Louisiana Voice

Mississippi is the “unluckiest” state in the nation but Louisiana isn’t far behind (or ahead),, according to data comprised by 24/7 Wall Street, which publishes news about economics, technology.

“Luckiest” is a relative term, some aspects of which are not controlled by official policy.

For example, Mississippi has no data pertaining to lottery winnings per adult because the state has no state lottery. But the state does rank third highest in the rate of deaths from accidents per 100,000 population, second highest in traffic fatalities per 100,000 population, 17^th highest unemployment rate (6.1%), and second lowest life expectancy at birth (74.6 years).

Louisiana, by comparison, has the nation’s 11^th-lowest lottery winnings per adult (an eye-popping $147.02), the 8^th-highest rate of deaths from accidents, the 11^th-highest rate of traffic fatalities, the 9^th-highest unemployment rate (7.1%), and the nation’s 6^th-lowest life expectancy at birth (75.6 years).

Alabama has the third-lowest life expectancy (75.1 years) and West Virginia was lowest (74.4 years). New Mexico had the 2^nd-highest unemployment rate (8.0%). Wyoming had the highest rate of traffic fatalities in the nation.

Here are the bottom five rankings in each of the areas covered by the data:

Unemployment: Hawaii – highest (8.1%); New Mexico – 2^nd highest (8.0%), California – 3^rd highest (7.9%); New York – 4^th highest (7.8%); Nevada – 5^th highest (7.8%);

Life Expectancy: West Virginia – lowest (74.4 years), Mississippi – 2^nd lowest (74.6 years), Alabama – 3^rd lowest (75.1 years); Kentucky – 4^th lowest (75.3 years); Tennessee – 5^th lowest (75.5 years)

Traffic Fatalities: Wyoming – highest; Mississippi – 2^nd highest; New Mexico – 3^rd highest; South Carolina – 4^th highest; Alabama – 5^th highest

Deaths from Accidents: West Virginia – highest; New Mexico – 2^nd highest; Mississippi – 3^rd highest; Kentucky – 4^th highest; Wyoming – 5^th highest

*Lottery winnings: North Dakota – lowest; Wyoming – 2^nd lowest ($67.91); Montana – 3^rd lowest ($75.84); Oklahoma – 4^th lowest ($80.54); New Mexico – 5^th lowest ($88.50)

*Data for lottery winnings for six states were not applicable because they do not have state lotteries. They are: Alabama, Mississippi, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, and Utah.

Louisiana’s 11^th-highest death rate from traffic accidents, the 9^th-highest unemployment rate and 6^th-lowest life expectancy are issues that have gone unaddressed by the state’s leadership for generations with no evidence that anything was anticipated in the future to improve the statistics, along with obesity, health care, crime, education, and other negative reflections on the state.

Traffic accident death rates, for example, could be improved significantly if the state had better roads and highways. To be frank, they are deplorable.

Unemployment rates aren’t likely to improve unless the state can attract better jobs and that’s not likely to improve unless the state’s crime rate can be reduced, roads improved and steps taken to improve education.

In America, we love to boast that everyone is equal under the law.

The last line of our Pledge of Allegiance even says so.

But is there equal justice for all? All available evidence

provides a resounding “No” as the answer.

Injustice for All will examine the inequities in the manner

in which the scales of justice are tilted in the areas of:

Law Enforcement

Prosecutorial

Judicial

Subscribe Now:

$5 per month

$50 per year

The foregoing is the blurb for my new web page, Injustice4all.net. This one is a paid subscription and I will be describing abuses by prosecutors (wrongful convictions) the judiciary and law enforcement. Though my initial posts contain stories from Louisiana, I will be monitoring these three on a nationwide basis.

I am a longtime supporter of law enforcement but I see mistreatment of victims by officers, prosecutors and judges often enough to warrant this effort.

I am attempting to keep the costs reasonable at $5 per month or $50 per year.

Type in your web browser: injustice4all.net to check out the first installment.

The revelation that Gov. John Bel Edwards knew that Ronald Greene died as the result of a struggle with State Police rather than in his car’s collision with a tree nine hours after the incident has only served to raise anew questions about an Edwards appointee to the State Police Commission and that appointee’s possible connection to the murder of his business partner nearly 10 years ago.

Edwards received a text from then-State Police Superintendent Kevin Reeves some nine hours after Greene’s death in May 2019 informing the governor that Greene had died following a struggle with five State Troopers and a deputy from the Union Parish Sheriff’s Department. No mention was made of an auto accident in the text but State Police soon attributed Greene’s death – falsely – to the auto accident. Body cam video which surfaced long after the event clearly show Greene very much alive as he was being beaten, kicked and tased by officers until his body suddenly went limp.

News of the governor’s knowledge of the cause of death prompted Caitlin Cucchiara Picou, daughter of Bruce Cucchiara, who was murdered in New Orleans East on April 24, 2012, to post a message on Facebook that said, “Could JBE be helping another friend in another murder? Or in the least turning a blind eye?”

Her reference was to Jared Caruso-Riecke who Edwards appointed to the State Police Commission in June 2016. Riecke was a business partner of Cucchiara and held a $2 million life insurance policy on Cucchiara through his company, SECO Group, LLC, at the time he was murdered while ostensibly looking at some investment property in New Orleans.

His killer has never been caught and while Caruso-Riecke did submit to one interview with police, he has refused to cooperate and has refused requests for additional interviews.

Picou notes that Riecke made “a sizeable contribution” to JBE’s reelection campaign. Apparently confusing the date of Riecke’s appointment, she then says that once elected Edwards appointed Riecke to the State Police Commission but she appears to tie the appointment to his reelection, which is inaccurate.

“Daniel Edwards, the (Tangipahoa Parish) sheriff of JBE, sits on the board of American Bank & Trust, owned by the Riecke family,” she wrote on Monday.

In another post on Tuesday, she wrote, “What about the person of interest in an open murder investigation you appointed to the Louisiana State Police Commission? Riecke refuses to talk to investigators in the murder of his business partner.

“This is a pattern.”

A Facebook message last September also noted that the Cucchiara’s estate attorney was a man identified as Rod (Julian) Rodrigue and that Rodrigue also served on the board of directors for SECO which was the beneficiary of the $2 million key may policy.

Coverup on the Northshore: The Murder of Bruce Cucchiara

September 29, 2021 · 

Bruce Cucchiara had a $2 million dollar insurance policy on him taken out by the business. The beneficiary of this policy was SECO.

Here is a deposition by Jared Riecke stating who was on the Board of Directors of SECO.

Why is this important? The estate attorney for Bruce’s estate was Rod Rodrigue. So, the estate attorney was also on the BOD for the company that was the beneficiary of the $2 million dollar key man policy.

Bruce Cucchiara had a $2 million dollar insurance policy on him taken out by the business. The beneficiary of this policy was SECO.

Here is a deposition by Jared Riecke stating who was on the Board of Directors of SECO.

Why is this important? The estate attorney for Bruce’s estate was Rod Rodrigue. So, the estate attorney was also on the BOD for the company that was the beneficiary of the $2 million dollar key man policy.

I’ll take their word for it that there was no conflict of interest. 

“I’ll take their word for it that there was no conflict of interest,” the Facebook post concluded.

It’s not the first time that Caruso-Riecke has been involved in an apparent conflict of interests.

His Linkedin page notes that in 2002, he became president and CEO of Southeastern Louisiana Water & Sewer Co. LLC (SELA), a private, family-owned water and waste water utility serving about 64,000 residents in St. Tammany and Tangipahoa parishes.

In that same Linkedin post, he says he served as a compliance official for several regulatory agencies, “including the Louisiana Public Service Commission.”

Public Service Commission member Foster Campbell, reached in his north Louisiana office, said he had never heard of Caruso-Riecke but that running a utility and serving as a compliance official for the PSC would “not be right.”

Louisiana Secretary of State corporate records also show that Caruso-Riecke also served as the registered agent for Savannah Trace Utility from 2006 until 2009.

State law requires that all appointees to boards and commissions file annual financial disclosure reports with the State Ethics Board. The earliest one found on Caruso-Riecke was dated May 30, 2017, only months after his appointment to the State Police Commission.

No records could be found that indicated he ever served as a compliance officer for any agency. It appears he either misrepresented his experience as a compliance official or neglected to file the required financial disclosure forms.

It is known that his water and wastewater company was under stringent EPA sanctions during the time he claimed to be a compliance official for the PSC, which would been a highly unusual situation – unless he had someone in state government providing questionable waivers for him.

The inquisition has begun in earnest. And make no mistake, it’s an inquisition of political pragmatism, not of some deep-seated belief in victims’ rights.

If there’s one thing that I detest more than lying for political expediency, it’s hypocrisy on the part of those who would exploit a situation for political capital.

Yesterday I took Gov. John Bel Edwards to task – rightly so, I’m still convinced – for his duplicity in the Ronald Greene matter.

Today, I’m calling out the two-faced Repugnantcans who want to make Ronald Greene an issue for one purpose and one purpose only: to discredit John Bel Edwards. That’s a misplaced motive and smacks of all that’s wrong about politics.

One of those is LSU-Shreveport associate professor Jeff Sadow who this morning called for Edwards’ impeachment. Sadow supposedly teaches political science at LSU-S – except it appears from the university’s most current syllabi there are no political science classes that he actually teaches.

Ronald Greene’s death at the hands of five Louisiana State Troopers has nothing to do with Repugnantcans’ ire. Nor does the administration’s attempted coverup during a reelection campaign other than presenting a golden opportunity for Repugnantcans to make political hay of the issue – or for idle political science professors to spout the party line.

Make no mistake, all the bitching and moaning that House Speaker Clay Schexnayder is doing is grandstanding, pure and simple. It’s opportunism at its worst. He has no more concern for the fate of victims arrested for DWB (Driving While Black) than he and other Repugnantcans have for the disproportionate number of blacks serving life sentences for offenses like possessing $20 WORTH OF POT even as a 47-year-old white Baton Rouge man gets only two years for SEXUALLY ABUSING a 15-year-old girl. Where’s the outrage for that disparity in the law, Mr. All-About-Justice Speaker?

But if the issue happens to put Democrat John Bel Edwards in a bad light, then you’ve never seen such breast-beating, clothes-rending, gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands because of justice gone wrong.

Schexnayder has shown himself to be one of the biggest hypocrites in the legislature when he emerged from a weekend meeting with the State Senate president and Attorney General Jeff Landry to proclaim that Edwards’ inaction in the Greene matter “demonstrates gross misconduct and the highest level of deceit on behalf of the governor and others.”

While he may be correct in saying that, the words carry a pretty empty ring when one considers how quiet Schexnayder was during the four years of the Trump disaster. As a Repugnantcan, he was strangely mute as Trump embarrassed this entire country time after time. Likewise, he remained tight-lipped when Landry put contributor Shane Guidry on the attorney general’s office’s payroll as an “investigator,” or when Landry attempted to INTERFERE with the First Amendment rights of an LSU faculty member, or when it was revealed that Landry was deeply involved in a $17 million scam to hire Mexican welders and pipe fitters, or when Landry joined State Treasurer John Schroder in excluding a financial institution from doing business with the state – a move that could end up costing the state millions of dollars.

Schexnayder remained mum when Landry joined Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s silly (some would say frivolous) lawsuit to challenge the 2020 presidential election results – a lawsuit that fell flat like 59 others challenging the election. Nor did he utter a word of protest when his pal Landry’s FINGERPRINTS  turned up all over that robocall from the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF), the fundraising arm of the Repugnantcan Attorney General Association (RAGA) that said in part, “At 1 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal.” That would be in reference to that little tourism visit to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Greene’s mother called on Edwards to resign after news became public about his knowledge of details of Greene’s death. That’s her right. She lost her son and she’s angry. But for legislative Repugnantcans to become embroiled in this particular controversy, given their reticence over other civil rights matters is crass duplicity and Schexnayder’s saying, “What happened to Ronald Greene is inexcusable and should never happen to anyone. His family and the citizens of the state deserve to know the truth” stands out as one of the most insincere utterances of any political hack I’ve ever heard.

If Schexnayder, a Gonzales Repugnantcan, had ever so much as said a single word of criticism of Donald Trump, Clay Higgins, John Kennedy, Steve Scalise, Jeff Landry, or any other idiot Repugnantcan in Congress (Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, Ron Johnson, Madison Cawthorn: pick one), I could give him the benefit of the doubt.

If he had just once stood up in defense of infants after they are born in the same manner as he does for the unborn, I would applaud his criticism of Edwards, a man I voted for twice for governor (actually four times, counting primaries and runoffs). But I’ve yet to hear Schexnayder speak out in support of infant care, early childhood development, pre-K or any of the things indigent children need so desperately. No, they have a right to be born but once they are born, they’re on their own.

If only Schexnayder would be as diligent in working on a solution to Louisiana’s having the highest incarceration rate in the civilized world, I might take his pontificating more seriously. But as yet, I haven’t heard a peep out of him on that issue.

Would he be as dedicated to pulling Louisiana out of the muck of the bottom ranking of states in education, obesity, poverty, income, and health care, then I would love to listen to his ideas.

Until he does, he should just shut the hell up and let those who truly care and those with a reason to criticize Edwards do so.

Political posturing is pretty easy to spot. And it’s always cheap and bawdy.

(As a point of clarification, I use the term Repugnantcan to describe the Greedy Old Patricians (GOP) because I feel many of its members today are truly repugnant. I have earned the right to say this because I spent 33 years as a member of that party and watched it move further and further away from my core beliefs. It is no longer represents a democracy or even a democratic republic, but instead, has become the very symbol of autocracy, and to some extent, Sharia Law.)

A couple of interesting details have come to light in the Ronald Greene matter that leave me scratching my head and wondering what the hell’s going on.

Greene, you may recall, was beaten, kicked, and tased to death in May 2019 by Louisiana State Troopers from Troop F in Monroe. Officers had attempted to pull Greene over in Ouachita Parish but he fled and was not caught until he crashed his car into a tree in Union Parish.

Reasons for his fleeing are unknown since no drugs, alcohol, or weapons were in his vehicle.

State Police initially said he died from injuries sustained in the collision with the tree, but that was a lie. His injuries from the wreck, if any, were minor. It wasn’t until video of the assault by five troopers and a Union Parish sheriff’s deputy surfaced a full year after the accident that the truth became known.

State Police had denied the existence of any body cam video. That also was a lie.

So, here are the details that puzzle me about the entire matter:

Gov. Edwards was told via a text message from then-State Police Superintendent Kevin Reeves at 10 a.m. on May 10, 2019, nine hours after Greene’s death, that Greene had died following a “violent, lengthy struggle.”

Edwards was involved in a close race for reelection and chose not to do the right thing, instead taking the coward’s way out by saying and doing NOTHING.

I was under the impression that we elected him to honor the West Point Code of Honor and to stand up for the right thing no matter the consequences. I guess I was wrong because for two years after Greene’s death, he continued to push the story that Greene died in the wreck.

On the Jim Engster Show on Louisiana Public Radio, Edwards hedged on that position only slightly when he said in response to a question from a listener, “Did he die from injuries sustained in the accident? Obviously, he didn’t die in the accident itself because he was still alive when the troopers were engaging with him. But what was the cause of death? I don’t know that that was falsely portrayed.”

That was in September, long after the video of the assault had become public.

Last July, a MEMO surfaced that showed that Louisiana State Police asked staff members not to destroy Ronald Greene case files. The memo, leaked to Baton Rouge TV station WBRZ, advised all Department of Public Safety agency staff to “preserve potential evidence by taking the appropriate steps to ensure that potential evidence relevant to the Ronald Greene matter is preserved and not deleted, damaged, or destroyed.”

That makes sense. After all, any documents, texts, or emails could come into play in any anticipated litigation over Greene’s death.

Yet…yet, we learn that State Police “SANITIZED” the cellphones of Reeves and former police commander Mike Noel, who resigned just as he was set to be questioned about the case by lawmakers whose consent was required for Noel’s consideration for the position of Louisiana Gambling Board chairman.

Sanitized, of course, is a euphemism for wiping, or erasing the contents of the phones. State Police said it was customary to take such action, but this was no ordinary situation. These phones contained evidence, including that text message to Gov. Edwards of May 10, 2019.

What else might have been on those phones? We’ll never know, but we do know that Doug Cain, promoted to lieutenant colonel soon after Reeves retired, attempted to SHUT DOWN the INVESTIGATION into Greene’s death.

But for all the hoopla over the Greene case, it’s just one of a disturbing trend of police violence against African Americans for the offense of DRIVING WHILE BLACK – by state and municipal police officers.

From the almost casual use of ATTACK DOGS on victims by Lake Charles police to the brutal beating of a black man arrested for the crime of blocking a sidewalk with his car by a HAMMOND POLICE SERGEANT later promoted to Chief of Police, a beating described by a consultant hired by the City Council as “one of the most abusive uses of force” that he has ever investigated, there is ample evidence of cops run amok.

This was Seth Stoughton, an attorney and former police officer who teaches at the University of South Carolina School of Law who made that observation. He served as prosecution expert in the 2021 trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Cauvin, so he knows a little about police brutality.

Still, Hammond Mayor Pete Panepinto refused to discipline officers and even promoted Sgt. Edwin Bergeron, the one who initiated the attack on Kendrick Ratliff, to police chief. Panepinto continues to support the officers despite overwhelming VIDEO EVIDENCE that officers were out of control in their zeal to beat Ratliff to a pulp.

The lesson to be learned here, I suppose, is to expect police to circle the wagons in an effort to cover up their own crimes. That will include denying the existence of body cam video, destruction of texts, emails, and other communication. Given the opportunity and if it occurs to them, they will turn off their body cams or at least mute them so as to eliminate any screams from tasing, beating, and kicking.

I never thought I’d write such a diatribe against law enforcement. They’ve always been my heroes, my protectors. But now I see a different breed of cop. There are those within State Police that see it, too. One State Trooper, who created an email account under the pseudonym of Toussaint Louverture, has for months now been critical of LSP administration.

Today, Louverture posted a lengthy “told you so” email in which he reminded us that he has said all along that Edwards knew the details of Greene’s death but has said and done nothing.

“In previous emails,” he wrote, “I have stated that there was no possible way that Governor John Bel Edwards did not have any knowledge of Louisiana State Police Troopers beating ‘the ever living f**k’ out of Ronald Greene days after it took place. I also stated that Governor Edwards chose his political career, which was heavenly supported by blacks, over a black man’s life. But most of us choose to ignore this. Either because we are politically connected to Edwards, wanted to be promoted, tied to a paycheck or just lack the courage to be a decent human being. But Ronald Greene was murdered by LSP Troopers.”

“Well, here we are two years later and all we have is a murdered black man, an ongoing departmental coverup, and a political game of charades going on,” he wrote.

I couldn’t have said it better.