Louisiana Voice

One thing you can always count on in times of crisis is price-gouging by unscrupulous individuals willing to take advantage of others’ misfortunes in order to turn a quick buck.

What you don’t usually count on is for those individuals to be public employees assigned to help disaster victims.

But then, the State Fire Marshall’s Office is, along with Louisiana State Police, part of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, so I guess you’d come to expect some degree of underhanded – if not outright illegal – behavior, especially from the administrative offices of these agencies.

Still, it seems more than a little twisted that the very ones charged with protecting the public’s interests can work so long and hard at perverting the process for personal gain. And make no mistake, whether they have the integrity to accept it, those at the top own responsibility for subordinates’ actions.

The sign on Harry Truman’s desk said it best: “The buck stops here.”

Administrators who deceive themselves into thinking they can fire miscreants and then wash their hands of the scandal often end up like Macbeth’s wife who attempted to rinse the stain of Duncan’s blood from her conscience while pleading, “Out damned spot.”

It was first REPORTED on July 9 that six persons, including an attorney who once worked as a fraud prosecutor (oh, the irony), his twin brother who worked for the state Fire Marshal’s Office, had been indicted on charges of defrauding Louisiana of more than $800,000 in a scheme to profit off the state’s hurricane relief efforts last year.

Four others were also indicted. They included Philip Sibley, Stacy Smith, Bernard Christmas and Ava Richardson. Secretary of State records listed the McCormick Law Firm as the agent of record for one of the companies involved in the scheme, Emergency Logistics Solutions, managed by Sibley.

All six were tied to a number of companies that were used to launder the money was the law firm of Robert McCormick’s brother, former fraud prosecutor Tom McCormick who used the money to pay credit card bills, car payments and school tuitions. In just one example, participants purchased 16,000 bottles of water at 13 cents per bottle and submitted vouchers to the state for $1.50 each through Robert McCormick, who worked for the fire marshal’s Office as its emergency management officer in charge of procuring supplies for relief efforts following the devastation to Southwest Louisiana during the 2020 hurricane season.

Robert McCormick, through his position with the fire marshal’s office took advantage of his position of procuring materials and supplies for emergencies to approve the fraudulent payments.

The investigation, first initiated by the Legislative Auditor’s Office and later turned over to 18^th Judicial District DA Tony Clayton.

The investigation led to the discovery of unspecified violations by Robert McCormick’s supervisor and reserve deputy fire marshal Stacy Smith and her husband, Dean Smith, who, also resigned even though Dean Smith was not named in the indictments, according to The Advocate.

So, who is Dean Smith?

It’s not the University of North Carolina basketball coach who passed away in February 2015.

I’m talking about the Dean Smith whose last day as police captain for the Pontchartrain Levee District was January 27, 2017, and who went to work as a Fire Chief for the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal three days later at a cool $85,000 per year.

Nothing in his background would seem to qualify him as Fire Chief.

Louisiana Civil Service Department records show that Dean Smith began working for the Pontchartrain Levee District as a Police Captain on July 1, 2010 at a salary of $61,000 per year.

On March 12, 2012, he was designated as a Police Captain A and on October 1, 2015, his salary was $71,000 and remained at that level until his departure to join the fire marshal’s office. Three days after he left the levee district and with no professional experience to qualify him for his Fire Chief position, his salary jumped by $14,000 per year, to $85,000 in his new post.

Smith’s employment history prior to joining the fire marshal’s office was spotty at best.

He was a volunteer fireman in Gonzales when Browning was Fire Chief there and the two are close friends, often joining each other on motorcycle rides.

Smith was also an Ascension Parish deputy sheriff at one time. While in that capacity, he had a gun to discharge accidentally, striking a prisoner in the spine and rendering him a paraplegic. He left the sheriff’s office after that, was elected a justice of the peace and eventually resigned to work for the levee board.

Irony of ironies, we are informed that one of the duties of the man who once accidentally shot and paralyzed a man was to serve as firearms instructor for the Fire Marshal’s office.

Despite holding down a critical job like Fire Chief, it proved impossible to reach Smith by telephone when attempts were made to reach him when we did our initial story on him back in 2017 because he had no phone extension at the Fire Marshal’s office. None. Nada. Nil. Zip. Attempts to call him on two separate occasions by LouisianaVoice met with explanations that he had no extension but that a message would be given him to return the call.

Of course, he never did.

Wanting to know just what it was that Smith did to earn his $85,000, I emailed State Fire Marshal Butch Browning, the man himself. He should know, after all:

From: Tom Aswell [mailto:azspeak@cox.net]
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2017 1:07 PM
To: ‘butch.browning@la.gov’ <butch.browning@la.gov>
Subject: FW: DEAN SMITH

Mr. Browning:

How long has Dean Smith worked for the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal and why does he not have a phone extension?

What, exactly, is his title and what are his duties?

You will notice my email was sent at 1:07 p.m. on Aug. 11, 2017. Minutes later I received a receipt showing that Browning had read our email at 1:08 p.m.

_____________________________________________
From: Butch Browning [mailto:Butch.Browning@la.gov]
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2017 1:08 PM
To: Tom Aswell <azspeak@cox.net>
Subject: Read: FW: DEAN SMITH

Your message

To: Butch Browning
Subject: FW: DEAN SMITH
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2017 1:07:24 PM (UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)
was read on Friday, August 11, 2017 1:08:01 PM (UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada).

But Browning never answered my inquiry, so four hours later, at 5:12 p.m., a follow-up email was sent but alas, he must’ve already started his weekend for he never opened that message:

So, to learn just what else besides teaching firearms safety did a Fire Chief at SFM do to earn his $85,000, I was forced to turn to other sources, namely a couple of employees in the Fire Marshal’s office, both of whom said Smith and Browning were pals from way back.

One of those says Smith was hired to oversee the non-existent SFM fleet of boats. Well, it shouldn’t too difficult for a Fire Chief with no apparent firefighting experience to watch over boats that don’t exist.

He also cooked jambalaya for attendees at a firefighters’ conference held in Houma the weekend of July 19-22. Maybe that’s what the title Fire Chief meant.

If that conference could somehow be deemed an emergency, perhaps that might justify the use of the SFM’s special service trailer. The trailer was “up-fitted” in May 2015, 2017, from 5 Alarm Fire Apparatus of Raceland at a cost of $4,649 “for USAR emergency field food service cooking during emergencies.” The Fire Marshal’s office said at the time the expenditure was necessary, that the office “has no way of supporting USAR events or emergencies when they take place. This up-fit cooking trailer will now support events and emergencies with equipment for field food services when necessary.”

They probably also made good use of the 30-gallon roll-around combo set (complete with paddles for stirring the jambalaya) purchased in January 2015 from Krazy Kajun Cookware for $895.

But, despite the apparent critical need for an $85,000 per year Fire Chief, Boat Watcher and Jambalaya Cook, he didn’t even have a telephone extension at the Fire Marshal’s headquarters in Baton Rouge even though that’s where he worked reported to collect his salary.

Just a reminder that you do not have to physically attend today’s book signing to get a signed copy of any of my books.

While we are emphasizing my latest book, Murder on the Teche, I have other signed copies of books that are available for purchase from Cavalier House Books:

Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption (a true story of otherwise unbelievable exploits of many of Louisiana’s sheriffs, both past and present);

Vieux Carré Vengeance (a ghost story novel set in New Orleans), or

Bordello on the Bayou (a fictional account based on the Baton Rouge Madam of a couple of decades ago – with several events of the book occurring right here in Denham Springs).

If you can’t make it to the physical book-signing at 3 p.m. today in Denham Springs Antique Village, you can click on the Cavalier House logo to the right of this post and make your order and a signed copy of the book(s) you select will be mailed to you.

In the meantime, good reading!

For those of you living in Livingston and surrounding parishes, please don’t forget to drop by Cavalier House Books beginning at 3 p.m. Saturday for the signing of my latest book, Murder on the Teche: The True Story of Money and a Flawed Investigation. It’s the true story of the murder of a respected New Iberia orthodontist in 2010 and the botched investigation of his death by both the Iberia Parish District Attorney and the Iberia Parish Sheriff.

I also will be signing three other of my books, as well, though the emphasis will be on Murder on the Teche – because it is my most recent book.

The others are:

Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption (a true story of otherwise unbelievable exploits of many of Louisiana’s sheriffs, both past and present);

Bordello on the Bayou (a fictional account based on the Baton Rouge Madam of a couple of decades ago – with several events of the book occurring right here in Denham Springs);

Vieux Carré Vengeance (a ghost story novel set in New Orleans).

I hope to see you there.

Certain retired Louisiana state employees were given a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) increase to their retirement benefits but the bill granting the increase was so restrictive that out of several hundred thousand retirees, only about 800 or so qualified, according to Frank Jobert, Legislative and Governmental Affairs Director for the Retired State Employees Association of Louisiana.

Otherwise, state retirees will have to wait until at least Sept. 30 to learn whether or not they will qualify for similar increases.

“The bill (SB24, signed by Gov. John Bel Edwards as Act 37) that was passed was for the benefit of those living below the poverty line,” Jobert said. “It (the bill) put so many restrictions in place that only a few qualified. For example, there was a maximum income a retiree could be making ($1450 per month). Plus, he had to have 30 years of service, be retired at least 15 years and could not have participated in DROP (Deferred Retirement Option Plan) or IBO (Initial Benefit Option, whereby the retiree takes a partial lump-sum settlement and a reduced pension).”

He said the way SB24 was structured only served to make some retirees angry. “But it was written to help those in the greatest need,” he said.

“State retirees haven’t received an increase since the Robideaux Bill of 2016 (HB1225 by then State Rep. Joel Robideaux, actually passed in 2014 and implemented in 2016),” Jobert said.

Under provisions of that bill, the percentage of COLA adjustments is tied to the return on investment of retirement funds and the percentage of funding of the retirement system. If a system, for example is funded by 55 to 65 percent, retirees would receive adjustments limited to 1.5 percent. Once the system is funded by 65 percent (or the unfunded liability reduced to 35 percent), the increase would be 2 percent, gradually increasing to 3 percent with 85 percent funding of the system.

Jobert said COLA increases also are reliant on the rate of return based on a five-year average of at least 8 percent. “The investment had a great year in 2020,” he said. “We had a return of 30 percent.” But the bottom line, he said, is that the five-year average wasn’t that robust. “The bottom line is there hasn’t been enough return on investment to justify increases,” he said.

We’ll be taking another look in September at our annual meeting,” he said. If there is no permanent increase then, we will push for an annual 13^th monthly check.”

Mississippi currently offers state retirees an annual increase or a 13^th check.

It was on March 22, 2016, less than two months after taking office as Louisiana attorney general that Jeff Landry posted on his webpage CAJUN CONSERVATISM the message that there was “a new sheriff in town” and that he, Jeff Landry, was the one-man citadel of ethics, morality and straight-shootin’.

The headline to the post noted that Landry had moved to end the “Buddy System,” a not-so-subtle jab at his predecessor, Buddy Caldwell, whom Landry said had awarded no-bid legal contracts to his top campaign contributors, primarily attorneys contracted to defend state agencies in multiple litigation cases.

Landry noted that he had “put an end to many of those ‘good old boy’ deals, cancelling dozens of legal contracts that benefited two of Caldwell’s top campaign contributors and nearly 50 contracts with the private law firms of district attorneys around the state.” He also announced a new policy that prohibited attorneys on his staff from doing private legal work on the side, a step that will help avoid even the perception of impropriety.

Just three months earlier, on Dec. 16, Landry announced following his defeat of incumbent Caldwell that Republican super-donor Shane Guidry would chair his TRANSITION COMMITTEE. Guidry will be discussed in far more detail presently.

In the FIRST PRIMARY in 2015, Landry trailed Caldwell by two percentage points. Caldwell polled 35 percent to Landry’s 33 percent. Geraldine “Geri” Broussard Baloney of Garyville in St. John the Baptist Parish finished third at 18 percent.

On Nov. 2, three weeks before the Nov. 21 runoff, Landry posted another story in which he quoted BALONEY as saying, “After meeting with Jeff Landry, followed by prayerful consideration with my family, I have decided to endorse Jeff Landry because of his willingness to embrace forward thinking policies, his desire to actually transform and change the way the Attorney General’s office does business…”

But in Louisiana, the more things change, the more they stay the same. While Landry was running around boasting that he had restored some semblance of respectability and ethics to the attorney general’s office, he apparently had cut a deal with Baloney to HIRE BALONEY’S DAUGHTER. Quendi Baloney as a consolation prize in exchange for her endorsement.

Quendi was hired at $53,000 per year despite the fact that at the time of her hire, all potential employees of the AG’s office were required to sign a form agreeing to background checks. They were also asked, in writing, if they had in any criminal record.

In her case, she did. In 1999, she was charged with 11 felony counts of credit card fraud and theft, eventually pleading guilty to three counts, according to court records from Henrico County, Virginia. She was sentenced to six years in prison, all of it suspended.

Her new job? Well, irony of ironies, it was in the AG’s fraud section.

Fast forward to February 2020 and we find that Landry, who railed against so-called “sanctuary cities” that protect illegal immigrants, was in fact, AN OWNER, along with his brother, of firms that imported undocumented workers with assistance from a convicted felon who had violated immigration laws.

Three months later, the Baton Rouge Advocate REPORTED that Landry had (a) put political crony and one-time legal client Guidry on the AG’s payroll as some sort of “special agent/investigator” at $12,000 per year, though it was never quite clear just what Guidry was supposed to be investigating. As if to defend the expenditure of taxpayer money for such questionable purposes, it was said the money paid Guidry was given to charity. Well, that certainly is all the explanation Louisiana taxpayers are due.

But wait. That same story reported that Landry had received a spot on the board of Guidry’s oil services firm, Harvey Gulf at a remuneration of between $50,000 and $100,000, according to Landry’s FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE REPORT.

What was that again about the “Buddy System”?

Besides being a major contributor to Donald Trump, Guidry has poured tons of money into the campaigns of people like Steve Scalise, Landry, Jeb Bush and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Let’s take a closer look at Harvey Gulf and some of Guidry’s business and political connections to people like former Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser.

In a seemingly unrelated move, Newell abruptly announced that he was stepping down in 2017 after 37 years with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, the last ten as sheriff, to move into his new career as a talk show host for a New Orleans radio station. Making his announcement on July 25, he set his retirement date as August 31. Normand insisted the timing of his announcement was “a coincidence at best,” and had nothing to do with the federal indictment of his veteran chief deputy Craig Taffaro.

Taffaro, Nungesser’s father-in-law, was indicted by a federal grand jury just five days earlier, on July 20 for tax evasion and filing a false tax return in connection with CTNN, an offshore supply company that he co-owned with Normand. His indictment in turn, came a little more than a month after his retirement following nearly 50 years with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.

CTNN (Craig Taffaro, Newell Normand) apparently did little but collect commissions on sales between two other companies. Equipment and goods were actually purchased by Harvey Gulf, the billion-dollar marine transportation enterprise owned by Guidry. They were purchased from a company called Pelican Marine which was owned by Nungesser, Taffaro’s son-in-law, who upon his election as lieutenant governor, placed Pelican’s assets in a blind trust assigned to….Taffaro.

Normand and Guidry contributed $5000 each to Landry’s 2015 campaign and Harvey Gulf chipped in another $5000 in 2020. In addition, Guidry contributed $100,000 to a super PAC that supported Landry.

All of which may seem apropos of nothing but now we learn, to no one’s surprise, that Landry’s not above using state resources to intervene on behalf of political allies who experience legal troubles – especially allies who open their purse strings to him.

Take the most recent case involving Guidry, as REPORTED by Advocate writter John Simerman, for example.

How many hard-working Louisiana citizens earnestly believe they could pick up the phone and convince Landry to dispatch agents from his office to a neighboring state to track down an individual who has offended them in a strictly civil matter?

Well, apparently Shane Guidry has that kind of stroke and obviously, he’s not above calling in his chits.

When the birth mother of his adopted daughter contacted her, apparently in violation of some sort of agreement at the time of adoption, Guidry went running to Landry and Landry responded – with the full force of the Louisiana Attorney General’s office, even to the point of sending agents to Mississippi to talk to the woman’s brother to find out where she was.

That’s the kind of abuse of office that we found in the days of Huey Long – not in the 21^st century.

Even for Louisiana, with its ethics-lite laws, that kind of heavy-handedness is verboten.

The next statewide election isn’t until 2023, but Louisiana voters should keep in mind until then that there’s a new sign out front at the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office: