSPRS) Board meets, it might be worth your while to consider a few developments in the Department of Public Safety (DPS) on the watch of Superintendent of State Police Mike Edmonson, aka “Precious.”
We have already examined the placing of “consultant” Kathleen Sill on the state payroll and paying her $437,000 plus $12,900 in air travel for 21 flights for her between Baton Rouge and her Columbia, S.C. home.
And we told you about DPS Undersecretary Jill Boudreaux’s taking a $46,000 cash payout incentive to retire at her $92,000 per year salary as Deputy Undersecretary, plus about $13,000 in payment for 300 hours of accrued annual leave and then re-hiring two days later—with a promotion to Undersecretary and at a higher salary of $118,600—while keeping the incentive payment and annual leave payment.
We even told you about then-Commissioner of Administration Angelé Davis ordering her to repay the money but resigning before she could follow through on her instructions. Under her successor, Paul Rainwater, the matter was quietly forgotten.
But we didn’t tell you about Boudreaux’s son-in-law Matthew Guthrie who, while employed in an offshore job, was simultaneously on the payroll for seven months (from April 2, 2012 to Nov. 9, 2012) as a $25 per hour “specialist” for the State Police Oil Spill Commission.
Nor did we tell you about John W. Alario, the son of Senate President John Alario (R-Westwego) who serves as the $95,000 a year director of the DPS Liquefied Petroleum Gas Commission. (We had earlier told you about his wife, Dionne Alario, who was hired in November o 2013 at a salary of $56,300 to work out of her Westwego home supervising state police personnel in Baton Rouge—something of a logistics problem, to say the least.)
Or about Danielle Rainwater, daughter of former Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater, who works as a “specialist” for State Police.
And then there are the spouses brought into the fold.
Jason Starnes has benefitted from two quick promotions since 2009 as his salary jumped from $59,800 to $81,250, an increase of almost 36 percent.
As if that were not enough, his wife Tammy was brought in from another agency on Jan. 13 of this year as an Audit Manager at a salary of $92,900. So not only does she now make nearly $11,700 a year more than her husband, she also is in charge of monitoring the agency’s financial transactions, including those of her husband.
In January of 2008, just before Edmonson was named Superintendent of State Police by Gov. Bobby Jindal, State Trooper Charles Dupuy was pulling down $80,500. Today, as Edmonson’s Chief of Staff, he makes $122,200, a bump of nearly $42,000, or 52 percent. Dupuy, it should be noted, is the Edmonson staffer who originated the drive to push the Edmonson Amendment through the Legislature on the last day of the session that gives his boss a $55,000 pension boost because the amendment allows Edmonson to revoke his decision to freeze his retirement at 100 percent of his $79,000 captain’s salary some 15 years or so ago to 100 percent of his current colonel’s salary of $134,000.
Kelly McNamara and Dupuy, both troopers, met at work and eventually married and Kelly Dupuy’s star began ascending almost immediately. Her salary has gone from $65,000 in 2009 to $80,600 today
Doug Cain serves as State Police Public Affairs Commander at $79,000 per year but the position appears to have been created especially for him, according to payroll records.
State Civil Service records for most promotions indicate whether or not the person being promoted is moving into a slot previously occupied by someone else. In Cain’s case the “Former Incumbent” block on the promotion form is blank indicating there was no one in that position prior to Cain’s being named to it.
The same is true for Edmonson’s brother Paul Edmonson.
On Sept. 7, 2011, Paul Edmonson was promoted from lieutenant to Captain, filling the spot previously held by Scott Reggio. On Oct. 10, 2013, Paul Edmonson was again promoted, this time to the rank of major. This time however, he was promoted into a spot in which there was no incumbent, indicating that the position was created especially for his benefit.
His rise has been nothing less than meteoric. Since December of 2006, less than eight years ago, he has gone from the rank of sergeant to lieutenant to captain to major at warp speed and his pay rose accordingly, from $57,500 to $93,000 a year, a 62 percent increase—all under the watchful eye of his brother.
And keep in mind all this transpired while the rank and file state troopers—and other state employees—were having to make do without pay raises.
As his reward for taking care of his people in such a noble way, Dupuy and State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) conspired, along with Gov. Bobby Jindal, to sneak the amendment to Senate Bill 294 during the closing minutes of the session that allowed Mike Edmonson a “do-over” on his decision to enter the state’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) which froze his retirement at his pay at that time.
The major problem with that little plan is that it leaves other state troopers and state employees who similarly opted to enter DROP and then received significant promotions or raises out in the cold because the amendment does not afford the same opportunity for them.
Accordingly, a group of retired state troopers have indicated their willingness to litigate the matter should the LSPRS board not decide to challenge the amendment in court themselves.
And it’s not at all likely the board will take that decisive step—for two reasons, neither of them sound.
First, Florida attorney Robert Klausner, an authority on pension law, advised that the amendment is unconstitutional and that the board should simply ignore it and refused to pay the increased pension should Edmonson and one other trooper caught up in the language’s net apply for the higher benefits.
The board would have a difficult time justifying such action, however, because it is bound by the Louisiana Constitution to comply with laws passed by the Legislature. The only recourse to that action would be to file a lawsuit formally challenging the constitutionality of the amendment. To ignore it would solve nothing, several attorneys and State Treasurer John Kennedy, a member of the board, have said.
Second, the LSPRS board is stacked heavily with those who are unquestionably Edmonson and Jindal loyalists. It was Jindal who signed the bill into law as Act 859 and his Commissioner of Administration Kristy Kreme Nichols is an ex-officio member of the board, assigning as her designee Andrea Hubbard. No way she’s going against the administration.
State Sen. Elbert Guillory (R/D/R-Opelousas), chairman of the Senate Retirement Committee, is nothing short of wishy-washy as evidenced by his constant switching from Republican to Democrat and back to Republican. He is Jindal’s lap dog and would cut his throat before invoking the governor’s ire and potential endorsement for lieutenant governor.
Dupuy is a member as well but should be run off by a mean, biting dog if he does not abstain from voting for his obvious conflict of interest as Edmonson’s Chief of Staff as well as the one who originally pushed the amendment.
A couple of other members are active troopers and they are a lock for bucking litigation since their boss will be watching and waiting for any sign of weakness or betrayal.
The only certain vote in favor of litigation will come from Kennedy when the board convenes Thursday at 3 p.m. in the Louisiana State Employees Retirement System LASERS) Building at 4501 United Plaza Blvd. in Baton Rouge.
And unless Chicken Little was correct about the sky falling, Kennedy’s will be a lone voice when the dust settles.
Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Governor's Office, Judges, Lawsuits, Public Records, State Police on August 21, 2014| 20 Comments »
To fully understand the lengths to which those in the upper echelons of the Jindal administration will go to punish those—especially subordinates—who dare to cross them, you need look no further than the case the Louisiana State Police hierarchy attempted to build against one of its own.
On Feb. 6, 2010, senior trooper Chris Anderson, assisted by 11-year veteran state trooper Jason LaMarca and two other troopers, Patrick Dunn, and Tim Mannino, stopped a flatbed 18-wheeler on I-12 in Tangipahoa Parish being driven by Alejandro Soliz.
LaMarca, with Anderson’s mobile video recorder (MVR) activated and recording every word and move, patted down Soliz. Finding no weapons on the driver, LaMarca then conducted a search of the truck cab and discovered “several kilos of cocaine,” according to court records.
LaMarca pulled his taser from its holster and he and Dunn approached Soliz, ordering him to get down, according to court records and testimony provided by the State Police Commission. After Soliz, who spoke English, refused to comply with several commands of “Get down,” LaMarca attempted unsuccessfully to re-holster his taser as he continued to approach Soliz.
Transferring the taser to his right hand, he cupped his left hand behind Soliz’s head and pulled him to the ground, according to testimony by LaMarca and the other three troopers, testimony supported by the video recording.
No one was injured, no shots were fired, and there were no complaints, then or later, by Soliz of excessive force.
U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon, however, reviewed the video and thought he saw LaMarca strike Soliz in the back of the head “with what appears to be a flashlight or similar item.” Judge Fallon added that the recording showed “three other troopers laughing at this act.”
State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson (aka “Precious”), upon receiving a letter from the judge, immediately ordered an investigation into the incident—as he should have.
But what occurred next went beyond the pale of disciplinary action by Edmonson and his actions have been attributed by those familiar with the case to an act of retaliation for an earlier confrontation between LaMarca and Edmonson’s Chief of Staff, Lt. Col. Charles Dupuy.
Edmonson notified LaMarca on Nov. 18 that he was “suspended for 12 hours without pay and allowances” as a result of his actions. The cause of his suspension was based, Edmonson said, on the following violations of Louisiana State Police Policy and Procedure:
LaMarca, who had a spotless record in his 11 years, promptly filed an appeal with the State Police Commission, primarily to expunge the suspension from his record. The commission heard testimony from all four officers and reviewed the video recording of the arrest and put down of Soliz before issuing its ruling on Aug. 1, 2011.
In its ruling exonerating LaMarca, the commission noted:
That normally would have ended the matter. No weapons were used, no one was injured, no one complained of excessive force, and the commission found no violations by LaMarca.
But remember, LaMarca had earlier committed that unpardonable sin of arguing vehemently with Dupuy, Edmonson’s second in command.
And though Dupuy’s name never surfaces in the initial disciplinary action, the commission hearing and its subsequent decision, or court records, Edmonson was dutifully carrying the water for him and he made sure the issue was far from dead as he displayed unprecedented zeal in his attempt to punish LaMarca on behalf of his chief of staff.
Determined to exact revenge for LaMarca’s impudence, Edmonson took the matter up the line to the First Circuit Court of Appeal.
That’s right, he appealed the decision of the state commission charged with the responsibility of promoting effective personnel management practices for the Office of State Police and to protect the fundamental rights of the troopers under Edmonson’s command.
Much like the courtroom experiences of his boss Gov. Bobby Jindal, Edmonson went down in flames. At least the administration is consistent in that respect.
The First Circuit’s ruling of May 2, 2012:
Well, that certainly laid the matter to rest, right?
No, not if you’ve had a confrontation with Dupuy.
Edmonson promptly applied for writs (appealed) to the Louisiana Supreme Court.
And what became of that?
The State Supreme Court simply declined to even consider the matter.
Now it’s over.
Until, that is, it’s determined by Edmonson or Dupuy that LaMarca makes another misstep.
But with the publication of this post and the decisions of the State Police Commission and the First Circuit Court of Appeal now on the record, any similar attempts in the future would come dangerously close to harassment.
Posted in Attorney General, Boards, Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, House, Lawsuits, Legislators, Legislature, Retirement, Senate, State Police on August 14, 2014| 7 Comments »
Thanks to the resourcefulness of C.B. Forgotston, LouisianaVoice has obtained a copy of the seven-page report on the Edmonson Amendment and it appears that State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson and trooper Louis Boquet of Houma are legally prohibited from taking advantage of a special amendment adopted on their behalf by the Louisiana Legislature.
Meanwhile, LouisianaVoice received an unconfirmed report concerning the origination of the amendment that if true, adds a new twist to the curious series of events leading up to passage of the amendment in the last hours of the recent legislative session.
The report, authored by Louisiana State Police Retirement System (LSPRS) board attorney Denise Akers and Florida attorney Robert Klausner, specifically says that Edmonson and Boquet are barred from accepting the retirement windfall because the amendment granting them the special exemption from the state’s Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) is unconstitutional on no fewer than three levels.
Klausner and Akers also expressed concern that the source of funding for the increased benefits would have been the Employee Experience Account “which is reserved as the source of future cost of living benefits (for state police retirees and their widows and children) and payments toward the unfunded accrued liability.”
Edmonson, under the amendment would have seen his retirement income increase by $55,000 a year. The amount of what Boque’s retirement increase would have been is unknown.
The report, however, stopped short of recommending that the board file legal action to have Senate Bill 294, signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal as Act 859, declared unconstitutional.
Instead, it recommended that the LSPRS “simply decline to pay any benefit under Act 859” and that the matter “would only need to be litigated if someone benefitting from the act (Edmonson or Boque) filed to enforce it.” The reported added that both men “have indicated they do not desire to enforce it. Thus, LSPRS may incur no litigation cost in this matter.”
The report said that should either man attempt to collect the increase retirement benefits by challenging the board’s refusal to pay the benefits, “it would fall to the attorney general to defend the law, rather than expending (LSPRS) resources to pursue a costly declaratory relief action.”
The report noted that the Louisiana Supreme Court, in a decision handed down only last year, “made it clear that a pension law adopted in violation of constitutional requirements is void and of no effect.” That was the ruling that struck down Jindal’s controversial state pension reform legislation.
“It is our view that pursuit of a declaratory relief or other legal action seeking to declare Act 859 invalid is unnecessary,” the report said. “By determining that it will not enforce the act, the board acts consistent with its fiduciary duty.”
The board still must vote to accept the recommendations of Klausner and Akers and with Jindal and Edmonson controlling the majority of the 11 seats on the LSPRS board, such a vote remains uncertain.
The board is scheduled to take up the matter at its next meeting, set for Sept. 4 but likely to be moved up now that the report is public.
The report also noted that the amendment was not proposed in either the House or the Senate, but added during conference committee.
SB 294 was authored by State Sen. Jean-Paul Morrell and dealt only with administrative procedures in cases in which law enforcement officers came under investigation. State Sen. Neil Riser (R-Columbia) inserted the amendment during conference committee discussion of the bill but recent reports have surfaced that place Morrell, who also was one of the three senators—along with three representatives—who served on the conference committee, squarely at the center of the controversy as well.
Morrell authored the bill at the request of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) but was said to have subsequently told the FOP lobbyist that he would have to “hijack” the bill to conference committee in order to accommodate state police and Edmonson.
FOP President Darrell Basco, a Pineville police officer, said he had no personal knowledge of such events and lobbyist Joe Mapes did not return a phone call from LouisianaVoice.
Jindal, meanwhile, has remained strangely silent on the issue of his signing the bill with no apparent vetting by his legal counsel.
The Klausner report said the act was unconstitutional on three specific counts:
Here is the full Klausner report:
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