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Archive for the ‘Public Records’ Category

AG Jeff Landry’s office retreats to tried and true ‘pending litigation’ to dodge accountability in Union jail rape case

Posted in Attorney General, Ethics, Exemptions, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Politicians, Public Records, Transparency on November 15, 2017| 6 Comments »

LouisianaVoice keeps trying to prod the Attorney General’s office into getting off its backside in the investigation of that RAPE of a 17-year-old girl by a convicted rapist in a Union Parish Detention Center cell in April 2016, but it seems Jeff Landry is far too occupied with some grand scheme that he thinks will ultimately land him in the governor’s office.

In our monthly tabulation, it has now been 19 months and counting since the girl, who was being held in a cell after being picked up on a drug charge, was raped not once, but twice, by an inmate who had already been convicted of aggravated rape in Claiborne Parish and was awaiting sentencing while being held in adjacent Union Parish.

To refresh your memory, because the district attorney is a member of the Union Parish Detention Center Commission which operates the center, DA John Belton recused himself and requested that the AG conduct an investigation of the incident. The victim has since filed a LAWSUIT over the incident and now Landry’s office is attempting to lean on that as a legitimate reason for not providing a status of its so-called criminal investigation.

Back on Oct. 17, we submitted our monthly request as to the status of the assault investigation to both the AG’s Public Information Office and to its Criminal Investigation Section. The next day, Oct. 18, we received following response:

—–Original Message—–
From: AG Landry News [mailto:aglandrynews@ag.louisiana.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2017 1:49 PM
To: Tom Aswell <azspeak@cox.net>
Subject: Re: QUESTION

This matter is under investigation.

Thanks!

Ruth

So, we did our obligatory monthly report of inactivity on Landry’s part. But then on Wednesday (Nov. 15), we received the following response from Assistant Attorney General Luke Donovan, Executive Division:

From: Donovan, Luke [mailto:DonovanL@ag.louisiana.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2017 4:30 PM
To: azspeak@cox.net
Cc: Dirmann, Shannon <DirmannS@ag.louisiana.gov>
Subject: PRR 17-0159 Tom Aswell, Louisiana Voice

Good afternoon Mr. Aswell,

In response to your public records request pursuant to La. R.S. 44:1 et seq, the information you requested has been processed. You sought records related to the following:​

… 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.

Louisiana’s Public Records Act, specifically La. R.S. 44:3(A)(1), exempts records held by the office of the attorney general which pertain “to pending criminal litigation or any criminal litigation which can be reasonably anticipated, until such litigation has been finally adjudicated or otherwise settled….”  

Therefore, the records which you seek are exempt from production at this time.

If our office can be of any further assistance, please let us know.

Sincerely,

Luke Donovan

Assistant Attorney General, Executive Division
Office of Attorney General Jeff Landry
Phone: (225) 326-6712  Fax: (225) 326-6098
www.AGJeffLandry.com

Well, that prompted my immediate response:

Your response is pure, unadulterated B.S.

That’s only because your boss is more interested in promoting his campaign for governor than doing anything on this case for the past 19 months. I’m not at all sure what you mean by “criminal litigation,” but I do know what “criminal investigation” and “civil litigation” are. The first is an investigation and, if warranted, an indictment and trial on criminal charges—and I suggest 19 months to investigate an assault in a confined area when the date, the victim and the assailant are all known to prosecutors is more than enough time to conclude an investigation and to indict. Any litigation would be a civil matter and completely unrelated to criminal charges as that would be a separate matter altogether. The information I am seeking is the status of the criminal investigation, i.e. has the alleged perpetrator been formally charged? If so, what was the charge and is there an arraignment/trial date?

To try and hide behind “pending criminal litigation” is a bit disingenuous. But then I would expect nothing better from Jeff Landry.

The only thing I neglected to say (and I wish I had, so I’ll say it here) is this:

Judging from the manner in which he can drag a matter out, perhaps Landry should consider offering his services as defense counsel for Roy Moore.

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Welsh Alderman, victim of SLAPP lawsuit, SLAPPS back; wins dismissal, court costs, attorney fees of up to $16,000

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Lawsuits, Legislature, Legislators, Public Records, Transparency on November 10, 2017| 3 Comments »

Welsh Alderman Jacob Colby Perry is the second defendant in recent weeks to prevail against the so-called SLAPP lawsuits and in so doing, may teach the plaintiffs a little economic lesson.

SLAPP is an acronym for strategic lawsuits against public participation or in a more familiar vernacular, they could simply be called frivolous or harassment lawsuits. There intent is precisely what the acronym means: to prevent critics from participating in public discourse by filing costly lawsuits against critics.

On Tuesday, 31st Judicial District Court Judge Steve Gunnell dismissed all four defamation lawsuits against Perry and in finding the litigation to be without merit, he assessed the four plaintiffs with court costs and Perry’s attorney fees.

An affidavit filed with the court by Perry claims those attorney fees to be $16,000, or $4,000 per plaintiff which would make the idea of a SLAPP suit seem somewhat counterproductive in that it cost the plaintiffs pretty tidy sums of money and they still didn’t shut him up.

Judge Gunnell held off making a decision as to whether or not the suit should be dismissed with or without prejudice until he conducts further research on the matter. With prejudice would mean the plaintiffs would be unable to resurrect the lawsuit while a dismissal without prejudice would leave the plaintiffs open to pursue the suit at a later date.

“The legislature finds and declares that there has been a disturbing increase in lawsuits brought to chill the valid exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition for redress of grievances,” Perry said in his Memorandum of Support for the Special Motion to Strike pursuant to the state’s anti-SLAPP legislation. “The legislature finds and declares that it is in the public interest to encourage continued participation in matters of public significance, and that this participation should not be chilled through abuse of the judicial process. To this end, it is the intention of the legislature that the Article enacted pursuant to this Ace shall be construed broadly,” his memorandum said.

LouisianaVoice recently prevailed in another SLAPP suit for defamation and was also awarded attorney fees, though substantially less than Perry’s award.

Perry has openly questioned the need of a town of 3,200 residents for 18 police cars, a budget of $593,000 for patrol, $295,000 for police communications and a projected police department expenditure for the entire year of nearly $1.1 million, or nearly $114,000 in excess of the department’s budget. That amount includes a $76,120 salary for Police Chief Marcus Crochet, an amount that represents a 37.5 percent increase in his base pay. And that doesn’t count the $6,000 in annual supplemental pay from the state.

Despite the fiscal drain on the city budget, Crochet created a separate account called “Welsh Police Department Equipment & Maintenance and has diverted more than $178,000 from traffic fines into that account instead into the city’s general fund—all with the acquiescence of the mayor, one of four plaintiffs who sued Perry for DEFAMATION.

Mayor Carolyn Louviere, her daughter, Nancy Cormier; her son, William Johnson, and Crochet all filed separate defamation suits and all four used the same attorney, Ronald C. Richard of Lake Charles, to do so.

Not only that, but Perry was on the receiving end of several other negative actions:

  • A recall petition was started against him while he was in Japan on military orders, serving his annual two-week training;
  • Postcards were mailed to Welsh residents that depicted Perry and Andrea King, also a member of the Board of Aldermen, as “terrorists” (See story HERE) and that Perry violated campaign finance laws by failing to report income from a strip club in Texas of which he was said to be part owner and which allegedly was under federal investigation for prostitution, money laundering and drug trafficking (See story HERE);
  • He was removed from the town of Welsh’s Facebook page (most likely the least offensive of the reprisals.

Each of the nuisance suits say essentially the same thing: that Perry besmirched the reputations of her honor the mayor, both of her children, and the bastion of law enforcement and fiscal prudence, Chief Crochet.

And Mayor Louviere, who inexplicably wants to build a new city hall when the town is flat broke, is currently under investigation by the Louisiana Board of Ethics, according to the Lake Charles American Press AMERICAN PRESS. She also wants to shut down a bar that just happens to be adjacent to a business owned by her son.

And her son, William Joseph Johnson, who Perry says used his mother’s office in an attempt to shut the bar down, has a story all his own.

Johnson, back in 2011, was sentenced in federal court to serve as the guest of the federal prison system for charges related to a $77,000 fraud he perpetrated against a hotel chain in Natchitoches between October 2006 and January 2007. And that wasn’t his first time to run afoul of the law.

At the time of his sentencing for the Louisiana theft, he was still wanted on several felony charges in Spokane County, Washington, after being accused of being hired as financial controller for the Davenport Hotel of Spokane under a stolen identity, giving him access to the hotel’s financial operations and then stealing from the hotel.

The only thing preventing Spokane authorities from extraditing him to Washington, Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Shane Smith said, was that “we just don’t have the funds to bring him back.” The Spokane Review, quoting court documents, said, “Police believe Johnson is a longtime con artist who has swindled expensive hotels across the country.” (Click HERE for that story.)

“William Joseph Johnson, Jr. remains on federal probation,” Perry said. “He has yet to pay back all of the restitution that he owes.

In his lawsuit against Perry, Johnson says he “has a long-standing positive reputation in his community and parish” and that he (Johnson) suffered “harm to reputation (and) mental anguish.”

In a written statement following the ruling, Perry said:

“I am very pleased with the outcome of this matter,” Perry said. “I look forward to returning to the job that the People of Welsh elected me to perform. I also applaud my experienced legal team for their outstanding work.

“The rights of citizens to engage in the decision-making of government and provide input are unique to our country. These unique values make our country great. And, more Americans

should participate in government today.

“SLAPPs infringe on the rights granted to the citizens of the United States of America. Litigation should not be used to censor, silence, and intimidate those who are only exercising their rights as an American.

I am proud to be a citizen of a state, the State of Louisiana which is one of 28 states in the United States, that has implemented Anti-SLAPP laws to protect the Constitutional rights of its citizens from frivolous lawsuits filed by lawyers overzealous for clients and publicity.”

There was no immediate word on whether or not Richard would appeal the decision on behalf of his clients.

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Troubles at LSP continue: three troopers suspended in N.O. area following Lee Zurik investigation into LACE program

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Corruption, Crime, Ethics, Fraud, Media, Public Records, State Police on November 8, 2017| 46 Comments »

Louisiana State Police (LSP) has suspended three State Troopers and shut down a cooperative program with 44 parishes from Webster to Jefferson, from Calcasieu to East Carroll following a months-long investigation by New Orleans television reporter Lee Zurik that revealed the troopers were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime they may not have actually worked.

The action to shut down Local Agency Compensated Enforcement (LACE), a program in which state police are paid to conduct traffic patrol for local district attorneys, came after Zurik and New Orleans FOX 8 TV station surveillance found that troopers were in their homes much of the time for which they were being paid for doing patrol.

State Police Superintendent Col. Kevin Reeves, immediately upon learning of the Zurik findings, ordered the SUSPENSION OF THE LACE PROGRAM and also ordered a criminal investigation into what could ultimately be determined as payroll fraud.

Under the program, local district attorneys contract with LSP for the patrols. The parish keeps all fines written by the troopers and reimburses LSP for troopers’ overtime salaries.

The three troopers who were suspended, all from Southeast Louisiana and New Orleans, combined to receive some $340,000 in LACE payments. The three troopers who were suspended, their salaries, their years of service, and their LACE payments over the past year, in parenthesis, include:

  • Master Trooper Daryl J. Thomas, a veteran of 22 years earning $89,300 ($150,000 in LACE payments);
  • Hazmat Specialist Eric Curlee, 19 years with LSP earning $99,800 ($100,000 LACE);
  • Byron G. Sims, polygraphist, 22 years with LSP, earning $109,000 ($90,000 LACE).

A fourth trooper under investigation is already out on sick leave and has not been suspended as yet. Because he has not yet been suspended, his name was not immediately available.

LouisianaVoice revealed in August that former Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC) member Monica Manzella, as part of her duties as an assistant city attorney for the City of New Orleans, signed off on LACE contracts between the city and LSP but she signed the contracts before being appointed to LSPC and she had no additional oversight responsibilities.

A retired State Trooper said that abuse of the LACE program is not restricted to the New Orleans area and that “there are dozens of troopers out there who have been less than honest on their LACE timesheets. And it’s been going on for years,” he said.

A 29-page report by the State Office of Inspector General in 2010 would seem to back up that claim. The REPORT, dated April 27, 2010, examined overtime for employees of both LSP and the Department of Health and Hospitals. It said that as much as 30 percent of all LSP overtime in 2008 could be attributed to LACE. Even then, it was noted that one trooper earned more than $80,000 in overtime pay.

A story by LouisianaVoice on Dec. 15, 2015, revealed that Trooper JIMMY ROGERS (now retired) was disciplined by former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson in 2010 to a 240-hour reduction in pay for 30 pay periods (60 weeks), representing a penalty of more than $4,800. But on Nov. 13, 2015, it was revealed by then-Lt. Col. Charles Dupuy that Rogers was allowed to make up for the suspension by working LACE patrol.

Dupuy said in his letter to then-Troop D Commander Capt. Chris Guillory that from Jan. 6, 2011, to Aug. 9, 2011, “Trooper Rogers worked 16 LACE overtime details in violation of (policy) in effect at that time.”

Guillory told Internal Affairs investigators he was unaware of the policy and that he failed to inform Rogers’s immediate supervisor that Rogers was serving a disciplinary action.

LSP Public Information Officer Doug Cain told LouisianaVoice that subsequent to Zurik’s revelation of his findings, State Police Superintendent Col. Kevin Reeves immediately ordered the criminal investigation and the statewide shutdown of LACE.

Cain said there are three steps to the investigation. First, there will be the criminal investigation, followed by an Internal Affairs investigation. Following the IA investigation’s report, an administrative investigation would be conducted and a decision made on disciplinary action against those involved. A decision will be made on reinstatement of the LACE program pending the outcome of the department’s evaluation of the program.

“We hope to re-start the program at some point,” he said.

Unfortunately, the latest revelations by Zurik are nothing new and that this type of payroll chicanery has been going on for years.

The story of payroll fraud by some LSP Troopers is old news. It has been reported time and time again but no action is taken until the press gets wind of it. Zurik is to be commended for his dedication by conducting a surveillance operation. LSP has yet to learn that Lee did exactly what LSP should have been doing all along.

Any Trooper that spends his time at home while he is supposed to be working can only accomplish that feat with the tacit or purposeful approval of supervision. LSP has yet to hold a single supervisor accountable for failure to supervise troopers who write their set number of tickets (quota) and go home.

Let’s look back at Troop D. There were two troopers who were allowed to resign amid similar accusations. Their supervisors faced zero punishment for the actions they allowed. The common denominator of the two troopers was shift Lieutenant Paul Brady of Beauregard Parish. He supervised both Jimmy Rogers and RONNIE PICOU.

Picou was initially terminated, later allowed to resign, after an investigation revealed massive absences from his shift to include 50 shifts with no work product. LSP failed to even address the partial absences from duty. Troopers anonymously reported Picou for his actions. The response was to give the investigation over to his friends, Capt. Chris Guillory and now retired Lt. Jim Jacobsen.

Guillory cleared Picou and doubled down by allowing him to continue with his practice of writing an assigned number of citations and taking the remainder of the shift off. Brady replaced Jacobsen as the supervisor for Picou upon Jacobsen’s retirement. Picou was finally terminated after public records requests by LouisianaVoice. LSP could have surveilled Picou just as Zurik did but chose to not to. The internal investigation files showed Picou was committing payroll fraud but he was never held accountable for his actions. Nor was Brady.

Jimmy Rogers resigned suddenly after allegations of payroll fraud involving LACE. A trooper who worked with Rogers informed LouisianaVoice that Rogers did exactly what the troopers who are now under investigation did. He wrote his assigned number of citations and took the rest of the shift off. Rogers allegedly took it a step further by writing LACE citations on regular state funded shift and claimed them as overtime. This is more egregious than what Zurik has discovered. Rogers was allowed to resign.

There were efforts to obtain the investigation files on Roger’s departure from LSP. LSP has enthusiastically kept them from public view. An audit of radio logs, LACE citations, and dash cam videos will confirm that Roger’s conduct was more egregious than what Lee Zurik has discovered. We think it is time that LSP held former Trooper Rogers accountable for his actions. The statute of limitations has yet to expire on felony crimes. Picou’s supervisor, Paul Brady was not punished, according to our public records requests.

When it comes to investigating payroll fraud, LSP appears to be incapable or unwilling—or at least so it seemed under Edmonson’s and Secretary of Public Safety and Corrections Jimmy LeBlanc’s leadership. The media seemed to figure it out. When a crime is committed, do an investigation. That investigation might include surveilling the target of the investigation. It seems that investigatory prowess is lost when investigating their own.

One thing seems certain: Reeves did not deserve the mess he inherited from Edmonson.

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Justice delayed is justice denied: a timeline given for arrest, trial, and probable wrongful conviction of Vincent Simmons

Posted in Corruption, Courts, Crime, Judges, Prison, Public Records on October 27, 2017| 11 Comments »

Vincent Simmons has been imprisoned at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for 40 years for a crime that he almost certainly did not commit and our vaunted system of justice is largely responsible for his inability to get a fair hearing.

The timeline of events alone should be reason enough to have granted him a new trial decades ago. Yet, he continues to languish at “the farm,” the name bestowed upon Angola in a 1998 documentary about Louisiana’s notorious maximum-security prison.

For openers, the time between public defender Harold Brouillette’s filing of a motion for preliminary hearing and Simmons’s conviction was an astonishingly short interval of only 27 days, hardly sufficient time to put on any semblance of a defense.

Normally, it takes much longer between an accused’s arrest and his trial. This is so defense attorneys can compile a list of witnesses, engage expert testimony, and obtain all evidence possessed by prosecutors. Sexual assault cases typically take SIX MONTHS between indictment and trial, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

It took half that long for the supposed victims to come forward and report that they’d been raped.

Here is the TIMELINE of events:

Monday, May 7, 1977—Twin 14-year-old sisters are riding around with their 18-yeaar-old cousin, Keith Laborde when they allegedly encountered an unknown black man at a 7-Eleven convenience store who asked them to give him a ride to his home. En route, he pulls a gun and forces Laborde to drive down a remote country road to a spot near a lake and there rapes the two girls.

Sunday, May 22, 1977—The two girls report—for the first time—to Sheriff “Potch” Didier, Maj. Fablus Didier, Capt. Floyd Juneau and Deputy Barbara DeCuir at the Avoyelles Parish Sheriff’s Office that a “black man” raped them on May 9, 1977.

7 a.m., Monday, May 23, 1977—Shift begins for Juneau and Lt. Robert Laborde (Laborde is a cousin of Keith Laborde).

8 a.m., Monday May 23, 1977—Juneau and Laborde make the decision to arrest Vincent Simmons.

9 a.m., Monday May 23, 1977—Simmons is walking down Waddil Street in Marksville when Juneau and Laborde, passing by on patrol, arrest him—without a warrant—on two counts of aggravated rape. Sheriff Didier orders a lineup. The lineup consists of seven blacks and one white. Of the eight men in the lineup, Simmons is the only one in handcuffs. Keith Laborde and the two girls observe the lineup from behind a mirror and pick out Simmons even though the girls had said all black men looked alike to them. Simmons is taken upstairs but is never interrogated. When Simmons refuses to sign a confession that had already been prepared by Laborde, he is shot in his left chest by Laborde. Laborde and Capt. Melvin Villemarette claim that Simmons took Villemarette’s gun and tried to shoot them, though he is never charged with that offense. Simmons is transferred to Huey P. Long Hospital in Pineville. Judge Earl Edwards now issues the warrant for the arrest of Simmons for the rape of the girls.

Tuesday, May 24, 1977—Coroner F.P. Bordelon, MD, examines both girls and discovers that one of the girl’s hymen is still intact, indicating she is still a virgin. The other girl admits to having had consensual sexual intercourse nine months earlier.

Friday, May 27, 1977—Simmons is released from the hospital and he is transferred back to the Avoyelles Parish jail.

Friday June 30, 1977—An Avoyelles Parish grand jury indicts Simmons on two counts of aggravated rape and two counts of attempted murder. Dr. Bordelon formulates his findings about his medical examination of the two girls and sends report to District Attorney Eddie Knoll. During trial of Simmons, jurors never learn of the existence of this report.

Thursday, June 23, 1977—Public defender Harold Brouillette, later to be elected a state district court judge, files a motion for a preliminary hearing. Judge Edwards orders that a preliminary hearing be held in the case of State of Louisiana vs. Vincent Simmons on the two counts of aggravated rape at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, July 7, 1977.

Wednesday, June 29, 1977—U.S. Supreme Court rules in Coker v. Georgia that the death penalty is unconstitutional for the crime of rape. This means that pursuant to the decision, the penalty for aggravated rape is only 20 years per count as opposed to attempted aggravated rape, for which no penalties had been set.

Thursday, July 7, 1977—At the 1 p.m. preliminary hearing, Judge Edwards schedules Simmons’s trial for July 18, 1977, giving Brouillette only 11 days to prepare for trial. This is known as a court’s “rocket docket,” whereby certain cases are moved to the top of the court’s list of scheduled cases.

Thursday, July 14, 1977—Assistant District Attorney Jeanette Knoll, wife of District Attorney Eddie Knoll, files a motion to amend the indictment to two counts of attempted aggravated rape. Judge Edwards signs the motion behind closed doors—without a second grand jury hearing. This opens the way for prosecutors to seek penalties of 50 years imprisonment for each count of attempted aggravated rape. Jeanette Knoll would later be elected to the Louisiana State Supreme Court.

Monday, July 18, 1977—Jury selection begins in the trial of Vincent Simmons.

Tuesday, July 19, 1977, and Wednesday, July 20, 1977—Two-day trial of Vincent Simmons is held, concluding in a guilty verdict on each count of attempted aggravated rape.

Thursday, July 28, 1977—Judge Earl Edwards imposes a 100-year sentence (50 years for each count, to run consecutively) on Simmons.

So, there you have it: a delayed report of rape to the suspiciously quick arrest, an equally quick trial that made it impossible for a public defender with no funds to retain expert witnesses or to conduct extensive investigations, to the manipulation of charges so as to obtain the maximum punishment for a crime that Simmons most likely never committed. The fast track his case was put on—with such an obvious lack of supporting evidence—makes it appear that authorities were almost desperate in their haste to run him through the system and get a conviction. To think those charged with protecting our rights and freedoms would stoop to such tactics should send a chill down all our spines for who’s to say we might not be the next to undergo such treatment at the hands of the law and order advocates?

Someone coined the phrase “Justice delayed is justice denied.” This rings especially true in the case of Vincent Simmons. Justice for him has been delayed for 40 years—and counting. His story and sadly, as is true of so many others like him, is the type justice that a defendant might expect to encounter when he doesn’t have:

  • Money;
  • Connections;
  • A name that screams influence;
  • Highly-paid attorneys;
  • The right color skin.

For an example of all the above, see LOUIS ACKEL.

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Baton Rouge TV station neglects to answer lawsuit, hit with $2.5 million defamation judgment that likely will not stand

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Judges, Lawsuits, Media, Public Records, State Police on October 18, 2017| 11 Comments »

There’s an old saying from back in the days of my long-lost youth that sometimes you have to hit a mule in the head with a two-by-four to get his attention,

And before I start getting bombarded by animal rights activists, I’m not advocating hitting mules or any other animal with anything.

And I’m not calling the good folks at WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge mules. But a $2.5 million preliminary default judgment levied against the station and its investigative reporter after the station failed to answer a defamation LAWSUIT against it and reporter Chris Nakamoto was the club that got the station’s attorneys’ attention.

The two-page JUDGMENT, signed in chambers by 21st Judicial District Court Judge Doug Hughes of Denham Springs, isn’t likely to stand for a number or reasons put forth by station attorney Stephen Babcock of Baton Rouge.

But the main point to be taken from this litigation is that it may well be the first volley fired across the bow of Baton Rouge media as part of a growing trend toward the filing of the so-called SLAPP lawsuits.

SLAPP is the acronym for Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation and that’s precisely what it means: lawsuits filed not to win a judgment, but to discourage legitimate questions about official misconduct lest citizens asking the questions—or in this instance, the reporter and his news medium—be forced to shell out tens of thousands of dollars defending themselves.

In this case, WBRZ, as opposed to an ordinary citizen like Welsh City Alderman JACOB COLBY PERRY, has legal liability insurance and can well afford to defend itself. Still, such lawsuits call a station’s and reporter’s integrity and credibility into question and can conceivably injure the reporter’s career opportunities.

An editor in my professional past once told me, “If you haven’t been sued, you aren’t doing your job.” Well, that’s a form of validation I can live without. It’s not unlike being pecked to death by a duck.

I’ll leave it to WBRZ, Nakamoto and their legal team to explain why they never bothered to answer the lawsuit filed by Livingston attorney Wyman Bankston on behalf of State Police Lt. Robert Burns of Livingston Parish—if they care to put forth an explanation. But I will say from my layman’s viewpoint, it’s unwise to ignore litigation. People are trying to get into your pocket and it’s prudent that you defend yourself.

In this case, Nakamoto had done a perfectly legitimate STORY, which it based in its entirety on public records obtained from LSP, on the 64-hour suspension imposed on Burns by Louisiana State Police (LSP) following an Internal Affairs investigation into his conducting 52 illegal computer searches on his ex-wife, her fiance and a former boyfriend over a period of almost three years—from November 2013 to October 2016.

Burns, in his defense—which LSP investigators, by the way, didn’t buy—said that in 46 of those occasions, he was conducting a search of his own license plate and that the “spin-off” searches of his wife were a result of “unintended inquiries generated by an automated system.”

That explanation, however, does not explain the two searches on his former wife’s current fiance and the four searches on her ex-boyfriend. Those searches, besides vehicle and driver’s license records, also included computerized criminal histories on the two men. You can’t explain that away by saying you were doing a search on your own license number. And the obvious question: why was it necessary to conduct 46 searches of his own license number anyway?

Nor does it explain why he subsequently disseminated some of the information he had found (according to WBRZ’s belated response) or why he texted his ex-wife to request that she not report his actions because he “could get fired for doing so.”

Why could he have been fired? Because the searches were “for non-law enforcement purposes, in violation of (LSP) department policy and federal law,” according to a letter from LSP notifying him of an impending suspension.

When neither WBRZ, Nakamoto, nor their legal counsel filed an answer to the lawsuit and when they failed to appear in court on Sept. 28, and without the plaintiff’s submitting any evidence of his claims that Nakamoto had not read the entire LSP report as Burns claimed in his petition, Judge Hughes—in chambers—ruled that the station and Nakamoto were at fault and awarded $1.5 million to Burns and $1 million to his wife, Hilary Burns.

That got WBRZ’s attorney’s rear in gear. On Oct. 12, Babcock filed a 19-page (10 pages longer than Burn’s original petition) MEMORANDUM in support of a motion for a new trial.

In that motion, the station’s attorney argued that a default judgment can be handed down only if the plaintiff presents “competent evidence that convinces the court that it is probable that he would prevail on a trial on the merits” and that he “must prove each element of his claim as fully as if each of the allegations of the petition had been specifically denied by the defendant.”

“Plaintiff is required to adhere to the rules of evidence despite there being no opponent to urge objections,” Babcock wrote in his motion, and that the “trial judge should be vigilant to assure that the judgment rests on admissible evidence.”

Babcock cited a decision by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in which the court said:

  • Judges, acting with the benefit of hindsight, must resist the temptation to edit journalists aggressively. Reporters must have some freedom to respond to journalistic exigencies without fear that even a slight, and understandable, mistake will subject them to liability. Exuberant judicial blue-penciling after-the-fact would blunt the quills of even the most honorable journalists.

On Monday, Judge Hughes signed a one-page ORDER setting 9 a.m. Monday, Dec. 11, as the time and date that Burns must show cause why a new trial should not be granted.

Burns would probably be wise not to buy that beachfront property in Gulf Shores just yet.

And WBRZ, you just got scooped on your own story.

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