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More than $6M paid out by sheriffs’ offices in judgments, settlements since 2015; attorney fees add another $1.4M

July 16, 2018 by tomaswell

Lest you think of your local sheriff’s office’s protective actions as a form of insurance, it might do well to remember that unlike State Farm, they’re not always a good neighbor and as opposed to what the Allstate folks might say, you’re not always in good hands.

Louisiana sheriffs have paid out a combined minimum of $6.1 million in settlements and judgments since 2015, according to records provided LouisianaVoice by The Louisiana Sheriffs’ Law Enforcement Program (LSLEP), the risk management arm of the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association.

Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal has paid out at least $2.35 million of that, or 38.5 percent of the total for all sheriffs. That’s just from 2015. Ackal has been in office for 10 years and his office has paid out more than $2.8 million in judgments and settlements, or an average of $23,000 for every month he has been in office.

Two other parish sheriffs’ departments, Jackson ($650,000) and Morehouse ($503,000) were a distant second and third, respectively, behind Iberia. Together, the three parishes were responsible for $3.5 million in payouts for damages and wrongful deaths, or 57.4 percent of the total for all 64 parishes.

Besides the $6.1 million in judgments that were paid out, seven law firms also ran up another $1.2 million in legal fees defending the various lawsuits against sheriffs. That amount represent 83.2 percent of the total legal fees paid to all firms.

Pursuant to a public records request by LouisianaVoice, LSLEP, through its legal counsel, Usry & Weeks of New Orleans, provided reports that showed file names, claimant names, attorneys who handled the files, the amounts paid in attorney fees, and settlement/judgment amounts. The amounts paid out were divided BY PARISH into “corridor” (deductible), indemnity, and excess carrier payments. Excess payments are generally paid out by a second insurance company that covers claims in excess of a certain amount covered by LSLEP’s primary insurer.

There were seven payments made by the LSLEP excess carrier, records show. They range from a low of $15,000 in a case involving two payouts to a plaintiff by the West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office (the other payment was for $100,000 and was listed as an “indemnity” payment) to what is believed to be a payment of at least $600,000 in Iberia Parish in the case of the shooting death of a handcuffed prisoner.

The actual amount of that payment is unclear because in the case of Shandell Bradley v. the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office, the amounts of the settlement payments were ordered sealed by the presiding judge—the only payments among the records provided that were redacted.

That was the case in which 22-year-old VICTOR WHITE, III was shot in the chest while in custody of sheriff’s deputies. The coroner somehow managed to rule that White had gotten hold of a weapon and somehow managed to shoot himself in the chest—while his hands were cuffed behind his back.

In an interview with LouisianaVoice, White’s father, Victor White, Jr., said he was unhappy with the judge’s order that terms of the settlement not be disclosed. “The judge says we can’t talk about the settlement amount, but I believe the people of Iberia Parish have a right to know how much the sheriff department’s actions cost them,” he said.

The Victor White case was not the only case in which Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal had to make substantial payouts.

CHRISTOPHER BUTLER sued after he was beaten while handcuffed by a deputy Cody Laperouse in 2013. Ackal fired Laperouse who promptly went to work as an officer for the St. Martinville Police Department. Ackal’s office paid out $350,000 in that case.

Ackal also paid out $175,000 to the family of 16-year-old DAQUENTIN THOMPSON who hanged himself while being held in Iberia Parish’s adult jail in 2014.

In a case that displayed the ugly side of Ackal’s idea of justice, the sheriff instructed two of his deputies to “take care of” HOWARD TROSCLAIR after Ackal had been told assaulted one of his (Ackal’s) relatives, according to appeal documents filed by deputy David Hines with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. When Trosclair was arrested, the court records say he was “compliant and followed the officers’ commands.” Hines nevertheless used his knee to strike Trosclair “several times in the side” and struck him “two to three times” with his baton in the back of his legs. Hines continued to knee Trosclair in the abdomen or groin even after he was restrained. Hines then filed a false police report to cover up the wrongful assault, the appeal record says.

That episode cost LSLEP $275,000.

LSLEP paid out $500,000 on behalf of the Morehouse Parish Sheriff’s Office in connection with the death of 18-year-old EDWIN BATTAGLIA while he was in a holding cell.

Perhaps the strangest judgment was the $600,000 payout to VACUUM CLEANER sales representatives in Jackson Parish in 2013.

It seems that a group of door-to-door salespeople had close encounters with Jackson Parish sheriff’s deputies despite their having a permit to solicit door-to-door. Deputy GERALD PALMER told the sales reps, “We’re not too keen on door-to-door salesmen in this parish, so you probably gonna run into a lot of problems. You’re probably better off to go to another parish, according to my sheriff (Andy Brown),” according to court documents.

Court documents quoted other examples of intimidation by deputies in efforts to discourage the sales reps.

The Alexandria law firm of Provosty, Sadler & Delaunay billed $247,000 for defending 33 lawsuits against sheriffs’ offices in Allen, Grant, Iberia and Rapides parishes, records of payments BY LAW FIRM show.

The Chalmette law firm of Gutierrez & Hand was a close second with $237,500 in billings for defending 20 lawsuits against the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff’s Office.

Other top-billing firms included:

  • Cook, Yancey, King & Galloway of Shreveport—$191,390 for defending 26 cases in the parishes of Claiborne, Desoto, and Webster;
  • Hall, Lestage & Landreneau of Deridder—$149,745 for representing Allen, Beauregard, Rapides, and Vernon parishes in 36 litigation cases;
  • Homer Ed Barousse of Crowley—$135,400 for representation in the defense of litigation in 11 cases in Acadia Parish;
  • The Dodd Law Firm of Houma—$132,000 for the defense of 10 cases in East Feliciana and Iberia parishes;
  • Borne, Wilkes & Rabalais—$112,800 for defending 10 cases in Acadia and Iberia parishes.

Not all lawsuits were filed against Ackal by prisoners. LAURIE SEGURA was an administrative assistant for the sheriff’s office who obtained a settlement of $409,000 for sexual harassment by Bert Berry, chief of the Criminal Department whose action included rubbing his hands and crotch against her body, sneaking up behind her and kissing her, making inappropriate inquiries about her sex life, discussed fantasies of having sex with her, simulating sex in her presence and trying to get her to engage in phone sex. She said in her lawsuit that he ignored her repeated requests to leave her alone and when she complain, she experience retaliation.

Besides having to settle her claim, Ackal got an added bonus when Segura TESTIFIED against him in federal criminal charges brought against him for a multitude of offenses.

Posted in Corruption, Courts, Ethics, Lawsuits, Public Records | Leave a Comment »

Democrat Justin DeWitt only Graves challenger to file federal campaign finance report; refuses PAC money

July 12, 2018 by tomaswell

Justin DeWitt is the only challenger to 6th District U.S. Rep. Garret (one “t”) Graves to meet the July 8 Federal Election Commission (FEC) deadline for financial reporting and unlike the incumbent he is challenging, you won’t fine any PAC contributions in his report.

Democrat DeWitt, the only openly LGBTQ candidate to ever seek a congressional office in Louisiana, has raised a little more than $23,000 in a grassroots effort to dislodge Republican Graves, whose federal campaign finance report reads like a Who’s Who of Political Action Committees:

Airlines for America PAC, Allied Pilots Association PAC, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association PAC, Ally Financial, Inc. Advocacy PAC, Amazon PAC, the American Academy of Dermatology Association’s SKINPAC, American Academy of Physician Assistants PAC, American Airlines Inc. PAC, American Bankers Association PAC, American Air Liquide Holdings PAC, the American Cable Association PAC, American Chemistry Council PAC, American Commercial Lines PAC, Acadian Ambulance Service Employee PAC, Action Committee for Rural Electrification, AECOM PAC, Agricultural Retailers Association PAC, Airline Pilots Association PAC, Airbus Group PAC.

And those are just the first three pages. The entire list of PAC contributors is 38 pages long.

That $23,000 isn’t nearly enough to mount any kind of campaign and DeWitt is keenly aware of that fact but he says he’s running “because I flooded in ’16. I lost everything and got nothing but TAPs (thoughts and prayers) from Graves.”

Thousands of people lost everything in that flood, so what inspired him when no one else is running for that reason?

“I’m running because I’m pissed. Graves wants to take FEMA appropriations for victims and funnel that money into the Amite Diversion Canal. Those victims need help now.

“I want to change the entire flood insurance program,” he said. “We need an overall disaster insurance program. Instead, we have a national flood insurance program that has rates that are impossible for the average family to afford. It’s evil to profit off people who are suffering.

“I’m a political newcomer,” the 30-year-old member of a surveying crew says. One news report identified him as a surveyor—he’s not—and to show how those with power work to protect each other, the Louisiana Professional Engineering and Land Surveying Board threatened DeWitt with disciplinary action. “I never described myself as a surveyor because I’m not,” he said, “but that didn’t deter the board from trying to take action.”

He describes himself as “a working man from a working-class background” as opposed to Graves, who, like his mentor Bobby Jindal, never worked in the private sector.

He said if he is elected, “I will continue to work hard for all the people of the 6th Congressional District, Louisiana, and the nation—not for the corporations and special interest groups. I will work to protect our environment and the rights of all people, and to protect the vital program that ensure a good quality of life for working and middle-class people. That includes healthcare for all who need it and, importantly, Medicare and Social Security for our seniors who have paid into those programs for a lifetime and who should not have to fear a future without the financial resources to live comfortably.”

He said one of the biggest problems with congress and any other elective office is the influence of money from special interests. “The PACs have drowned out the voice of the people to the point the average person cannot be heard over the lobbyists and special interests,” he said. “That’s why you won’t see any PAC contributions in my finance reports. And it’s not because they haven’t offered—they have. We turned them down. We’re depending on social media to get our message out.”

Candidate qualifying runs from July 18 to July 20.

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Congress, Elections, Ethics, House, Politicians | 32 Comments »

Need a good laugh? How about a photo-op of a district judge joking at deputy lying on the lethal injection table at Angola?

July 10, 2018 by tomaswell

Remember Robert “Robbo” Davidson, the DeSoto Parish sheriff’s chief investigator whose private company ran more than 41,500 background checks through the sheriff’s office in an 11-month period?

Davidson (now retired) was a principal in LAGNIAPPE and CASTILLO RESEARCH and INVESTIGATIONS, which charged customers $12 for each background report and paid the sheriff’s office $3 per report for a profit of more than $372,000 for him and his partner, Allan Neal Castillo.

Now, LouisianaVoice has obtained an old Facebook photograph of Davidson, along with 42nd Judicial District Court Judge Charles Adams having a little fun in the Angola State Penitentiary death chamber.

The photo shows Davidson lying on the gurney where lethal injections are administered to death row inmates. Enjoying the moment are, standing, left to right, Judge Adams, Jean Calvert, Adams’s secretary, and Davidson’s wife Linda Davidson, a DeSoto Parish constable.

The most inappropriate aspect of this photo, besides the obvious poor taste of posing for it in the first place, is that there are presently four death row inmates from DeSoto Parish at Angola and should either of the cases be remanded to 42nd JDC by an appellate court, it would put Adams, as the presiding judge, in something of an awkward position.

One of those death row inmates, by the way, is JAMES BALDWIN, father of current DeSoto Parish Sheriff Jayson Richardson.

Richardson recently refused to provide personnel files of the sheriff’s office to Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera’s office and Richardson fought back with a PETITION for declaratory and injunctive relief. Purpera countered by seeking to move the matter to the 19th Judicial District in Baton Rouge.

The issue of proper jurisdiction was heard by Judge Adams, who ruled that the case would be heard in his court which, in light of his coziness with the sheriff’s office, as depicted in this photo, only serves to raise more questions than answers about the propriety of hearing Richardson’s petition in Adams’s court.

Posted in Ethics, Judges | 8 Comments »

Ex-state trooper Jimmy Rogers writes rambling Facebook indictment of LSP after pleading guilty to 2 felony counts

July 9, 2018 by tomaswell

Former state trooper Jimmy Rogers, according to his attorney Ron Richard, “probably sang the NATIONAL ANTHEM at more events in this town (Lake Charles) than anyone else.” Now Rogers is singing again but this time his singing is confirming the existence of TICKET QUOTAS in Troop D first reported by LouisianaVoice as far back as September 2015.

Senate Bill 799 of the 2008 legislative session breezed through the Senate by a 37-0 vote and the House by an 86-18 count to become ACT 479. The bill by Sen. Joe McPherson, theoretically at least, prohibited quotas for law enforcement officers. Of course, if you think that stopped the practice in small towns scattered over the state that depend on ticket revenue to balance their budgets, I have some surplus Scott Pruitt Public Servant of the Year nomination forms for you.

Rogers, who was ARRESTED on 74 criminal counts, first resigned ahead of a State Police Internal Affairs investigation, and then requested to be DISCIPLINED AND REINSTATED.

But thanks to the efforts of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, the Calcasieu Parish DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE pursued the matter and Rogers eventually pleaded guilty to two felony counts of malfeasance in office, which automatically disqualifies him from working in another police department.

But if you thought Rogers would go quietly, you would be wrong. As his law enforcement career circled the drain, he decided he would pull others down with him and his manifesto, published on Facebook, only served to validate what LouisianaVoice wrote about Troop D over a period of at least two years.

The Lake Charles AMERICAN PRESS published a story about his lengthy Facebook statement but did not publish the actual 10-paragraph bitter, self-serving post.

So, here it is in its entirety (with punctuation and spelling corrected):

My name is Jimmy Rogers. As most of you have seen on the news lately, I used to be a Louisiana State Trooper, note that I have not been a Trooper since 2015. As a result of a “VERY LIMITED” investigation into the LACE program, I was recently arrested and I pled guilty to 2 counts of malfeasance in office. I have stayed quiet for the duration of this situation. However, I feel like it is time to share my side of the story. My hope is not that you will feel sorry for me, but that it would spark an outcry for justice, an outcry for a REAL investigation. That investigation would reveal that Jimmy Rogers is only one of hundreds, if not thousands of Troopers who have done the same thing. I’m sure certain people and the guys from the LouisianaVoice and other media outlets will expect me to be angry and lash out at them. But I’m not! The public is tired of dirty cops, dirty prosecutors, a dirty system and, specifically, a dirty state police office! Ladies and gentlemen, SO AM I! 

Let me start out by saying, I am GUILTY. I am guilty for participating in what is, in my opinion, a gross violation of YOUR constitutional rights. You are being taxed without your knowledge. 

The District Attorney’s office dangles a few dollars in front of police officers and in turn those officers write a required amount of tickets. It is well-known that the DA only cares that you give him 2 tickets for every hour he pays for. To answer the question everyone always asks, (YES THAT IS A QUOTA)!! If you do the math, he gives the cop 1/3 and pockets the rest of the money. (The temptation to double your salary is just too hard to resist)! 

John Derosier and his office have made millions of dollars on the backs of hard working, innocent Americans. I never thought of overtime this way until I married my beautiful wife only a year ago. I’ve listened to her stories of struggle as a single mother. How one ticket could literally bury a person who struggles in poverty to feed their children. They are then forced to choose between paying a ticket or a light bill! Lose your lights or be buried under tickets that continue to pile up until you have no other recourse than to sit in jail or make payments for years! Why you ask? For money!!!! 

There is no requirement as to the location of these detail. The DA will lie to you and say that the LACE detail is to reduce crashes, however, police officers write the overwhelming majority of tickets in only a few “speed trap ” areas. If your reading this and you have ever received a ticket with a little pink sticker on it, I bet my next paycheck that you either received the ticket near the I-10 or I-210 bridges, I-10 between the 210 interchange and Hwy 171 or I-10 near the Pete Maneana exit to Westlake. As a matter of fact, the Trooper who “investigated me” was even known for working lace in that exact spot. However, he used a car that didn’t have a video recorder, as did most detectives and supervisors! So, I’m sure he will get away with his indiscretions. 

Would you like to guess why we did that in those locations? Because it was easy. Troopers get the required amount of tickets quick, steal your money, then watch movies on the side of the road. Which is exactly what I did and what I was arrested for (and I should have been arrested for)! 

A thorough and detailed investigation into EVERY Trooper in the entire state over the life of the LACE program will prove that I was far from the only offender. In fact, it is literally a common practice. A practice literally taught to me as a rookie Trooper. As a Trooper, you are taught to stop working an hour or two before shift! Every trooper worth his salt will tell you that they heard the phrase, “a good trooper is in his driveway by 3”! You better not break this rule and start making traffic stops after 3! If you did, you would be verbally reprimanded by your supervisors and your peers! 

The LACE program is the program with the spotlight, however, it is absolutely not the only program in existence. Take the overtime DWI detail for instance. Did you know that the DAs office pays police officers overtime to sit at DWI checkpoints? They don’t have to even show an arrest. They get to show up and participate a little bit then go home with your money. Of course, they say they are looking for insurance and other violations, but they specifically call it the DWI detail. As many as 20 cops will show up to these details and collect money then go home without breaking a sweat!! 

How about the seat belt detail?!? Bet you never heard of that one! Same story, you must get 2 seat belt tickets an hour to earn your overtime. The crappy thing, again, is, no one sits in areas high in crash statistics….they sit in Moss Bluff or Lake Charles or Westlake so they can catch you driving out of McDonald’s without your seat belt on! It’s literally the only way to even catch a seat belt violator because they are going slow enough for you to see! 

I know that I risk a backlash from the DA and the “system”, but it’s worth it to me! I can imagine “my brothers in blue ” will be quite upset with me, none of whom were standing in line behind me to admit their wrong doing while I was forfeiting my rights and taking my lick!

I can only tell you that I am truly sorry for being a part of a system that has failed you! I am truly sorry for allowing greed to control my actions as a person who was supposed to protect you from people like that! Who knows, maybe they silence me! Maybe you are ok with them sacrificing me as tribute to cover up a massive injustice! Or, maybe you say enough is enough and demand real change! 

I know I’ve typed a lot, and I have so much more! Maybe I will bore you more in the future! However, I urge you to share this story. Demand your constitutional rights be defended!

Posted in Corruption, Crime, Ethics, Fraud, Media, State Police, TV News | 15 Comments »

Calcasieu judge gets cart before horse in issuing order in messy remnant of Anna Nicole Smith protracted litigation

July 8, 2018 by tomaswell

Remember the tacky story of Anna Nicole Smith, the 26-year-old stripper who married the 89-year-old wheelchair-bound gazillionaire J. Howard Marshall back in 1994?

To no one’s surprise, he died a year later. But he did so without ever having bothered to include her in his will.

That’s the kind of stuff that’s tailor-made for the lawyers and sure enough, the battle lines were quickly drawn between the broken-hearted widow and the disinherited younger son Howard III on one side and the remaining children of J. Howard on the other.

The ensuing legal battle out-lived Anna Nicole, who died in 2007 at the ripe old age of 40 of an accidental prescription drug overdose.

And even though he’s been dead nearly a quarter of a century and she’s been gone for a decade, the legal jousting that began in Houston rages on—but now has moved to 14th Judicial District Court in Lake Charles.

The latest legal skirmishes involve the administration of the Marshall family trust, the appointment of one judge as a trustee for the trust, a request for the Louisiana Supreme Court to recuse the presiding judge and all manner of apparent conflicts of interest and questionable judicial conduct on the part of a third Judge, Clayton Davis.

Got it? Didn’t think so.

The common denominator that makes the entire affair one complicated messy knot is that all three judges are from the 14th Judicial District (Calcasieu Parish).

Before going any further with this, it might be helpful to provide a scorecard of the main players:

  • Pierce Marshall Sr.: Prevailed in the extended legal action against Anna Nicole Smith to gain control of the trust which is governed under the Louisiana Trust Code.
  • Elaine Marshall: Widow of Pierce Marshall and named by him as the sole trustee with specific power to name co-trustees.
  • Lilynn Cutrer: 14th JDC judge named as one of the co-trustees of the Trust, which includes significant shares of Koch Industries, the nation’s second-largest privately-owned company. Her fee alone could be as much as $18 million, based on her projected earnings of .3 percent (that’s three-tenths of a percent) of the amount of the trust.
  • Preston Marshall: Son of Pierce and Elaine Marshall who was terminated from the family business for alleged misconduct in 2015 and who is fighting for a share of the enormous trust. “At issue are billions (with a “B”) of dollars,” says his attorney, a claim denied by Elaine Marshall’s legal counsel.
  • Sharon Darville Wilson: 14th JDC judge who has presided over the case for the past two years.
  • Hunter Lundy: Lake Charles attorney who represents Preston Marshall and who filed a motion to recuse Judge Wilson.
  • Clayton Davis: 14th JDC judge who first recused himself from ruling on the recusal motion but then signed an order requesting the Louisiana Supreme Court to assign an ad hoc judge to replace Judge Wilson.

Now here’s where it gets really sticky (as if the entire mess wasn’t slimy enough already).

Hunter Lundy has been in partnership with Clayton Davis for at least 18 years, including the 10 years since Davis’s 2008 election to the bench. Those partnerships included:

  • TEXLA PROPERTIES, formed in 2000 and still active, according to records on file with the Louisiana Secretary of State.
  • LLAAD, LLC, formed in 2005 but now inactive.

Both men are listed as officers of the two entities, domiciled at 501 Broad Street in Lake Charles. That is also the address of the law firm Lundy, Lundy, Soileau & Smith.

  • Matt Lundy, Hunter Lundy’s brother, is listed as manager and Clayton Davis is listed as agent for TIGER SEATS, LLC, also domiciled at 501 Broad Street in Lake Charles and still an active entity. The latest report filed with the Secretary of State was on May 9 of this year.
  • Moreover, Davis was also law partners with the Lundys and from his election in 2008 until last year, Judge Davis was co-owner of the office building housing the Lundy law firm.

Davis, citing his business relationship with the Lundys, properly recused himself on Friday, June 22. But five days later, on June 27, he signed a three-page order asking the Supreme Court to assign an ad hoc judge to replace Judge Wilson.

But if he had already recused himself, it would seem that he had no authority to sign the order—or anything else having anything to do with the trust—which is precisely the argument made by Baton Rouge attorney Richard Sherburne, legal counsel for Elaine Marshall.

“It has long been recognized in our civil procedure that once a judge is recused, or a motion for his recusal has been filed, he has no power to act (except to appoint the proper person to sit ad hoc when the law provides for such an appointment),” Sherburne said. “Any action taken by a recused judge is an absolute nullity,” he added. “The theory of recusation is based upon public policy, for it is applied not only for the protection of the litigants but generally to see that justice is done by an impartial court.” (emphasis Sherburne’s).

RESPONSE TO DAVIS ORDER

In retrospect, this entire sordid mess started when a young stripper spotted a lonely but filthy rich old man in the audience of a strip club and married him only to be left out of his will.

She went to court against the old man’s son, who prevailed but in so doing, apparently had a falling out with one of his sons who now is suing over the appointing of his widowed mother to govern the family trust, rich beyond the average person’s imagination.

And now the lawyers are raking in more money on this one case than most of us will see in a lifetime.

Sometimes it just doesn’t seem to be worth the heartache that goes with having more money than one needs. It reminds me of a couple of relevant lines in the late Harry Chapin’s song Sequel:

“It’s better sometimes, when we don’t get to touch our dreams.”

Simple enough. And then there are these lines further down in the song:

“…From my journey between heaven and hell,

With half the time thinking of what might have been

And half thinkin’ just as well.”

Posted in Courts, Ethics, Judges, Lawsuits | 1 Comment »

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