Louisiana Voice

St. Tammany Parish, that bastion of Republican conservatism nestled on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, most assuredly has a critical need for a political image makeover.

A few examples of political skulduggery from the parish named in honor of Lenape Chief Tamanend:

• Former District Attorney WALTER REED was sentenced to four years in federal prison for political corruption.
• Former Sheriff Jack Strain was first accused of political corruption in connection with a WORK RELEASE PROGRAM run from the parish jail and then was arrested after leaving office for RAPE and INCEST.
• Two of Strain’s DEPUTIES, Captains Clifford “Skip” Keen, Jr., and David Hanson, Sr., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to wire fraud and soliciting a bribe in February 2019.
• But then neither Strain nor his successor, Randy Smith, have proved capable of making an arrest in the July 2017 murder of NANETTE KRENTEL.
• Former St. Tammany sheriff’s deputy HENRI WALKER was sentenced in 2006 to five years in prison for possession of marijuana, crack cocaine and ecstasy.
• Two years later, former junior high school assistant principal MARK CARPENTER was sentenced to 30 years in prison for raping a 6-year-old girl and for possessing child pornography in 1986 – before he was hired by the St. Tammany Parish school system.
• Another ex-St. Tammany Parish sheriff’s deputy, JORDAN HOLLENBECK was sentenced to two years in prison in 2019 for alerting drug dealers they were under investigation.
• School board member SHARON LO DRUCKER said this month that she will resign after her second arrest for shoplifting.
• Former parish coroner PETER GALVAN was sentenced to two years in federal prison in 2014 for conspiring to steal government funds from the coroner’s office. He was also fined $5,000 and ordered to make restitution of more nearly $200,000.
• Former Mandeville Mayor EDDIE PRICE was sentenced to 64 months in federal prison on corruption and income tax evasion charges in June 2010.

But perhaps the unkindest cut of all (with apologies to Julius Caesar) came in the form of a Dec. 17 decision by the First Circuit Court of Appeal that UPHELD an award of more than $450,000 to a 24-year-old man who was raped by a school custodian when he was an 11-year-old, fourth-grade special education student at Abney Elementary School in 2007.

So, why would such an award be considered unkind? For three reasons. First, the very fact that the trial court’s award was even appealed by the school board (or that the case even went to trial in the first place, for that matter) and second, the appeal court’s decision was by a 3-2 vote when it should have been unanimous.

Justices Ray Chutz and J. Michael McDonald dissented.

And just why do I feel that the school board bears responsibility in this matter?

The doctrine of respondeat superior comes immediately to mind. That’s the Latin term for “let the master answer” for actions taken by an employee during the course of his employment.

The school board had taken the absolutely absurd position that the custodian, a fine, upstanding individual named Dino Schwertz, had committed the rape during his lunch break and was not acting within the scope of his employment – even though the attack occurred in a school rest room during school hours and on school grounds.

Moreover, the school board, in its appeal, conveniently overlooked the inconvenient fact that it did a pretty crappy job of vetting Schwertz in 2007, who had checked “NO” on the employment application that asked, “Have you ever plead (sic) guilty or no contest or been convicted of a criminal offense? (You’d think school board personnel would know how to spell pled or pleaded – either would be acceptable in the past tense, but not “plead.”):

Louisiana law requires schools to conduct criminal background checks on janitors but Schwertz’s background check wasn’t completed for three months and the law allows temporary employment until the background checks come back.

It turned out that Schwertz was on PROBATION for bank fraud and had a second criminal conviction for violation of a protective order. But the principal who hired him testified that she was never given his background check to review after it was returned to the school board.

It also turned out that Schwertz’s stepfather is a Slidell city council member.

Schwertz was convicted in a 2009 criminal trial on charges of aggravated rape and molestation of a juvenile for the assaults on the victim in this case as well as at least four other children at the school who later came forward to say they had been raped or molested by Schwertz (some reports put the number at 14). He is currently serving a life sentence plus 20 years.

The third reason is that even for a place like St. Tammany, with its All-Star roster of corrupt public officials, the school board’s defense of the lawsuit represents a classic breach of ethics that, even in a state where ethics flouting is a way of life, went way over the top.

The St. Tammany District Attorney’s office prosecuted Schwertz in the criminal rape case cited here.

But when the victim’s family sued the school board for negligence, who do you suppose defended the board in the civil proceedings?

Why, that would be none other than Assistant District Attorney Harry Pastuszek, who represents the board through his private practice but who was assigned that job by former DA Reed, who wrote in a LETTER to then-board President Elizabeth Heintz in 2013 that “Harry will continue to provide legal services to the board as he has done in the past.”

And during the 2018 civil trial who do think dispatched an associate to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola to take a sworn statement from Schwertz – the same person the district attorney’s office had successfully prosecuted?

Again, that would be none other than Assistant District Attorney Harry Pastuszek.

Just to reiterate in order to be sure you understand: The DA’s office prosecuted Schwertz, who raped an 11-year-old boy in a school rest room where he worked, and an assistant district attorney who may or may not have had access to information from the school board in the criminal trial or information from the rape victim in the civil trial DEFENDED the board in the ensuing civil lawsuit.

One might normally think the district attorney, knowing one of his assistants was representing the board, would have recused his office from the criminal prosecution. One might also assume that Pastuszek, knowing his boss had prosecuted Schwertz in the earlier criminal matter, would have recused himself from participation in the civil lawsuit.

But this is Louisiana, folks, and we have that wonderful Gold Standard of governmental ethics that protects the citizenry from any official chicanery.

That whistleblower’s complaint by a former nurse at the LASALLE CORRECTIONS-run Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia has just exploded into a major class-action federal lawsuit that lays bare the widespread practice of unwanted hysterectomies performed on female detainees that, if not condoned, then were at least allowed by Ruston-based LaSalle Corrections and a host of co-defendants, including Attorney General William Barr and Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf.

The lawsuit, lodged in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, was filed by 14 women on behalf of a “main class” of 60 women and a “retaliation sub-class,” claims that a doctor who only five years was among a group of doctors at Irwin County Hospital who settled a MEDICAID FRAUD CASE for $520,000, performed unwanted hysterectomies on female detainees after telling each of the women they had ovarian cysts or, in one case, a benign tumor.

In several of the cases, follow-up examinations by another doctor revealed no such condition existed.

Claims asserted in the 154-page COMPLAINT bring to mind the infamous “Tuskegee Study” of the effects of syphilis on Black men in which victims were allowed to go untreated for the disease.

Like the Tuskegee victims, the federal detainees at the LaSalle-run facility were not informed of the medical procedures being performed on them. Unlike Tuskegee, the women from the Irwin County Detention Center were not volunteers and had no say in their treatment or choice of doctors.

Among the claims of the plaintiffs:

• Subjecting them to unconstitutional and unlawful practices;
• Retaliating against petitioners for bringing the suit;
• Retaliating against or otherwise deterring petitioners from testifying in federal court proceedings or otherwise participating in any investigation or legal action related to their detention or abuse, including deportations;
• Removing witnesses needed in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation.

The last claim involved either placing witnesses in solitary confinement or transferring them to another area in order to conceal them from congressional investigators – and warning witnesses to keep their mouths shut and not talk to investigators.

Defendants, besides Wolf, Barr, and LaSalle, include:

• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE);
• Thomas Giles, Acting Director of the Atlanta Field Office of ICE;
• Tony Pham, Senior Official performing the duties of ICE director;
• Cesar Ciprian, Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer of ICE Atlanta Field Office;
• Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC);
• David Paulk, warden of Irwin County Detention Center;
• Hospital Authority of Irwin County;
• Dr. Mahendra Amin, the doctor who performed the surgical procedures on the detainees, and
• Various other officials and employees of ICE, LaSalle, and Irwin County Detention Center.

Amin, who also is accused of indiscriminately administering Depo, aka birth control, shots, invariably would perform painful vaginal examinations on the women and declare that they had ovarian cysts and were in need of surgery, paid for, of course, by Medicaid.

The women claimed in their petition that they were coerced to sign consent forms printed only in English even though they did not understand English and no interpreters were provided.

Moreover, some of the women, including a 16-year-old were required to fully disrobe in the presence of a guard who refused to leave the examination room – even during vaginal examinations.

One of the women, 35-year-old Jenel Haug, described her experience as “the most medical way of being raped you could possibly experience.”

The “main class” is defined in the lawsuit as “All individuals who were subjected to non-consensual, medically unindicated, and/or invasive gynecological procedures while they were detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at the Irwin County Detention Center.”

The proposed “retaliation sub-class” was defined as “All individuals who, after speaking out about or protesting experiencing non-consensual, medically unindicated, and/or invasive gynecological procedures while they were detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at the Irwin County Detention Center, were subject to retaliation by ICE and ICDC respondents.”

“The Main Class and the Retaliation Sub-Class are so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable,” the petition says. “There are at least 60 individuals who are members of the Main Class. Given the rampant, systematic retaliation against petitioners and putative class members, many of the at least 60 individuals are also members of the Retaliation Sub-Class.”

The petition says that because ICE contracts with Irwin County, which in turn contracts with LaSalle, for the operation of the detention facility, “ICDC, LaSalle, and their employees, agents and officers are state or local actors and subject to suit…independent of whether they may also be considered federal actors because they are engaging in the core federal function of civil immigration detention.”

Shortly before a congressional delegation, led by Sen. Corey Booker of New Jersey, arrived at ICDC, the defendants and their employees/contractors transferred some survivors of the alleged medical abuse to a different area that was not scheduled for inspection by the delegation. Defendants ordered the women not to speak to any of the congressmembers.

One of the women, Yanira Yesenia Oldaker, on Oct. 28, provided a declaration and list of victims to her attorneys. Four days later, her commissary account was “zeroed-out,” in preparation for her deportation. Only the intervention of her attorneys prevented her forced exit from the country.

Others were not so fortunate despite court rulings that say the deportation of a material witness in a criminal proceeding may establish a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

“Respondents have acted in bad faith by deporting several petitioners within days, and in some cases, within hours, of (their) coming forward and sharing their experiences at ICDC,” the petition says. “By deporting or threatening to deport petitioners in this case, respondents have infringed on the rights of all petitioners to a full and fair hearing on their claims.”

LaSalle has been cited on numerous occasions for negligence, a lack of proper training for employees, falsification of records, and even for failure to pay benefits for employees (see HERE, HERE and HERE, and it was recently announced that it would be TERMINATING ITS CONTRACT to run the Bowie County Bi-State Jail in Texarkana on Feb. 12 after a number of lawsuits over wrongful deaths, injuries and abusive treatment at the facility.

One of the promises made by Joe Biden in his successful campaign for president was to abolish the practice of private prisons.

William Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet that “A rose by any other name…”

LaSalle Management, LaSalle Corrections, WMC Enterprises, it doesn’t seem to matter what you call it, the Ruston-based private prison company just can’t seem to stay out of trouble.

Five former inmates of the LaSalle-run Richwood facility in Ouachita Parish settled their LAWSUIT against LaSalle for $177,500 after prison guards pepper-sprayed them while they were handcuffed and kneeling back in 2016.

And though LaSalle did not admit liability in the confidential settlement with Adley Campbell, Darin Whittington, Sidney Stephens, Jareth Vinet and Jimmy Klobas last March, the father of one of the men said he preferred that the settlement offer be declined so that facts about the facility might become public.

Larry Vinet of Charleston, West Virginia, father of Jareth Vinet said, “I told my son I’d give him 20 grand to not sign (the agreement) and let the truth come out.”

LaSalle holds both state inmates and immigrant detained for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and one such immigrant killed himself in October 2019. An Associated Press investigation indicated that the suicide was PREVENTABLE.

Associated Press also took issue with the confidentiality terms of the pepper spray lawsuit, successfully seeking that they be made public.

In 2017, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the state’s public records law applied to private entities performing public functions. Thanks to that ruling and the Associated Press’ public records request, Vinet can have his $20,000 from LaSalle and the truth can come out.

More and more, the trend for corporations and individuals named as defendants is to negotiate confidential settlements without an admission of guilt in cases in which they feel they are at a legal disadvantage.

Often, these confidential settlements involve public officials in which vast amounts of taxpayer dollars are spent in legal defenses, yet the taxpaying public is never told the amount of the settlements it is paying for.

LouisianaVoice has long held the position that such lack of accountability is wrong and that the public has the right to know how its money is being spent – and how much. Such settlements amount to little more than an official way to protect wrongdoers from exposure.

The lawsuit alleged that in 2016, the five men were pulled out of a dormitory, strip-searched and interrogated about tattoos. After they put their clothes back on, they were handcuffed and escorted to an area called the “White House,” where they were accused of being members of a gang and made to kneel. They were then sprayed with pepper spray, according to the suit.

A federal INDICTMENT in March 2018 charged five former Richwood guards with conspiring to assault inmates and filing false reports concerning the incident. All five pleaded guilty to conspiracy during 2018 and 2019, saying they filed false reports to cover up why the inmates needed medical care. One pleaded guilty to plotting to violate the inmates’ civil rights and the others to conspiring to cover up wrongdoing.

Four admitted in writing that they had sprayed pepper spray into the faces of kneeling, handcuffed inmates; the fifth said he stood by during the spraying. One of four who used the spray were died in an unrelated shooting before he could be prosecuted. The other guards received sentences ranging from 15 months to five years.

Former Capt. Roderick Douglas admitted pepper-spraying two inmates’ eyes, then passing the can to other guards.

He said the officers “rounded up five inmates whom they suspected of gang activity.” They were taken to an area without security cameras and placed facing the walls on their knees, with hands cuffed behind their backs.

LaSalle, which had taken down its Web pages recently, has apparently re-worked its Web profile into an attractive presentation that makes it seem the ideal place to work, inviting PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEES to “Join a team where you can make a difference in people’s lives” and pitching itself as committed to PROVIDING SAFETY and SECURITY to ENSURE the WELL-BEING if the PEOPLE in OUR CARE.”

It touts 25 locations in five states (Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Arizona and New Mexico) with the capacity to warehouse 17,318 prisoners paying up to $65 per day per person.

The breakdown is as follows:

• Louisiana – 8,208;
• Texas – 6,905;
• Georgia – 1,201;
• Arizona – 860;
• New Mexico – 144.

That number will be reduced by at least one facility and 921 beds in February when LaSalle’s contract to run the Bowie County Correctional Center in Texarkana, Texas, ends.

While LaSalle’s facilities have come under criticism by regulators from without, it hasn’t done too well from within, if EMPLOYEE REVIEWS rating it as 2.3 on a scale of 5.0 are any indication.

Don’t forget to order your copy of my newest book, Bordello on the Bayou. It’s the story of a legislative aide who uses her proximity to power to run a prostitution ring that at first caters only to Louisiana political officials and powerful lobbyist but which eventually expands into other southern states and employs more women.

With expansion comes access to sensitive information that could topple careers. Not surprisingly, when she is arrested for her extracurricular activities, she becomes a dangerous liability to her clientele, who range from the governor to municipal officials. When she engages the assistance of her attorney and a reporter she trusts, she sets in motion a chain of events that places the lives of all three in peril.

The book is $30, with $5 of each sale goes to the Baton Rouge Food Bank. You may pay by credit card by clicking on the yellow

button in the column to the right of this post or by mailing your check to:

LouisianaVoice, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, LA 70727.

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