Louisiana Voice

Elayne Hung Correctional Center (EHCC) has a history of violence and unexplained deaths but now an irate grandmother who just happens to know more than a little about the Louisiana political structure, has entered into the discussion after her mentally ill grandson was brutally beaten at the facility last June.

Thus far in 2026, there have been 14 reported inmate deaths at EHCC. In 2025, there were 47 with 18 of those classified as unexpected. The year before, 2024, 45 inmates died at the facility.

On June 18, Shane Travis, described by his grandmother, Annette Sharp of Amite as suffering from mental illness, was attacked and beaten. He had been incarcerated at Hunt since November 2025, primarily, according to Sharp, because even as Republicans were attributing mass shootings not to guns but to mental illness, former Gov. Bobby Jindal was closing mental health treatment centers during his term in office.

Sharp described herself as “emotionally distraught” after reviewing an itemized accounting from Healthy Blue Member Verification of Services for her grandson that showed treatments exceeding $16,000 for injuries to his pelvic and chest areas, his eye socket, ear, jaw, head, brain and lumbar, thoracic and cervical spine.

“As a grandparent, if my grandchild is in danger, I would remove them from the situation and keep them in a safe place,” she wrote in a letter to Hunt Warden Travis Day Warden and Secretary of Public Safety and Corrections Gary Westcott. “I am unable to do that now. I no longer can provide or attempt to provide those safeguards. The ‘powers to be’ in the correctional facility ae supposed to do that. When the aggressor is inside the institution that is supposed to take care of my grandchild, I cannot control that.”

She then asked question which were not necessarily rhetorical: “When Shane was severely injured, where were the employees that were supposed to protect him? How long was it before Shane received medical attention? I have no information on the timeline of when Shane was beaten and time he was seen at Our Lady of the Lake (OLOL) Hospital in Baton Rouge.

“Did Elayn Hunt Correctional Center document everything by taking photos, videos of Shane’s injuries, or the scene where the beating took place? Did Elayn Hunt Correctional Center note the date, time, location and any witnesses? Did Elayne Hunt Correctional Center keep a written record of what happened, including any statements from the aggressor or bystanders?

“Did Elayn Hunt Correctional Center notify the person’s next of kin? Does Elayn Hunt Correctional Center even collect that information? Does Elayn Hunt Correctional Center advise family of any follow-up? Does Elayn Hunt Correctional Center even care who the next of kin are to notify when you eventually kill Shane?

“Seeking legal advice is a clear next step. If Shane were 17, we could call child Protective Services. But he made his 25^th birthday two days after his horrific beating,” she wrote.

“What kind of animal could beat a human being this badly and what was the motivating factor? I want to know who the person or persons were who did this to Shane. What repercussions did those animals receive for this horrible abuse to a mentally ill individual?”

Sharp attached a copy of the services provided by OLOL thus far. “Play close attention to services 10-17 that enumerate X-rays and CT scans of his pelvis, chest, face, eye socket, ear, jaw, head and brain, lumbar spine, thoracic spine and cervical spine. Again, what type of animal would beat another human being in this fashion and where the hell were the employees on this unit. I will be sending all medical bills to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center.

“Did Elayn Hunt Correctional Center provide care after the emergency room visit and if so, where? Did you bring him back to the facility where he was beaten to a pulp? Where did nt receive follow-up care and for how long? Did you have him moved to East Feliciana Mental Hospital before he was recovered from this beating. What was the timeline between the beating, medical treatment, recovery and going to East Feliciana Mental Hospital?”

She added that she was “fighting another battle with incompetent mental health facilities on their dereliction of duties and responsibilities in keeping Shand and us safe. Thanks to former Gov. Bobby Jindal, there are NO mental health facilities in this state for our loved ones to exist safely. And those of us who have been trying to take care of our mentally ill relatives receive zero help and lots of roadblocks.”

Read Full Post »

It was a long time coming but it finally happened.

What the Repugnantcans in Congress have been too scared to do, Doug Ford has done.

And it had a beautiful ring to it.

Ford, the Ontario premier, reacting to Trump’s insane obsession with tariffs, said in a press conference, “I have a lot of real estate on my ass, so he (Trump) has a lot of room to kiss my ass.”

I second that emotion.

Repugnantcans as a group and you can throw in the Supreme Court, are complicit in their cowardice in sitting back and allowing Cadet Bone Spurs to run amok like some spoiled brat in a day care who wants every toy for himself.

But as the back and forth between the administrations of the U.S. and Canada reached what appears to be an impasse on the scale of the Strait of Hormuz, it was Ford who stepped forward and told Trump what he has needed to hear for half-a-century: “Kiss my ass.”

A trade war between the two countries hurts both but Ford said Canadians would prefer suffering economic turmoil to giving in to Trump.

Well, for the information of those in Congress who are not paying attention, the U.S. is already suffering economic turmoil with higher fuel costs, higher utilities costs, higher grocery costs and higher housing costs. Yet our own Congress on the Repugnantcan side of the aisle, remains mute even as the U.S. is being devoured by inflation and stagnant wages.

To fully understand the depth of TACO Don’s mental instability, consider how hos his energy is being devoted to such monumental affairs of state as new grass, the Kennedy Center, the Reflecting Pool, building a new helipad, an archway and an underground bunker (when the White House already has one), renaming the Gulf of Mexico and now expressing a desire to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.”

Trump Threatens to Rename Lake Ontario as He Spirals Over Canada Feud | The New Republic

Good God. We’re being jerked around by the bawling, petulant child kicking the back of our seat on a 20-hour international flight. And fully a third of Americans, including people like Mike Johnson, John N. Kennedy and others, think that’s just fine.

And let’s never forget that POTUS (Pedophile of the United States), who said he would not engage us in a forever war, has done just that by choosing to attack Iran without authorization from a weak Repugnantcan-majority Congress.

It’s long past the time we should all stand with Doug Ford and tell Trump, Kennedy, Johnson, Stephen Miller and rest of the sycophants to kiss our collective asses.

Read Full Post »

Just last month LouisianaVoice posted a LENGTHY STORY about some of the drug dealers, con men and insurrectionists to whom Donald Trump has issued pardons. Those pardons, by the way, did far more than to prevent prison sentences from being posed. They wiped out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution the perpetrators had been ordered to pay, leaving their victims holding the proverbial bag.

And last January, we ran an earlier story illustrating the Oval Office Don had exceeded in just the first 10 months of his second term the TOTAL NUMBER OF PARDONS (1600) issued by six presidents in the 44 previous years (1420).

Now, Newsweek has today published an eye-opening story about some of the recipients of those pardons who have quickly become REPEAT OFFENDERS after walking out of prison, courtesy of the Felon-in-Chief.

No fewer than 20 individuals whom TACO Don pardoned have been arrested for new crimes, some of whom have been charged with violent crimes.

But considering Trump has more screws loose than a hardware story in an earthquake (apologies to Foghorn Leghorn—the cartoon character, not Sen. John Kennedy), it somehow isn’t at all surprising that like so many of his other ventures—tariffs, invasion of Iran, casinos, hotels, airlines, universities, reflecting pool, ballroom, etc.—these pardons would blow up in his face.

I mean, really, has any other self-styled genius ever in recorded history experienced such a consistent string of abject failure as Donald J. Trump? Seriously, this is a guy who wanted to inject disinfectant to combat a pandemic, to nuke hurricanes, who believes George Washington’s Air Force won the War of 1812, that the flu pandemic of 1917 ended World War II and who had no clue of the significance of the USS Arizona when he visited Pearl Harbor.

And yet…and yet, the MAGGOTS love him. Fully 30 percent of Americans continue to believe he can do no wrong. Go figure.

At any rate, here is Newweek’s list of 20 pardon recipients who have been returned to the pokey, along with the new entries on their rap sheets:

Jon Ponder: a three-time felon was arrested Tuesday of this week on one count of sexual assault, seven counts of unauthorized custodial contact, one count of attempted coercion and 11 gross misdemeanor charges,

Andrew Paul Johnson: a Jan. 6 rioter was convicted of child molestation in February 2026. He was later sentenced to life in prison. Johnson’s criminal conduct occurred both before and after his pardon.

Ryan Nchols: another Jan. 6 rioter in May was charged with deadly conduct and harassment after allegedly threatening an individual with a gun outside, of all places, a church.

Zachary Alam: yet another Jan. 6 participant was pardoned and later arrested for home invasion. He was subsequently convicted of grand larceny and burglary.

Andrew Taake: convicted and later pardoned for assaulting police officers in the Jan. 6 “tour” of the Capitol, he was arrested in February 2025 for online solicitation of a minor in Texas.

Edward Kelley: a former Marine pardoned for his role in the Capitol riot, was sentenced to life in prison in July 2025 for plotting the murder of FBI agents who had investigated him.

Emily Hernandez: photographed holding then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s nameplate, later arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for a fatal DUI crash in January 2022.

Daniel Ball: allegedly threw an explosive device at officers on Jan. 6, was later charged with illegally possessing a gun as a felon.

David Daniel: convicted as a Jan. 6 rioter and pardoned, was indicted in October 2024 for production/possession of child pornography and sexual assault of a minor.

Shane Jason Woods: Jan. 6 rioter was convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison for aggravated DUI and reckless homicide in a wrong-way crash.

Theodore Middendorf: another (can you believe it?) Jan. 6 Capitol rioter currently serving a 19-year sentence for sexual assault of a seven-year-old child.

Taylor Taranto: still another Jan. 6 participant subsequently arrested and convicted of making a bomb threat near the home of former President Barack Obama.

Brent John Holdridge: yep, another veteran of Jan. 6 gathering, arrested in May 2025 for burglary/grand theft and possession of industrial wire.

Jonathan Graun: pardoned from a 10-year sentence for drugs and money laundering, he later violated terms of his supervised release and was found guilty of multiple charges, including forcible touching and sexual abuse. Sentenced to 27 months in prison.

Eliyahu Weinstein: received commutation of his 24-year sentence for a real estate scheme, but got right back on that horse and four years later was convicted of defrauding investors in a brand-new scam of about $35 million. He was sentenced to 37 years in federal prison. (Sharp observers will note that he received a longer sentence than Middendorf who sexually assaulted a seven-year-old child).

John Andries: convicted in connection to his activities on Jan. 6, he was convicted in 2025 of violating a peace order for following the mother of his child and was sentenced to 60 days in jail and three years of unsupervised probation.

Bryan Betancur Battisti: another (yawn) Jan. 6 rioter, was arrested for violating an anti-stalking order and arrested again for filming himself while allegedly touching women in public.

Ryan Yates: yep, a Jan. 6 tourist, was later arrested in a Florida undercover prostitution sting.

Christopher Moynihan: Capitol rioter pleaded guilty last February to making death threats against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Daniel Tocci: pardoned by Trump for his Jan. 6 activities, convicted and sentenced to four years in prison in March for possession of more than 100,000 child sexual abuse images and videos.

Of the 20 pardons listed above, 17 of the 20 were granted to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol.

Even more significant, of the 20, eight (Johnson, Taake, Daniel, Middendorf, Graun, Battisti, Yates and Tucci) were later rearrested for sexual offenses. Five of those involved offenses against children (Johnson, Taake, Daniel, Middendorf and Tucci).

Perhaps Trump felt a certain empathy for those.

Read Full Post »

Audits of the athletic programs for 10 Louisiana universities have revealed that collectively, the schools accumulated nearly $40 million in operating deficits that had to be made up from other sources, primarily from direct institutional support.

University of Louisiana-Lafayette (ULL) had the largest operating deficit while Southern University in Baton Rouge had the lowest, the audits, conducted for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), showed.

All the audits but Southern’s were issued in 2026 and were for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, and reflected a shortfall of $164,230. Still, however, the Baton Rouge university found it necessary to provide $2.5 million in direct institutional support. Southern’s audit, however, was released in early 2018 and was for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017.

ULL’s operating deficit was nearly $13.3 million. Its audit showed that all sports generated only $1.9 million in ticket sales, $16.5 million in direct institutional support and total revenue from all sources of $33.1 million against total expenses of $46.4 million for a net operating deficit of $13.3 million.

The second most expensive program of the 10 schools was Louisiana Tech University in Ruston with an operating deficit of nearly $11.9 million.

Ticket revenue for Tech included $571,248 for football, $147,295 for men’s basketball, $38,028 for women’s basketball, $351,007 for all other sports. The school provided direct institutional support of $2.86 million for football, $799,000 for men’s basketball, $849,000 for women’s basketball, $3.4 million for all other supports and $17,554 for non-program specific support for a total of $7.9 million in direct supplemental support. Indirect institutional non-program specific support in the form of athletic facilities debt service accounted for another $2.7 million.

Additionally, Tech received $2 million in football guarantees from playing schools like LSU, $75,000 in men’s basketball guarantees, $55,000 in women’s basketball guarantees and $18,000 in guarantees for all other sports.

Operating deficits for other schools included $5.1 million for Grambling State University, $2.9 million for Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, $1.6 million for University of Louisiana-Monroe (ULM), $775,000 for McNeese State University in Lake Charles, $316,523 for Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, $260,000 for University of New Orleans, $167,245 for Northwestern State University (NSU) in Natchitoches.

Notes to the audits indicated that universities generally reduced other university expenditures in order to provide direct support to athletics. Indirect institutional support is not included in the individual universities’ budgets. That revenue is calculated specifically for the purposes of the NCAA repot to include indirect support provided to athletics for utilities, insurance, grounds and facilities maintenance, communications and debt service

Scholarships and budget balancing are the main ways athletics programs at Louisiana colleges plan to use their allotments of gambling tax revenue under a new state law, according to The Louisiana Illuminator, but the law doesn’t require disclosure of the precise amounts.. 

The gambling tax fund was created to assist athletic programs in navigating uncertain fiscal times for college athletics, The Illuminator said. The enabling legislation specifically mentions the money cannot be used to fund existing scholarships, but rather to provide new opportunities for students. 

LSU, UL Lafayette, UL Monroe, Louisiana Tech, Grambling, Southern, McNeese, Nicholls, Northwestern State and Southeastern each are allocated about $2 million annually. The law requires that money be used on things that benefit student-athletes, such as scholarships.

An NCAA litigation settlement earmarking up to $20.5 million to student athletes in name, image and likeness (NIL) has thrown some athletic department budgets into turmoil as athletic departments grapple for innovative new ways to generate revenue. Some departments are experimenting with privatization and private equity deals. Other schools are allowing corporate naming rights to their stadiums as a revenue source.

Even LSU, which has long boasted that its athletic department was self-sustaining, has admitted that is no longer the case as officials of the state’s flagship university attempt to find new revenue models.

Read Full Post »