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Archive for the ‘Politicians’ Category

AG’s rape investigation 18 months along and no resolution but Criminal Division head is nominated for U.S. Attorney

Posted in Attorney General, Corruption, Courts, Crime, Ethics, Fraud, Media, Politicians on November 3, 2017| 7 Comments »

General Jeff Landry remains the same self-serving, opportunistic, suck-up sycophant he has been since his first run at public office.

This is the same attorney general who almost daily sends out glowing press releases designed to put him in the best possible light as he gears up for what he hopes will a run for the state’s highest office—if not in 2019 against John Bel Edwards, then sometime in short order thereafter.

By taking full advantage of his agency’s public information office which by now is sorely challenged to keep coming up with sufficient superlatives—at taxpayer cost, no less—Landry has managed to see to it that every single news release is all about him first and the attorney general’s various enforcement divisions second.

Landry, taking over from another cruel joke of attorney general foisted upon Louisiana’s electorate in 2016, has made a career of nabbing deviates who like to download kiddie porn (or at least announcing that he, apparently personally nabbed them), low-ranking civil servants with no political connections who attempt to rake money off the top of various programs, including Medicaid, and a scam artist here and there.

All that’s well and good. Those people should be arrested. But where has Landry been in cases involving the politically powerful appointees, legislators who use campaign funds to pay for personal expenses like luxury autos, payments of income taxes and even ethics fines? It’s relatively easy to bust a town clerk somewhere in north Louisiana or even a DHH employee who gets a little greedy. But there are other big-time crooks a-plenty in state government who Landry seems to be able to quietly ignore.

The Louisiana Attorney General’s office is different from its counterparts in other states, thanks to the lobbying efforts of Louisiana’s district attorneys way back in 1974 when the current State Constitution was written and subsequently adopted by voters. The District Attorneys Association, jealous of its turf, managed to overcome the objections of then-Attorney General William Gueste in ramming through the Constitutional Convention a provision that the attorney general’s office could not intervene in local investigations unless invited to do so by the local DA.

Yet, here we have Landry churning out those news releases almost daily about some major arrest of some perpetrator somewhere in the state, raising the question of how he manages to interject his office into so many of these local matters. Even in the case of low-hanging fruit like state civil servants, should he involve his office in the arrest of say, a DHH employee for stealing from Medicaid and Medicaid or the intended recipient of the Medicaid benefits decides to sue DHH, Landry has himself a sure-fire pickle called conflict of interests.

You see, under the present structure of his office, his primary job is to defend, not prosecute, state agencies. Yet, in case of such litigation, he would be in charge of overseeing the AG attorney or contract attorney who is called upon to defend DHH. That in turn raises another question: How can he investigate an agency and defend it?

And most recently, LouisianaVoice received in its email inbox a puff piece from Landry lauding the nomination of Brandon Fremin as U.S. ATTORNEY for Louisiana’s Middle District. Fremin, you see, is Criminal Director “for General Landry’s office,” the news release says, where he oversees several sections, including general prosecutions, insurance fraud “and the award-winning Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.”

“Under his watch, over 15 public officials have been arrested for public corruption charges—many of whom are currently being prosecuted by the LADOJ (Louisiana Department of Justice, as the AG’s office is officially known).”

But how many of those 15 held positions of supervisors or higher? Better yet, how many cases of supervisory sexual harassment cases has Landry investigated during his brief tenure? Several such reports have been received by LouisianaVoice in recent months and we are attempting to investigate them ourselves, despite the lack the personnel and authority that Landry has at his disposal.

And just for good measure, it would be interesting to learn why he hired an employee for his Fraud Division who herself had been convicted of FRAUD.

Calling Fremin’s nomination a “grand slam homerun,” Landry lost no time in moving the dialogue to a me, me, me theme. “Under my administration,” he trumpeted (emphasis added), “our office (did he really say “our”?) has created a strong partnership with our federal partners and we look forward to continuing this with Brandon in leadership. Brandon will continue to help make Louisiana an even better place to live, work, and raise our families. I hope he is quickly confirmed by the Senate.”

There is one thing we’d love to see occur before the “Criminal Director for General Landry’s office” departs for the Federal Building downtown. As Director of the AG’s Criminal Division, we can only assume it is he who is ostensibly conducting the investigation of that jailhouse  RAPE of a 17-year-old girl in April 2016—an investigation now moving into its 19th month without a sign of resolution.

We’ve asked before and we’ll ask again: “General” Landry, just how long does it take to investigate a rape in the known confines space of a jail cell where the date of the assault and the identities of the victim and the assailant are all known to investigators?

Because the Union Parish district attorney sits on a governing board that runs the Union Parish Detention Center, he rightly recused himself and asked the AG’s office to conduct an investigation.

Inspector Clouseau could’ve hit a “grand slam homerun” on this one in a week. Yet that great champion of law and order, Jeff Landry, he of higher political aspirations, can’t seem to get traction after 18 months.

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Terror-Bonne Sheriff refuses to help judge who signed his unconstitutional search warrant with courthouse security

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Corruption, Courts, Ethics, Judges, Politicians on October 24, 2017| 7 Comments »

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, there Jerry Larpenter goes again.

Larpenter, the controversial sheriff and apparent strong man of Terrebonne Parish, seems to make decisions on the fly, a-la Donald Trump, about what is and what is not illegal in his parish, established laws be damned. And make no mistake, he is convinced it’s his parish.

Larpenter’s most recent dust-up is over the provision of security in the parish courthouse—which he refuses to do despite laws on the books that clearly say that is part of his job.

The result of his refusal is that the Houma Police Department is now performing security at the Terrebonne Parish governmental building and parish courthouse—all with the blessings of Parish President/Environmental Watchdog Gordon Dove GORDON DOVE.

Dove, while serving in the State Legislature as Chairman, of all things, of the House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment, managed to get one of his companies, Vacco Marine, Inc., cited on several occasions by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), a feat almost impossible to accomplish in Louisiana. Another company, Dual Trucking, was cited by the Montana Department of Environmental Equality for dumping radioactive waste from the nearby Bakken Oilfield in neighboring North Dakota.

Rumor has it—and this is strictly the word on the street, which more often than not, has more than a grain of truth to it—that 32nd Judicial District Court Judge Randal Bethancourt wanted more security details assigned to the courthouse in beautiful downtown Houma.

This is the same Judge Bethancourt who, apparently without consulting a law book about probable cause or the First Amendment, signed off on a warrant that allowed the high sheriff to come calling on an Internet blogger sometime around dawn to seize computers, cellphones and other electronic equipment—for no other reason than he was pissed because the blogger said some uncomplimentary things about him and the political establishment of Terror-bonne Parish.

To read the LouisianaVoice story of the infamous Free Speech Raid, click HERE.

After a federal court ruled the raid and seizure of the electronic equipment unconstitutional, the blogger, Houma policeman Wayne Anderson and his wife filed suit against the sheriff who SETTLED out of court for an unknown but substantial sum.

Apparently, if the scuttlebutt is correct, Larpenter said no to the request for additional security and he and His Honor got into something akin to a minor verbal war that ended with Larpenter telling Bethancourt that it was the judge’s fault that he, Larpenter, had to lay out some major cash on the Andersons, forgetting, apparently, that it was he, not the good judge, who asked for the search warrant in the first place.

Larpenter must have also forgotten for the moment that he didn’t have to pay a dime of the judgement—or his attorney bills. Those were covered by his office’s liability insurance policy.

But hey, we already said Larpenter thinks and acts a lot like Trump so this is validation of that descriptive analysis.

And just as with the raid on the Andersons was unconstitutional, Larpenter’s refusal to provide courthouse security appears to be at loggerheads with what the law says his duties are.

State statutes leave little wiggle room when they say:

  • “Court criers are to be provided by the sheriff of each parish to each district judge.”
  • “The crier of a court (notice this is not restricted to Orleans) shall attend all sessions thereof, under the direction of the judge shall open and close court at each session, and maintain order and decorum in the court room, and shall perform such other duties as are assigned to him by law, the court, or the sheriff.” (emphasis added)
  • “Each sheriff or deputy shall attend every court that is held in his parish…”
  • “Security in the courthouse is the responsibility of governing authority (Gordon Dove), but an agreement may be made between the parish officers and the building to share the expenses.”
  • “The principal functions of the criminal sheriff are that of being keeper of parish jail and executive officer of the Criminal District Court.”

And then there is Opinion 12-0187 of the Louisiana Attorney General’s office dated Feb. 7, 2013 which says in part:

“…security provided in the courthouse is the responsibility of the parish governing authority under this statutory regime…” and that “…the governing body of the parish shall pay to the sheriff or his deputies attending upon the sessions of their respective courts of appeal and district courts…” Click HERE to read the full opinion:

Even the Texas Judicial Council addressed the issue in a 2016 REPORT on Court Security. Of course, policies in Texas and other states have no bearing on what Louisiana policy regarding courthouse/courtroom security. Still, it’s significant to note that the report says:

“The sheriff in each county is responsible for providing courthouse security.5 The municipal governing body is responsible for doing so in municipal court buildings. While the judiciary itself does not have responsibility or authority for providing court security, it is often in the position to advocate for appropriate security to ensure that individuals in the courts are not threatened as they seek access to justice. In addition, sheriffs and municipalities are not generally responsible for providing direct security to judges and court personnel when they are away from a courthouse, unless specific circumstances warrant such. Rather, it is judges and court personnel who are responsible for ensuring their own safety.”

All of which, of course, means exactly nothing to Larpenter. After all, he makes up his own laws and who are we—or judges, for that matter—to question that authority?

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First Circuit Court of Appeal to hear oral arguments on closure of Pineville’s Huey P. Long Hospital on Nov. 7

Posted in Boards, DHH, Governor's Office, Health Care, Layoffs, Politicians, Privatization, Senate on October 24, 2017| 3 Comments »

Oral arguments are scheduled to be heard on Nov. 7 in the First Circuit Court of Appeal in Baton Rouge on a three-year-old matter that a layman unfamiliar with the way in which judges can manipulate and interpret laws to keep the meter running would think should have been settled two years ago.

But settling cases quickly and decisively is not the way the courts work and because of that, the case involving the unconstitutional closure of Huey P. Long Medical Center (HPLMC) in Pineville in 2014 rocks on, continuing to rack up fees for contract attorneys for the state—all paid for thanks to the generosity of Louisiana taxpayers.

Meanwhile, the fate of some 570 employees has been held in abeyance since the hospital’s closure on June 30, 2014.

And the manner in which its closure was approved prompted the lawsuit by plaintiffs Edwin Ray Parker, Kenneth Brad Ott and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Here’s the way it all went down:

At 4:07 p.m. on April 1, 2014, a notice of the April 2 meeting at 9 a.m. of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee to consider Senate Concurrent Resolution (SCR) 48 which “Provides for legislative approval of and support to the Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University for the strategic collaboration with the state in creating a new model of health care delivery in the Alexandria and Pineville areas.”

A “new model of health care delivery” was a clever way of wording the SCR so as not to tip the hand of the Jindal administration’s intent to shutter the doors of HPLMC. Who could possibly be expected to discern from that goony-babble that in less than 24 hours, the decision would become final to close the facility?

There were only two key things wrong, either of which should have been sufficient grounds to stop closure of HPLMC.

First, the Senate’s own rules promulgated in accordance with the Louisiana Open Meetings Law LA 42:19(B), which says that notice of all such meetings must be posted no later than 1:00 p.m. the day prior to the meeting and if notice is posted after 1:00 p.m., the agenda item may not be heard the next day. (emphasis added)

Second, in a 1986 case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that:

A concurrent resolution…makes no binding policy; it is ‘a means of expressing fact, principles, opinions, and purposes of the two House (House of Representatives and Senate).” (emphasis added)

Attorney J. Arthur Smith, III of Baton Rouge argues that Article III, Paragraph 14 of the Louisiana Constitution provides that the style of a law “shall be ‘…enacted by the Legislature of Louisiana’” and Paragraph 15(A) which says rather bluntly, “The legislature shall enact no law except by a bill introduced during that session…” (emphasis added)

Smith said, “The Legislature cannot amend Louisiana statutes by resolution” because an enacting clause “distinguishes legislative action as law rather than a mere resolution” as held in First National Bank of Commerce, New Orleans v. J.R. Eaves in that “failure to include a significant portion of the enacting clause renders the law unconstitutional.”

To put all that in plain English, Smith is simply pointing out case precedents which hold that a concurrent resolution is not the same as a legislative bill and therefore, is not binding.

That’s pretty straightforward and something that a first-year law student should be able to comprehend.

Yet, when the state appealed the ruling of State Judge Pro-Tem Robert Downing of June 23, 2014, which granted plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction because the Senate committee violated the Open Meetings Law and provisions of Article III of the Louisiana Constitution, the First Circuit managed somehow to overlook the violations.

Instead, it ruled the state’s appeal as moot since HPLMC closed on June 30, 2014, seven days after Downing’s ruling and the First Circuit did so without even bothering to address the issues on which Downing’s ruling was based.

Moreover, the state appealed directly to the Louisiana Supreme Court on the basis of the declaration of the unconstitutionality of SCR 48. On Jan. 13, 2017, the Supreme Court denied the state’s appeal as moot but on Feb. 24 of this year, granted a rehearing to the First Circuit.

So now, a three-judge panel comprised of Judge John Michael Guidry, Judge John T. Pettigrew and Judge William J. Crain will hear arguments on the constitutionality of SCR 48 and of violations of the Open Meetings Law.

Interestingly, the state argues that notices to the public “need not contain anything other than a bill number” and that the Senate “has no obligation to inform the public of the nature or substance of the legislative proposals it will be considering.”

Now that’s a damned interesting concept. Who knew we, the public, had no right to be informed of what our elected representatives are up to? Who knew the people we elect and send to Baton Rouge have “no obligation” to let us know what they’re cooking up in the House that Huey built? Who knew the Bobby Jindal administration could push a concurrent resolution through the Senate and call it a law? Who knew such upright public servants as Jindal and members of the Senate committee would flim-flam us?

Louisiana R.S. 42:24 authorizes the courts to void “any action taken in violation” provided a lawsuit to void any action “must be commenced within 60 days of the action.”

The Baton Rouge firm of Taylor, Porter, Brooks & Phillips is representing the State in the HPLMC litigation.

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Prayer dust up at Benton High School could be precursor to curious game of musical chairs in 4th Congressional District

Posted in Attorney General, Congress, Elections, Governor's Office, House, Legislature, Legislators, Politicians on October 19, 2017| 4 Comments »

An interesting scenario is playing out up in Bossier Parish that could impact the landscape in the 2019 state elections and the 2020 congressional elections with key players being U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson and Bossier Parish Superintendent of Schools Scott Smith.

Back in 2015, there was an uproar over students’ plans to install “prayer boxes” at Airline High School in Bossier City. While the controversy died down rather quickly, it provided a window for then-State Rep. to lead the fight against the ALCU right on into Congress.

Today, the dispute is between the Bossier Parish School Board and the Americans United for Separation of Church and State over last May’s Benton High School graduation ceremonies that opened and ended with prayers and Smith is right in the middle of the controversy.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/education/2017/09/25/bossier-schools-respond-complaint-graduation-prayers/699983001/

Cynics are asking, “Why Bossier?” and “Why now?”

The scuttlebutt, when plotted out, makes good political sense and a couple of comments from Smith’s wife, former State Rep. Jane Smith only serve to validate the rumors.

But first some background:

During Johnson’s time in the State Legislature, he authored House Bill 707, known as the MARRIAGE and CONSCIENCE ACT, which would have prohibited the state from denying any resident, nonprofit or business a license, benefits or tax deductions if the business took actions “in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction” about marriage.

Critics said the bill had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with discrimination against same-sex marriage and the bill died in committee only to have Bobby Jindal promptly issue an executive order to enforce the intent of Johnson’s bill—a similar one of which had already been struck down in Kentucky by the courts.

JANE SMITH, a former Bossier Parish School Superintendent in her own right who was in her third term and term-limited by the Louisiana Constitution, was appointed by Jindal in 2012 as deputy secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue even though, as she admitted to a friend, she knew “nothing about revenue.”

So, what to make of all this?

Well, word is that Johnson has his eyes on bigger and better things than being a lonely voice among 435 members of the U.S. House.

Governor?

Nope. That plum belongs to U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, presently a not-so-lonely down-home voice among 100. It’s the worst-kept secret in Louisiana that Kennedy wants desperately to challenge Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2019.

The plan, according to some observers is for Johnson to run either for lieutenant governor or attorney general. Barring entry by any other candidates in those two races, we would be left with the less-than-desirable choice between Johnson and Billy Nungesser or Johnson and Jeff Landry.

Should that scenario play itself out and should Johnson be elected to one of those statewide posts, that would leave the door wide open for Scott Smith, who those same observers in northwest Louisiana, is already being groomed to run for Johnson’s vacated seat in a special election in early 2020. Johnson is tight with Landry but if Landry opts for a run at higher office, Johnson may feel the job is his by divine right. At any rate, speculation is the deal has already been cut.

Far-fetched? Perhaps not so much. The information making its way down to LouisianaVoice is that Jane Smith is already telling close friends that she has accepted a lobbying job in Washington.

All we can say for certain in all of this is anytime a politician waves a Bible while wrapped in the flag, little good can come from it. Sanctimony is not a trait becoming to anyone.

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AG Landry’s untiring dedication to ‘arrest child predators,’ ‘rescue victims’ doesn’t extend to 17-year-old rape victim

Posted in Attorney General, Corruption, Courts, Crime, Ethics, Politicians on October 18, 2017| 3 Comments »

Lest Attorney General Jeff Landry mistakenly believe that LouisianaVoice is going to drop the matter of his office’s foot-dragging in the investigation of the rape of that 17-year-old girl in the Union Parish jail back in April 2016, let this be a reminder that he is sadly mistaken.

https://louisianavoice.com/2017/09/07/17-year-old-girl-raped-in-union-parish-jail-cell-files-lawsuit-meanwhile-ag-still-hasnt-completed-probe-after-17-months/

Yesterday, (Tuesday, Oct. 17) I sent the following public records request to the Attorney General’s office:

  • Please provide me with any documents or reports pertaining to the status of the attorney general’s investigation of the rape of the 17-year-old girl in the Union Parish jail cell last April. That’s the investigation 3rd JDC District Attorney John Belton asked the attorney general’s office to investigate because of a conflict of interests.

Today, I received the following response from Luke Donovan, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division:

  • Your request has been assigned the tracking number 17-0159.  Our office is in the process of determining what, if any, records are subject to this request and, if so, whether any privileges or exemptions apply. This may take some time. You will be notified within 30 days whether records have been located that are responsive and approximately when they will be ready for review.

First of all, I don’t know the response came from the Civil Division when this is clearly a criminal matter.

But, just to cover my bases, I also sent a second inquiry at the same time, this one to Ruth Wisher of the Attorney General’s press office. Rather than putting it in the form of a public records request, I simply made it a straightforward question:

  • Could you provide me with a status update on the investigation of the rape of the 17-year-old girl in the Union Parish jail cell?

Today, I received a five-word response from Ms. Wisher:

From: AG Landry News [mailto:aglandrynews@ag.louisiana.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2017 1:49 PM
To: Tom Aswell
Subject: Re: QUESTION

This matter is under investigation.

Thanks!

Ruth

To be clear, none of this bureaucratic shuffle is the fault of Ms. Wisher or Luke Donovan. God knows, they have an impossible task of trying to get the rest of us to take their boss, this clown Jeff Landry, seriously.

But in the year-and-a-half since this young lady was raped—not once, but twice—by an inmate already convicted of aggravated rape and awaiting sentencing who was allowed into her cell, I have seen the most egregious example of an overall lack of interest by the one person who should be on a white charging steed to wrap this investigation up and to deliver some semblance of justice for this heinous act.

Granted, the girl was brought into the jail because she was on meth. An innocent saint? No, but how many of us are? Who among us has nothing in our past that we wish we could change. I believe the passage goes something like this: Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone.

So, granting that she was not the typical young lady you’d see in the church choir, she was still someone’s daughter, maybe soiled and hardened, but still someone’s little girl.

And to be denied justice while the attorney general grandstands on all sorts of other high-profile issues in an orchestrated effort to enhance his political career so that he can run for governor is reprehensible, disgusting, and unpardonable.

I am on Landry’s email list for his politically-crafted news releases and I have gathered a few of them and listed them below in no particular order. Following each one, I have included my personal observations in italics:

Oct. 18, 2017:

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is once again offering his office’s assistance to New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu in an effort to protect critical federal funding for the City from the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ).

“My office stands ready and available to work with your legal counsel in drafting a policy that conforms to federal law and ensures continued financial support by the USDOJ,” wrote General Landry in a letter today to Landrieu. “The safety of citizens who live, work, and visit New Orleans is too important to ignore.”

Landry jumped onto this issue like a monkey on a cupcake (to quote Ray Baronne in an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond) for no other reason than it’s an issue being advanced by Trump, his favorite POTUS (I’ll leave it to the readers to determine whether that’s Trump’s favorite POTUS of Landry’s). Apparently, the safety of teenage citizens exposed to rapists in jail cells in Union Parish are not so important and can be ignored.

Oct. 16, 2017:

Attorney General Jeff Landry today announced the arrests of three New Orleans women as a result of an investigation exposing over $2 million in Medicaid Fraud.

“We have continued to see Medicaid welfare fraud increase as a result of the Governor’s expansion,” said General Landry.

Wait. What? We’ve had Medicaid fraud since Moby Dick was a guppy and he’s going to lay it off on Gov. Edwards? If Landry puts his mind to it, he can probably say gun violence, North Korea and climate change are “a result of the Governor’s (Medicaid) expansion.” That’s how grandstanding buffoons like Landry and his favorite POTUS think.

 

Oct. 10, 2017:

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is urging parents, guardians, and consumers to be mindful of several child products that have been recently recalled.

“My office and I are committed to doing all that we legally can to make Louisiana a safer place for families,” said General Landry.

If he’s “committed” in the same way that he’s “committed” to investigating the rape of a 17-year-old in a small jail cell where the victim, the assailant, the time, and the assailant all are knowns, then parents, you’re on your own here.

 

Oct. 10, 2017:

Attorney General Jeff Landry is praising EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s decision today to repeal the Clean Power Plan, an Obama overreach that would have devastated Louisiana’s power plants and energy consumers.

“On behalf of Louisiana workers, job creators, and consumers – I commend Administrator Pruitt and the Trump Administration for repealing this unconstitutional, job-killing regulation,” said General Landry. “The so-called Clean Power Plan was always a political attempt to force states into green energy submission.”

Yep, his favorite POTUS. If Trump or one of his lap dogs does it, you can expect these kinds of news releases to keep flowing non-stop from Landry’s office.

 

Oct. 6, 2017:

BATON ROUGE, LA – Attorney General Jeff Landry will host a fair housing workshop in Baton Rouge on Tuesday, October 10, 2017. General Landry’s Equal Housing Opportunity Section will give an overview of the Fair Housing Act and address some of the most common misconceptions and violations under the law.

“My office is committed to educating the public on their housing rights,” said General Landry. “State law prohibits housing discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or handicap; and we will continue working hard to ensure Louisiana’s people are treated fairly when it comes to buying or renting homes.”

…And if Trump should ever go public with his intense contempt for the Fair Housing Act (he was prosecuted for violations of the act as a private citizen/landlord), you can expect Landry to do a 180 so quickly that you’ll feel the breeze from his about-face.

 

Oct. 12, 2017:

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has arrested a Covington man on charges of child pornography, and he is asking the public for their assistance and information on the alleged perpetrator.

“Today’s arrest is another step forward in making our communities safer,” said General Landry. “However, our work is not done. I am asking anyone with information or concerns about Victor Loraso to please contact my Cyber Crime Unit.”

Obtaining assistance from the public is most likely the only way Landry will ever successfully conclude any investigation, this one included. 

 

Oct. 17, 2017:

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry today announced additional criminal charges have been brought against Michael Wayne Tipton of Alexandria.

“It is a disturbing trend that those who view and distribute child pornography often are also hands-on offenders,” said General Landry. “My office will not rest in our efforts to arrest child predators and help rescue their victims.”

That last sentence is laden with irony and not one damned bit inspiring. Eighteen months after the jailhouse rape of a juvenile, and the investigation is still not complete? Are you kidding me?

 

Oct. 6, 2017:

BATON ROUGE, LA – Attorney General Jeff Landry’s Cyber Crime Unit has arrested three south Louisiana men on multiple charges of child exploitation, including molestation of a juvenile.

“The victimization of children should infuriate all of us and shake us to the core,” said General Landry.

Same comment as above.

This state and nation have seen its share of ambitious, self-serving, egotistical, megalomaniacs elected to office. Not a one of them qualifies as a true public servant in the sense of consigning his own financial and political career to a role that is secondary to the public good.

Jeff Landry, you are one of those and all the glowing news releases that you can gin out proclaiming your dedication to and concern for the people of Louisiana are just empty words. Every time you ring your bell of justice, we hear a dull, hollow clank.

To prove I’m wrong, Mr. Attorney General, get up off your ass and do the job you were asked to do in this matter. Bring this girl some justice.

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