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Vitter hit with triple whammy on eve of election; P.I. on Dave’s payroll is arrested for recording Jefferson Sheriff

Posted in Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Fraud, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Vitter on October 23, 2015| 13 Comments »

A professional acquaintance told us several months ago that if David Vitter is elected governor, “I guarantee you he will go down in scandal in his first term.”

It may not take that long.

Vitter has used his Senate franking privilege to stick his sanctimonious foot in his mouth all the way up to his knee. Or, as my grandfather was fond of saying, he let his alligator mouth overload his jay bird backside.

On Friday (October 23, 2015), it was also learned that a man employed by a Dallas private investigation firm that has been paid more than $135,000 in 2015 by Vitter’s campaign was arrested after attempting to record a conversation between two Jefferson Parish politicians. The firm, J.W. Bearden & Associates, also has offices in New Orleans. http://theadvocate.com/news/police/13785472-32/man-arrested-after-trying-to

Robert Frenzel, 30, of Texas, was apparently video recording a conversation between Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand and State Sen. Danny Martiny during a regular breakfast meeting convened by Normand at the Royal Blend café in Old Metairie.

When confronted by Normand, Frenzel bolted from the restaurant. He was eventually found hiding behind an air-conditioning unit and booked on one count of criminal mischief but Normand said there also was probable cause to arrest him for interception of communications.

Vitter’s campaign office did not respond to repeated requests by Lamar White, publisher of the CenLamar web blog, for comment on Frenzel’s arrest. White’s phone calls and text messages to Vitter campaign spokesman Luke Bolar were not answered.

Normand, a longtime political enemy of Vitter, said he was unable to say for certain that he was a target of Frenzel’s surveillance, “but I’m going to find out.” He said he was confident in suggesting that Vitter was behind the surveillance. “Everybody does opposition research,” he told the Baton Rouge Advocate, “but quite frankly, I’m not the opposition.”

Normand said that investigators discovered a printout on blogger Jason Brad Berry. Over the past week, Berry has published a series of interviews on his blog www.theamerican zombie.com with former prostitutes who claim to have had sexual relations with Vitter, including one, Wendy Ellis, who says Vitter fathered a child with her in 2000.

While it’s commonplace for U.S. senators and representatives to use their free mailing perk (franking) to bolster their campaigns for re-election, it’s a bit tacky to do so in an effort to promote yourself to voters in a campaign for, say….governor.

And yet, that’s precisely what he has done. Apparently, it’s not enough to hit up state lobbyists in a blatant quid pro quo (kwid ˌprō ˈkwō/ noun: a favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something) solicitation of $5,000 contributions.

Also on Friday, one day before the gubernatorial primary election, we received a one-page, three-paragraph letter from Vitter on his U.S. Senate letterhead “to keep you informed on my work in the U.S. Senate to reduce wasteful spending in Washington.” VITTER FRANKING LETTER

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

After launching into a one-paragraph attack on President Obama for the $18 trillion national debt, Vitter launched into an invective against the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), aka food stamps.

“Nearly one in five people in America receive some amount of benefits from the program,” he wrote. “As it has expanded, fraud has also spread.”

Well yes, as any program involving the exchange of anything valuable expands, fraud expansion goes with it. That’s no great revelation. But let’s take a closer look. (We would emulate Bobby Jindal by prefacing this with his usual, “Two things,” but there are more than two points to be made here.)

  • Louisiana accounted for $1.3 billion of the total of $70 billion in U.S. food stamp redemptions in Fiscal Year 2014, which was 1.85 percent of the national total.
  • Louisiana had only 26 of the 2,226 sanctions imposed nationally in FY-2014, just 1.2 percent of the total sanctions.
  • In 2014 more than $84 million in food stamp benefits were spent at military commissaries. Vitter purports to support the military but many members of our armed forces live at or below the poverty level. The USDA estimates that up to 22,000 active-duty members of the military used food stamps in 2012. http://www.marketplace.org/topics/wealth-poverty/military-families-turn-food-stamps
  • More than 90 percent of entitlement benefits went to the elderly, the disabled or to working households. The breakdown is 53 percent to those 65 and older, 20 percent to the non-elderly disabled and 18 percent to non-elderly, non-disabled working households. SNAP STATISTICS

SNAP SNAPSHOT

Vitter says in his letter than he has authored bills to require work requirements to be enforced. He apparently is oblivious or uncaring about the fact that some food stamp recipients are forced to work two and three minimum wage jobs just to survive. Yet Vitter is adamantly opposed to increasing the minimum wage.

Vitter apparently subscribes to the belief that life begins at conception and ends at birth as evidenced by his opposition to both choice for women and assistance for babies born into poverty. Here are a few more points:

legalized-tax-fraud

Vitter appears to be quite concerned about entitlement benefits, particularly food stamps, going to the citizens of the third poorest state in the nation and not sufficiently concerned about the outlay of billions of state dollars in benefits to corporations that provide few, if any, new jobs. That’s not conducive to running a successful campaign for governor—unless he is trying to appeal to a certain segment of the population, say the so-called 1 percent, which wants to deny food stamps, health benefits, and higher wages to the least of us.

That doesn’t sound like someone who wants to be governor for all the people of the state.

But then Vitter has always been all about Vitter—and a couple of special ladies he would prefer not to discuss in debates or any other forum.

Take the case of Derek Myers, the former television reporter who was fired after three weeks on the job after Myers asked Vitter if he still patronized prostitutes and added: “Senator Vitter, don’t you think the people deserve answers?”

Myers, an investigative reporter for WVLA in Baton Rouge confronted Vitter in a parking lot immediately after he qualified to run for governor last month.

Vitter’s office denied that it contacted the TV station about pulling Vitter’s ads from the station following the confrontation. Vitter spokesman Luke Bolar claimed he’d heard that Myers pushed a Vitter campaign staffer in an effort to reach Vitter.

Myers, however, said video of the incident existed that shows that he never assaulted any campaign staffer but that WVLA forbade him from making the video public.

For Vitter, the hits just keep coming.

Lamar White and CenLamar also re-posted a new story on Friday originally broken by Jason Brad Berry in which he revealed that three other witnesses have come forward to implicate Vitter as a client of prostitutes in New Orleans during the 1990s. http://cenlamar.com/2015/10/23/there-is-definitely-a-house-in-new-orleans-three-more-allege-vitters-involvement-with-nola-prostitutes/

This comes on the heels of a story published a week ago by Berry’s American Zombie news blog which published interviews with a former prostitute who says Vitter fathered a child by her in 2000.

Three years ago, a brief tweet exchange took place between Vitters twitter account and a 20-year-old college student from the New Orleans Westbank. The tweet to “LuvMy_Kisses” was quickly deleted but not before it was archived. The woman, identified as Daysha Scott, was asked to explain why Vitter was contacting her. She tweeted back, “I know something you don’t know.” http://gawker.com/5937761/why-was-philandering-senator-david-vitter-tweeting-to-this-young-lady-last-night

All in all, David Vitter, who entered the 2015 race for governor as the odds-on favorite, could now find himself suddenly on shaky ground if not for Saturday’s primary then certainly for the Nov. 21 General Election. Democrat State Rep. John Bel Edwards was generally conceded to be a shoo-in for a runoff slot by virtue of his being the only Democrat in the race while Vitter is opposed by two other Republicans, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne and Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle.

In recent days, Angelle has pulled even with Vitter, according to some political polls.

The latest incident with the private investigator could be a devastating blow to the one-time front-runner and more details are almost certain to emerge in the coming days and weeks.

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1.2 million delinquent notices by OMV create firestorm; Insurance Commissioner awakens 2 days before election

Posted in Elections, Ethics, Finances, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, OGB, Office of Group Benefits, Politicians, Privatization, Revenue, State Police on October 22, 2015| 30 Comments »

Two days before statewide elections, Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon, who refused to involve himself in the State Office of Group Benefits controversy because, he insisted, the state employee health insurance was not insurance, has suddenly become a consumer advocate over those delinquent fee letters sent out by the Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV) on Oct. 13.

Never mind that OGB provides health insurance to about 230,000 state employees, retirees and dependents and never mind that it was taken over by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana (a major contributor to Donelon’s campaigns).

Never mind that the Louisiana Department of Insurance approved the purchase of two insurance companies in 2013 by an individual who had little industry experience and never mind that both companies were seized by regulators within a year when it was learned that Alexander Chatfield Burns allegedly siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars in stocks and bonds off the company’s books, replacing them with worthless assets.

Never mind that in 2012 Donelon put former state legislator Noble Ellington on the payroll as a $150,000 per year as the department’s number-two man despite Ellington’s glaring lack of experience in insurance.

Never mind that Donelon did little to rein in auto insurance companies that were trying to steer auto repairs to favored body shops that were accused of doing unsafe work and providing after-market parts.

Never mind that Donelon has been the beneficiary of more than $4.5 million in campaign contributions from insurance companies and insurance defense attorneys since 2006.

That was then. This is now and now is only two days before Donelon is to face a challenge from three opponents in Saturday’s election. So of course, he wades into the controversy over those 1.2 million delinquent notices sent out to motorists that OMV claims owe fines for various offenses dating as far back as 1986 (29 years if you’re doing the math).

LouisianaVoice first wrote about this back on Sept. 29 when we observed that none of the $11 million earmarked to pay for state police pay raises through the “enhanced debt collection efforts” by OMV has been submitted to the state general fund.

That was first made known in a confidential report prepared for legislators obtained by LouisianaVoice.

House Bill 638 by State Rep. Barry Ivey (R-Baton Rouge) was enacted and signed into law by Bobby Jindal as Act 414. HB 638 provided that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) collect certain fees “associated with the suspension of an operator’s license” which were related to auto liability insurance requirements. The fees become delinquent after 60 days and are referred to the Office of Debt Recovery.

The bill earmarked $25 million from the Debt Recovery Fund for use by the Office of State Police. But none of that money has yet to go to the general fund, prompting concern by legislators and resulting in the report.

Legislative watchdog and resident curmudgeon C.B. Forgotston way back on Jan. 16 of this year questioned the constitutionality of an earlier bill by Ivey, HB 872, passed during the 2014 regular legislative session which added a $75 fee for the reinstatement of a driver’s lapsed auto liability insurance. HB 872 was to generate about $53 million per year with $42 million earmarked for the general operations of DPS, $7 million to housing parolees and $1 million to district attorneys.

Forgotston said HB 872 was called a “fee,” but in actuality, is an unconstitutionally-passed “tax.” The reason for its being unconstitutional is the Louisiana State Constitution of 1974 which says “No measure levying or authorizing a new tax by the state or by any statewide political subdivision whose boundaries are coterminous with the state; increasing an existing tax by the state or by any statewide political subdivision whose boundaries are coterminous with the state; or legislating with regard to tax exemptions, exclusions, deductions or credits shall be introduced or enacted during a regular session held in an even-numbered year.” http://senate.la.gov/Documents/Constitution/Article3.htm

But in the make-believe world of Jindal politics, the Office of Group Benefits is not insurance and a fee is not a tax. That ranks right up there with Bill Clinton’s “It depends on what your definition of is is.”

But back to HB 638 (ACT 414). Just in case you need a reminder just two days before the election, that bill passed unanimously in the House and with just one dissenting vote in the Senate (State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson voted no). Here are the links to the votes of the two chambers just in case you need a handy guide before casting your ballot on Saturday:

HOUSE VOTE ON HB 638

SENATE VOTE ON HB 638

And now on the eve of many of those same legislators’ re-election efforts, the bill is creating pure havoc throughout the state.

Why?

Well, consider this. If you had a vehicle you purchased in 1976, say, and you traded it in in 1987. You would have cancelled your insurance and license plate on that vehicle and transferred everything to your new vehicle. But suppose by some clerical error, OMV did not get the word that you sold or traded that old vehicle and suddenly, on Oct. 13 of this year, a delinquent notice went out to you because you have not had insurance on your 1976 vehicle for 28 years. The onus is on you to prove that you had a legitimate reason for not insuring that vehicle or face a fine of $500—or more.

Donelon said, correctly, that the average citizen most likely does not have documentation to prove he or she had insurance because no one keeps proof of insurance from a decade or more ago.

So now you have your notice and you know it’s in error so naturally, you try to call OMV only to encounter what seems to be a permanent busy signal. And if you happen to get through, your call is dropped.

And let’s not forget that Jindal, in his maniacal obsession to privatize everything in state government, contracted out many of the OMV services and laid off scores of OMV employees, so good luck with trying to reach someone to help you.

Many of the 1.2 million who received the letters (at a cost to taxpayers of about $500,000) are claiming that they are accused of offenses that are nothing more than paperwork errors and State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson is now saying OMV will not pursue any delinquent fines older than 2006 for which OMV does not have proper documentation.

We at LouisianaVoice are of the opinion that any violation allowed to lie dormant by OMV for more than one year with no effort to collect same should be dismissed. Certainly after three years. After all, in Louisiana, if you wait for more than 12 months after being wronged, your case has prescribed and you are unable to file a lawsuit.

That’s 20 years, or 69 percent right off the top of the anticipated $53 million in additional revenue the Jindal administration so desperately needed to patch over holes in the state budget. Edmonson also said the fact that $11 million of that $53 million was to fund pay increases for state troopers had nothing to do with the notices mailed out on Oct. 13.

Donelon, who regulates the insurance industry in Louisiana, OGB notwithstanding, suggested that drivers should not trust OMV records and should call the governor’s office with grievances.

Would that be the governor’s office have an Iowa area code, by any chance?

One reader had a slightly different experience. Here is her account as related to LouisianaVoice in a recent email:

            My husband just recently retired 20 years of service in the Army, and we’ve been under contract to buy a home for the first time, in Sulphur.  I’m a La native, so we’ve decided to settle here.

            Today, we had to switch our insurance companies because the one we’ve had together since married in 2006, and he’s had for many years even before that, has decided in their policy that simply residing in Louisiana means that our insurance must be raised because I suppose something about this State is more risky than Texas, Kentucky, Alabama, or Georgia (all of the states we’ve resided in that our insurance remained unchanged).

            Which brings me around to what I have to say. I’d like to explain how I turned a $200 oops into a $566 OMG today.

            While attempting to change insurance companies, they ran my driver’s license. Standard.

            My license came back as suspended. Later, at the DMV, I was informed not only was my license suspended, but there had been issued a bench warrant for my arrest.

            It was a seat belt ticket I got four years ago, and speeding ticket I received one year ago. I forgot to pay it. Over my driving career (I’m 39 years old and I’ve owned 2 Corvettes), I’ve gotten more than one speeding ticket, and more than once, I’ve forgotten to pay it.

            However, this was my first in the state of Louisiana, as I’ve lived in Texas for the majority of my adulthood, and the rest in the previous states mentioned. I never received a notice in the mail, warning me of an impending suspension of my license, nor did I receive any notice or warning that a warrant was being issued for my arrest. ALL of which I have received from Texas, giving me an opportunity to address it.  I mentioned that fact to the lady at the DA’s office when I arrived to deal with it, and she informed me that “they don’t notify anyone for these things.”  So, my license was suspended, and there was a warrant for my arrest, yet the State makes no effort prior to this result, as Texas does, to notify me?  No.

            They don’t.

            I had a moment of terrible dread and relief at the same time.  I found out because I was changing insurance companies and they told me.

            I looked up the consequences for driving with a suspended license, had I found out by being pulled over, and they are very harsh.  It carries a minimum fine of $300, up to $7500 and seven days jail time.  All because I forgot to pay a speeding ticket.

            After paying the ticket, I returned to the OMV, where I had to pay another $102 to “unsuspend” my license, because paying the ticket + late fine wasn’t enough for the State to teach me a lesson.

            While I waited in line, it occurred to me the terrible impact this could have on so many Louisiana families and college students.  It seems unrealistic that no one would ever forget to pay a ticket, or even that it would be rare. I wondered if something so simple could be common, but with such crazy, harsh financial consequences, especially if jailed. Suddenly, a DMV employee came out and made the announcement that they were severely understaffed—thanks to Bobby Jindal’s cutbacks (I had already been waiting almost 2 hours at this point) and began to group all of us based on our issues.

            Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised that a great many of the people there ended up in the same group as me, dealing with the very same problem. A very expensive problem. A problem that likely could have been prevented for most if not all of us, with a simple notice in the mail.

            For me, the total was over $500 to get my license reinstated and ticket paid. There were at least 20 people in line with me. I estimate the OMV likely collected a minimum of $10,000 in about three hours, just from my line. Nearly $30,000 in an average eight-hour work day in fines just from suspended licenses for the most undeserving of reasons from the most vulnerable class of people, yet still were “understaffed” to ridiculousness and a majority of the people I was in line with would probably love to have a job there.  That’s $150,000 a week! $600,000 a month! $7.2 million a year!

            I have no clue where all of this money goes, or what it pays for, since clearly it isn’t on staffing. The debit card reader wasn’t working so I was forced to an ATM and the clerk I was with struggled endlessly with her computer mouse and what I believed to be serious system lag, so equipment certainly isn’t eating funds.

            Maybe this all seems trivial, but truly, it didn’t seem trivial to anyone I was in line with.  There was sadness, fear, and dread on the faces of all of them.  It was really heartbreaking, and worse, I feel like it likely could have all been prevented with a simple notice in the mail. People are given around 60 days to pay a ticket in Louisiana. It is as though the state counts on many of them being forgotten, and without notice, having their license suspended, and likely many of them discovering this and getting a memory jog by being pulled over for something insignificant, and being put in handcuffs, with a massive fine they can’t pay, and seven days in jail.

            I am fortunate enough to be able to pay it and still eat, but I think the look on all of those people’s faces in line with me at the OMV will keep me up tonight. It’s already nearly 1 am, and I’m still bothered by it.

            I can’t help but wonder how many people in Louisiana, living their lives, taking care of children, going to work, etc., forget to pay a speeding ticket, and it’s the one thing that knocks them into a hole they can’t get out of;  but they check their mail every day.

            I’ve been in a lot of places over the last 20 years. Texas to Wisconsin to Connecticut to Georgia to Louisiana. I see more people struggling here than anywhere else I’ve been in the U.S.

            I can’t help but think this no-notice high penalty cost system is contributing to bleeding the average Louisianan driving to work and back, to death. Maybe it’s nothing. I think it’s something.  Something that must effect the lives of a lot of people.

            If a simple notice in the mail could save Louisiana citizens and families $7.2 million a year, I think a lot of people would like to know why it isn’t done.

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You couldn’t time an egg with this guy: State Police Lt. has sex twice on duty, once in back seat of patrol car; still on job

Posted in Civil Service, Corruption, Ethics, Legislature, Legislators, State Police on October 4, 2015| 28 Comments »

 

Louisiana Troop A State Police Lieutenant John Cannon remains on his $115,690 per year job despite having been reprimanded for numerous offenses including theft of satellite television signals, failure to file required Daily Activity Reports (DARs), unauthorized voiding of traffic tickets, failure to investigate a fleet crash, failure to deliver fatality packets to the families of traffic fatality victims, and twice having sex with a woman while on duty—with one of those times being in the rear seat of his patrol unit.

Legislators approved two double digit state police pay increases six months apart earlier this year even as more than 35,000 state civil service employees were learning that they again would not receive 4 percent pay increases. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/09/29/state-general-fund-has-yet-to-see-any-of-the-11-million-in-delinquent-fine-collections-to-pay-for-state-police-pay-raise/

http://theadvocate.com/news/13605105-128/no-pay-raises-for-most

Troop A includes the eight parishes of East and West Feliciana, Pointe Coupee, East and West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Livingston, Ascension and part of St. James. Cannon, a shift supervisor, has been a state trooper since 1990. He was promoted to sergeant in July of 2000 and to lieutenant in August of 2010.

LouisianaVoice obtained the 38-page state police internal affairs investigative file on Cannon through a public records request. That file indicates Cannon was never demoted for his actions. His most severe punishment included a 36-hour suspension without pay and a $904.96 per pay period reduction in pay for nine two-week pay periods (the equivalent of a 240-hour suspension)—from Oct. 27, 2014 through June 21, 2015, that was handed down by letter of Sept. 10, 2014 from Lt. Col. Charles Dupuy.

The internal affairs investigation of claims that Cannon had sex with a woman on two occasions while on duty was launched on May 15, 2014, after West Feliciana Parish sheriff’s deputies reported they had a woman in custody for possession of Lortab and marijuana. The woman, whose name was redacted throughout the report, told deputies that she twice had exchanged sex for money with Cannon.

She repeated her story to state police detectives but failed a polygraph test on the question of her being paid for sex, the report said. Cannon subsequently admitted to detectives that he had sexual intercourse with the woman but denied he paid her for sex although he did admit that he twice gave her money. He said the money was given immediately before or after each sexual encounter but that on the first occasion the money was to pay her cell phone and the second time was to pay her rent and that he was only trying to help her and to establish a friendship.

While the woman was twice subjected to polygraph tests and failed on the key point of payment for sex, the state police report never indicated that a similar test was administered to Cannon even though that was the only aspect of the entire affair that would have actually been criminal in nature.

The two first met on Feb. 16, 2014 in, New Roads in Pointe Coupee Parish where Cannon was working a seat belt grant. The woman told investigators that the two had multiple conversations by phone before meeting behind the parish library in New Roads on Feb. 21 “sometime between 9 and 11 p.m.,” but that they did not engage in sex on that occasion. She said they subsequently “negotiated sex on the phone.”

Cannon later called her at her father’s home in St. Francisville where she was living and told her he “needed her,” she said. The woman told authorities that she told Cannon she was out of money and that he later picked her up in his marked state police unit near her father’s residence and “immediately gave her $120, which she claimed was for sex,” according to the report. Cannon later said the amount was closer to $60 and was not for sex but for her cell phone bill. The report by internal affairs put the date as March 4, 2014.

She told investigators that their first sexual encounter took place in a wooded area south of St. Francisville just off U.S. 61 and lasted “approximately two minutes.” Afterward, she said, Cannon realized his patrol car was stuck and that she smoked a marijuana joint while he checked to see how badly the car was stuck. Apparently realizing how it might look if he were caught with her in such a secluded area, especially given the fact that he was dating an employee of the West Feliciana Parish Sheriff’s Office at the time, he ordered her to walk to the main highway and catch a ride while he called for someone to pull him out.

She did catch a ride to her father’s house while Cannon called the sheriff’s department for help in removing his vehicle.

Almost two months later, on April 29, Cannon picked her up—in his state police unit while on duty and in full uniform—from an apartment in Baker where she was living with her boyfriend. Cannon drove to a home she told authorities she believed to be in Baton Rouge but which Cannon later admitted was a friend’s home in Prairieville in Ascension Parish. They again had sexual intercourse in a bedroom of the home, that time for a duration of about three minutes, she said. She told investigators she requested $150 afterward but Cannon gave her only $100. He admitted that he stopped at a Regions Bank ATM on Highland Road in Baton Rouge in order to withdraw some cash. He said the amount he gave her was closer to $60 to $80 but when advised that she claimed it was $100, he told investigators it “was possible he could have given her that amount,” the report said.

The report reiterated Cannon’s claim that while he gave her money, it was to pay her phone bill and to pay her rent but was never given in exchange for sex

While en route from Baker to Prairieville, she activated Cannon’s patrol unit’s siren which resulted in other motorists moving out of the way and that she videoed the interior of his unit with her cell phone. She said she also took a photo of the house to show her boyfriend. She said Cannon was aware of her videoing the inside of his patrol car but that he did not know about her taking a picture of the house.

His 36-hour suspension ran from Oct. 10, 2014 through Oct. 13, 2014, and he was allowed to return to work from Oct. 15 through Oct. 26.

That 224-hour time frame actually covers 18 pay periods because, according to the specified dates of his suspension, he was suspended only on every other pay period, thus allowing him to work during alternate pay periods.

The suspension also contained no prohibition to Cannon’s being able to work overtime in order to make up for the $904.96 reduction in pay for each pay period for which he was suspended. LouisianaVoice has submitted a follow-up public records request for documents related to all overtime worked by him from Oct. 27, 2014, and June 21, 2015.

Cannon has had a checkered record in his 25 years as a state trooper.

  • On April 12, 1995, he received a letter of reprimand for his involvement in a traffic accident in his state police car, a not uncommon occurrence for state police.
  • On Jan. 25, 2001, he was suspended for 80 hours after being found in possession of an illegal satellite access card for Direct TV.
  • On June 6, 2003, he received an eight-hour suspension for failure to submit his Daily Activity Reports (DARs).
  • On April 27, 2006, he received a reduction in pay equivalent to a 24-hour suspension for failure to investigate a fleet crash.

And even after Dupuy’s letter of Sept. 10, 2014, which imposed the 240-hour suspension for his sexual misconduct while on duty, he received a reprimand but no suspension on March 18 of this year for his failure to act upon six traffic citation void slips and for failure to follow state police procedure with nine other citations.

Additionally, a review revealed that Cannon had seven fatality reports that are provided by state police as a courtesy to families of the deceased which he had not delivered. The fatalities had occurred between the dates of March 24, 2014, and Oct. 1, 2014, but still had not been delivered to families of the deceased as of Dec. 4, 2014.

And while technically, Cannon claims he was not paying for sex, a case could be made that because he was on duty at the time of his trysts, he was being paid for sex.

All of which raises the obvious questions: Was he being protected from above and if so, who was protecting him?

Here is Lt. Col. Dupuy’s letter of Sept. 10, 2014, to Cannon (Click on image to enlarge):

IMAG1320IMAG1321IMAG1322IMAG1323

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State general fund has yet to see any of the $11 million in delinquent fine collections to pay for state police pay raise

Posted in Audit Reports, Budget, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, State Police on September 29, 2015| 20 Comments »

None of the $11 million earmarked to pay for state police pay raises through enhanced debt collection efforts by the Office of Motor Vehicles has been submitted to the state general fund, according to a spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee.

Meanwhile, a confidential report prepared for legislators has been obtained by LouisianaVoice which indicates that despite State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson’s claim last January that the pay raise would not affect “upper echelon” personnel, 145 lieutenants, captains, and majors got pay raises totaling $5.3 million per year. Additionally, four deputy superintendents received raises averaging $26,170 (23 percent) each.

Seven pilots ($29,769, or 39 percent), 24 emergency services personnel ($31,247, or 45 percent), two polygraphists ($33,995, or 49 percent), and six support personnel ($25,309, or 31 percent) also received pay hikes.

The breakdown shows that 13 majors and 106 lieutenants received 46 percent pay hikes and 26 captains got bumps of 53 percent. The average salaries ranged from $108,571 for lieutenants to $136,333 for captains, the report indicates.

The largest individual salary increase was $57,252 and the largest single percentage increase was 74 percent, the report says.

State classified employees, when they receive merit increases, generally receive only 4 percent increases but those salaries have been frozen for nearly six years because of budgetary constraints.

Moreover, a separate national study released on Tuesday (Sept. 29) listed police departments from three Louisiana cities as among the worst paying in the nation, including one rated as the lowest.

Altogether, 945 state troopers, ranging from cadets to majors, accounted for more than $20 million in pay increases, thanks to two measures passed by legislators six months apart in 2015.

Unsaid in the report was the effect the pay raises will inevitably have on the unfunded accrued liability (UAL) of the Louisiana State Police Retirement system.

State senators, with minimal discussion, approved the $11 million pay increase during the waning days of the 2015 legislative session only six months after troopers received their first sizable increase. Together, the two raises boosted state trooper pay by 30 percent, according to calculations by the Legislative Fiscal Office.

The first state police pay adjustment was approved in June of 2014 but the money did not become available until the Jan. 19 increase took effect.

In the case of the second pay raise, however, the funds were committed before they were received and none of the anticipated $11 million from old tickets has been received by the state general fund, a situation that could leave the state another $11 million short if the money is not forthcoming by the end of the current fiscal year which closes next June 30.

Lines 42-47 on page 65 of House Bill 1, the Appropriations Bill, appropriates the $11 million “Payable out of state general fund by Statutory Dedications out of the Debt Recovery Fund to the Office of State Police for additional salary support for state troopers, in the event that House Bill No. 638 of the 2015 Regular Session of the Legislature is enacted into law.”

HB 638, by State Rep. Barry Ivey (R-Baton Rouge), which was enacted into law and signed by Bobby Jindal as Act 414, provides that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) collect certain fees “associated with the suspension of an operator’s license” which are related to auto liability insurance requirements. The fees become delinquent after 60 days and are referred to the Office of Debt Recovery.

The bill earmarks $25 million from the Debt Recovery Fund for use by the Office of State Police. Here is the legislative digest of HB 638 (ACT 414)

But with none of that money having been yet gone to the general fund, legislators are beginning to worry.

Additionally, the state police pay increases have not yet produced additional sergeants’ positions. The report said, “State Police leadership claimed in two meetings that the agency was experiencing difficulty attracting Master Troopers who were interested in applying for Sergeant Positions.” The number of Sergeants, however, has only increased by four, from 193 to 197, it said.

Moreover, there have been only 123 promotions within state police ranks and 44, or more than a third, were from cadet to trooper.

There has been one promotion from captain to major, five from lieutenant to captain and 11 from sergeant to lieutenant, the report indicates.

Here is the BREAKDOWN OF STATE POLICE PAY RAISES

Coincidentally, even as the two pay increases combined to make state police the highest-paid law enforcement agency in the state, a national survey Tuesday (Sept. 29) listed three Louisiana cities as among the 30 with the lowest pay for police officers.

Alexandria had the lowest pay in the nation among major cities with an average salary of $31,370 per year for officers. Monroe, with an average salary of $34,000 was eighth lowest, while Lake Charles was 21st lowest in the state with an average salary of $35,320.

The State Police Retirement System (STPOL) had the smallest UAL of four state retirement systems which combined for an UAL balance of $18.588 million in 2013. The breakdown for the individual systems shows that the Teachers Retirement System (TRSL) had the largest UAL of $11.13 million, followed by the Louisiana State Employees Retirement System (LASERS) at $6.25 million, the Louisiana School Employees Retirement System (LSERS) at $863.7 million and STPOL at $305.4 million (up from the $166.5 UAL of 2006).

STPOL receives revenues from the state and from taxes on insurance premiums but the funding levels from the state have decreased steadily since the high of 73.1 percent of 2007 to 59.1 percent of 2013.

 

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Troy Hebert may have violated state constitution in releasing contents of private text messages in effort to discredit agent

Posted in ATC, Corruption, Ethics, Governor's Office, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians, Public Records, State Police on September 27, 2015| 10 Comments »

When LouisianaVoice attempted through a public records request to obtain an unredacted version of the disciplinary records of a trooper in State Police Troop D, our request was denied. Louisiana State Police Attorney Supervisor Michele Giroir explained that the individual’s rights to privacy outweighed the public’s right to know.

Specifically, her letter of Aug. 18 said:

  • The Department has reviewed your request. It remains the Department’s position that you are not entitled to review the redacted information. The individuals’ rights to privacy established by Article 1, Section 5 of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974, as amended, outweigh the public’s right to know the personal information in this matter….The substance of the matter is personal in nature and not related to (the trooper’s) duties as a state trooper. The information that you reviewed in the letter (in the redacted document we were provided) contains the substance of the conduct for which (the trooper) was disciplined as it related to his duties as state trooper. Providing further information would violate the involved parties’ rights to privacy.

Her decision left us disappointed but at the same time, we understand there are certain rights to privacy that must be upheld.

Apparently Troy Hebert did not get the memo. And now he is being sued for making just such private information public.

Moreover, it appears he may have violated an order from a Civil Service hearing referee not to discuss the matter with anyone, “including the media.”

Actually, his actions only provided cause for the filing of an amendment to a lawsuit already filed in Federal District Court in Baton Rouge over Hebert’s retaliation against former ATC agent Brette Tingle.

One day after Giroir’s letter, on Aug. 19, Hebert, Director of the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (ATC), issued a news release that was disseminated widely over television and print media in which Hebert leaked the contents of private cell phone text messages and emails.

Though Tingle’s communications on his state-issued cell phone contained sexually and racially-charged messages, the messages were to friends and family members, some of them African-American. Such messages are considered private under the Louisiana Constitution, as Giroir said in her letter. Moreover, LouisianaVoice learned in interviewing two African-American agents that some of the racial remarks were made to them but were said in jest. “I say some of the same things he said,” said one African-American agent, a female. “We joke back and forth with each other that way.”

Another African-American who worked with Tingle, Larry Hingle, said he understood the context in which Tingle’s messages were made and that he had no problem with him.

Tingle, in fact, contends that Hebert’s vendetta against him stems from his (Tingle’s) testimony on behalf of Charles Gilmore, one of three African-American ATC agents who filed Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaints against Hebert. The three, Gilmore, Hingle, and Daimian T. McDowell subsequently filed suit against Hebert in Baton Rouge Federal District Court. https://louisianavoice.com/2014/07/14/forcing-grown-men-to-write-lines-overnight-transfers-other-bizarre-actions-by-troy-hebert-culminate-in-federal-lawsuit/

In his amended lawsuit, Tingle cites the same Article 1, Section 5 of the Louisiana Constitution which says, “Every person shall be secure in his person, property, communications, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches, seizures, or invasions of privacy.” That pretty much tracks the Fourth Amendment which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure.

The search and seizure of the text messages in this case was (sic) unreasonable because, at the search’s inception, there was (sic) no reasonable grounds to believe that the search would reveal any employee misconduct and because Troy Hebert provoked this search in bad faith, in an arbitrary and maximally intrusive manner, and in retaliation for Brette Tingle’s exercise of protected activity,” Tingle says in his amended petition.

“The plaintiff (Tingle) never consented to Troy Hebert or anybody else searching his private text messages with his friends and family in an intrusive fishing expedition to search for any evidence that Troy Hebert could try to use to avoid the consequences of his overt race discrimination against African-American employees by discrediting Brette Tingle as a witness,” it said.

Moreover, the petition says, Hebert laid out false allegations of payroll fraud against Tingle in his news releases “even though an extensive investigation by the Louisiana Office of Inspector General (OIG) had found no probable cause for the payroll fraud accusation…”

(Both Hebert and the OIG’s Inspector General are appointed by the governor.)

Even more egregious, Tingle says, Hebert read Tingle’s communications aloud to 12 female ATC employees on Aug. 21.

“The extracts of these conversation, which were widely publicized by Troy Hebert, constitute defamation by innuendo and the embarrassing disclosure of personal and private facts,” the petition says. “This is particularly so since these alleged conversations have nothing whatsoever to do with Brette Tingle’s job performance and thus, Troy Hebert had no legitimate interest in publicly broadcasting these alleged private conversations.”

Hebert even hinted that Tingle may have been guilty of setting fire to Hebert’s state vehicle, Tingle said. “In an interview with a New Orleans news outlet, WVUE-TV, on Aug. 19, Troy Hebert…stated that if a person was (sic) to ‘connect the dots,’ it would be clear who vandalized the vehicle.

“While it is apparently true that Troy’s vehicle had been set on fire, Troy Hebert had no evidence that the plaintiff had committed this crime,” Tingle said. “Troy Hebert did know, or certainly should have known, that the temporal proximity of his statements and the termination of the plaintiff carried false and defamatory implications.”

The petition said the communications from his cellphone were “taken out of context and do not accurately reflect Brette Tingle’s attitudes toward persons of color.” He said he is “well-respected” by persons of color for his “fair-minded attitudes and conduct. Indeed, it is only because Brette Tingle took a firm and courageous stand against Troy Hebert’s race discrimination and retaliation against former fellow employees that Troy Hebert has gone to great lengths to destroy his (Tingle’s) career and reputation,” it said.

We at LouisianaVoice have followed Troy Hebert’s ham-handed manner of running his agency since he was named to replace Murphy Painter who was fired on bogus charges by the Jindal administration.

If there is anything that can be said of Hebert, it’s that he appears to be as inept and clueless as his boss. He has managed to run a once-fine investigative agency into the ground with his petty insistence on requiring agents rise and greet him with an enthusiastic “Good morning, Commissioner” upon his entering a room. We were dismayed to learn that he has forced agents, fully grown adults, to literally write lines. We were incredulous when he ordered Gilmore transferred from Baton Rouge to Shreveport literally overnight with no opportunity for him to make plans for such a move. And we were shocked to the point of disbelief upon learning that he had ordered a female agent to return to a New Orleans bar in full uniform—after she had purchased drugs while working as a plainclothes undercover agent in that same bar only days before.

We were puzzled when Jindal snatched him from the Legislature to serve as the top enforcement agent for ATC with no qualifications other than the fact that his wife is the Jindals’ children’s pediatrician.

But now, somehow we are unable to be shocked at anything this man does. Apparently no underhanded tactic is beneath him—even when it comes to violating the same State Constitution that the chief legal counsel for the Louisiana State Police was sufficiently cognizant to uphold in denying our access to personal records.

Hebert apparently has no problem violating a direct order from a Civil Service hearing referee who presided over an appeal of Tingle’s firing in July. The referee was quite specific in admonishing witnesses not to discuss the Tingle matter “with each other or anyone else, including the media.” That order was issued when Tingle’s hearing was continued by the referee who said a violation of her dictum “could result in disciplinary action, including dismissal” from their jobs. https://louisianavoice.com/2015/07/10/civil-service-hearing-for-fired-atc-agent-continued-to-sept-after-settlement-talks-break-down-troy-didnt-want-us-there/

In an otherwise competent, transparent and ethical administration, we would have expected Hebert to have been fired months ago. Under the Jindal administration, we harbor no such hope. In fact, Jindal did quite the opposite in naming Hebert his office’s legislative liaison.

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