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Alleged victim of sexual abuse by Baton Rouge physical therapist accuses DA, sheriff’s office of dragging heels

November 8, 2019 by tomaswell

A Baton Rouge physical therapist has been formally charged with inappropriate touching of female patients and inappropriate comments about their bodies, but the bill of information from the East Baton Rouge District Attorney’s office might never have been submitted had it not been for the dogged pursuit of one woman who refused to allow her complaints to be ignored despite the best efforts of the DA’s office and East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s investigators to do just that.

Physical therapist Philippe Veeters, doing business as Dutch Physical Therapy, was first arrested last February on the basis of complaints by several of his female patients, but East Baton Rouge Parish DA Hillar Moore didn’t get around to submitting a bill of information against Veeters until Nov. 1.

The woman, who requested that her identity not be revealed, says she was assaulted by Veeters on June 7, 2018, said, “After dealing with the sheriff’s office for months, I contacted the FBI with all my documentation showing how the police kept lying to me and changing their stories. they did try to investigate them. However, Mr. Hillar Moore apparently invited himself to that meeting and shut that meeting down. Moore told the FBI that it is just too hard to go against a doctor,” she said. “This was disturbing and sickening, knowing Mr. Veeters had already admitted to the detectives within one week what he did to me without consent—trying to pretend it was a normal Medical procedure.

“I have since learned another victim went to the sheriff’s office in 2012…but no one ever took her seriously or even investigated her assault,” the woman said. “I had to fight so hard against the people who should be protecting us. They had his admission on tape, they had others who reported it to them and the board yet they kept lying to me. Why?”

She said sheriff’s office investigators initially were supportive and told her she was doing the right thing in filing charges against Veeters. But then she said authorities suddenly began “to tell me different stories and start(ed) deflecting when we question(ed) them on things” and opened and closed her case three times. “I now know why victims do not come forward. It takes so much power and strength to report something like this and you aren’t allowed to heal and push the memory away as quick (sic) as you would like.”

She said she and her husband met with sheriff’s office investigators but got no answers.

“I also have emails dating back to July 2018 between Hillar Moore and myself—where I’d share things with him about the sheriff’s office,” the woman said, “and from July 2018 until January 2019 he would tell me he’d get with them and they’d get back to me. He never got back to me!! It was almost comical. I went from patient to angry that someone didn’t want to protect the women in our community. He completely stopped responding to me once I told him I learned who Floyd falcon was. Never heard from him again!

“When I finally met with the assistant DA in May 2019, she claimed they were protecting me. I have no idea what they were protecting me from nor do I believe her. Considering they wanted all my medical records from the board and were upset my mental health records were not obtained, I doubt they were protecting me from anything.”

She also was critical of George Papale, legal counsel for the Louisiana Physical Therapy Board, which had received complaints of sexual abuse by Veeters from at least half-a-dozen women. The board finally got around to continuing a prior nine-month suspension handed down on Oct. 5, 2018, suspending Veeters indefinitely on September 13 of this year, seven months after his arrest.

The consent decree signed by Veeters and his attorney, Floyd Falcon, noted that “This is not the first disciplinary action” taken against Veeters “for related professional misconduct and sexual misconduct of a physical therapy patient.”

The board did not recommend disciplinary action on a similar complaint in 2012 and in January 2014, placed Veeters “on notice,” but took no formal disciplinary action against him.

The board’s reluctance did not deter Papale from firing off a 24-page letter of complaint to State Sen. John Alario in which he asked for an investigation “on behalf of the citizens of Louisiana” of actions taken by the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee during and following a May 15, 2019 hearing relative to the board, which Papale termed “unlawful and unprofessional.”

Papale, who no longer represents the board, complained that committee chair Karen Carter Peterson and Sen. Jean-Paul rebuked the board “with callous disregard for the truth” by repeatedly mischaracterizing the adjudication of a complaint by saying “a person who is under nine counts of sexual assault charges is under probation with the board” and “this guy got a nine-month slap on the wrist.”

His letter also accused the committee of threatening and attacking board members, its employees and contractors and of saying the board was failing the citizens of Louisiana “without investigation into the validity of the complaints, nor a basic understanding of administrative laws, processes, or procedure.”

To read the full text of that 24-page letter, go HERE.

Consent agreement of OCTOBER 5, 2018

Latest CONSENT AGREEMENT

 

 

Posted in Boards, Courts, Ethics, Senate | 4 Comments »

Notable Quotables (in their own words)

November 7, 2019 by tomaswell

“I believe love is the answer, but you oughta own a handgun, just in case.” October 2016

“Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots.” January 2018 (stolen from Jeff Foxworthy, who stole it from Fritz Edmunds (whoever that is).

“I’d rather drink weed killer than support Obamacare.” October 2016.

“It must suck to be that dumb.” November 6, 2019, of Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally in Monroe.

 

—Louisiana Sen. John Neely Kennedy, who obviously is the rejected love child incarnate of Will Rogers and LBJ—but with only half the wit of the former and none of the charisma of the latter.

Posted in Politics | 8 Comments »

DeRosier outed by Washington Post for pressuring traffic offenders to purchase gift cards for Calcasieu DA’s office

November 6, 2019 by tomaswell

You can’t pick up a newspaper, go to an online news service, or turn on television news these days without hearing the term quid pro quo, invariably associated with that July phone call between President Trump and the president of Ukraine.

But back home, there’s another quid pro quo involving a local elected official in Southwest Louisiana.

Quid pro quo is a Latin phrase meaning an exchange of goods or services, in which one transfer is contingent upon the other. More familiar colloquial terms might be “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” or “One hand washes the other.”

quid pro quo

/ˌkwid ˌprō ˈkwō/

noun

a favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something.

Calcasieu Parish District Attorney John DeRosier knows what the term mean—he has known since at least 2011.

A Washington Post STORY published last Friday (Nov. 1) goes into great detail in explaining how DeRosier’s office allows—encourages—offenders to literally buy their way out of community service by purchasing gift cards and money orders for the DA’s office which ostensibly were to be used for charitable purposes but which in reality were sometimes used to purchase gifts for staff members, their grandchildren and other relatives.

Of course, even when the gift cards are used for their intended purpose—to purchase toys and gifts for underprivileged children—it doesn’t hurt his reelection chances when the gifts are distributed very publicly from a fire truck that makes its way through neighborhoods, giving DeRosier ample opportunity to shake hands and to be seen handing out the gifts—all purchased not with campaign funds, but from the parish coffers.

Some of the gift cards even went to DeRosier’s friends and political supporters, even journalists.

Even after DeRosier established a non-profit foundation, the District Attorney’s Community Assistance Foundation (DACAF) in 2015, spotty record-keeping makes it impossible to document precisely how the gift cards are distributed and for what purpose.

First elected in 2005 in a special election, DeRosier, a Democrat, has served as Calcasieu Parish’s DA for 14 years and has established himself as a tough on crime DA, opposing a move to end life without parole for juveniles and even testifying against the 2018 successful constitutional amendment to require unanimous jury verdicts to convict in felony cases.

And he was quick to hire Hugo Holland and Lea Hall after they were fired by the Caddo Parish DA for falsifying a federal application to obtain automatic M-16 rifles from a military surplus program. He hired Holland because of his reputation as a strong advocate of the death penalty.

Since DeRosier first took office in 2005, revenue from fines and fees associated with pre-trial diversion programs has skyrocketed from $182,000 that first year to $5.9 million in 2017, a 30-fold increase.

Much of that revenue has come from a program called Local Agency Compensated Enforcement (LACE), a program which has come under criticism in Calcasieu, Orleans and other parishes which resulted in the temporary suspension of the program by State Police at one point.

Under LACE, local district attorneys pay overtime to state troopers and occasionally local police to stop motorists for traffic violations. Motorists are then given the choice of either taking the ticket or promising to make a direct payment to the DA’s office’s pre-trial diversion program, i.e. indirectly to the DA’s charitable foundation.

That negatively impacts local public defender offices which are already underfunded. For every traffic ticket that goes through the courts, the local public defender’s office gets $45 but for tickets issued through LACE, the public defender’s office gets nothing unless the local DA agrees to share, which isn’t often.

And when public defender’s budgets are cut—LACE tickets tripled while the number of conventional traffic tickets in Calcasieu dropped by 42 percent from 2011 to 2012—representation of indigent defenders necessarily suffers. With no money to retain expert witnesses—while prosecutors have virtually unlimited funds to hire their experts—the opportunity to discover exculpatory evidence or refute expert witnesses is non-existent. And while no one knows the precise number, there are documented cases of innocent defendants being convicted and sent to prison, some to death row.

And while the foundation is required to undergo regular audits, DeRosier has refused to make the audit reports available to reporters.

Likewise, the DA’s office is required to undergo an annual public audit of its finances. The audit of DeRosier’s office contains no line-item for gift care revenue or is the gift card program even mentioned in the audits.

But then, Nicholas Langley, the head of LANGLEY, WILLIAMS, the firm that conducts the audits, is a member of the foundation’s BOARD of DIRECTORS. Additionally, Langley once served as DeRosier’s campaign manager and he, his family and his firm have donated at least $23,000 since 2005 to DeRosier’s campaigns and his firm has in turn been paid $32,000 by DeRosier’s campaign for accounting services.

Quid pro quo.

 

Posted in Politics | 5 Comments »

Do contributions from Lindsey Graham’s PAC and Trump’s communications with senators constitute jury tampering?

November 5, 2019 by tomaswell

Google the definition of jury tampering and you get several hits, all of which say the same thing. I have chosen to include the following definition from the web page of USLegal:

  • A person commits the crime of jury tampering if, with intent to influence a juror’s vote, opinion, decision or other action in the case, he attempts directly or indirectly to communicate with a juror other than as part of the proceedings in the trial of the case. Jury tampering may be committed by conducting conversations about the case outside the court, offering bribes, making threats or asking acquaintances to communicate with a juror. (emphasis mine)
  • A juror includes any person who is a member of any jury, including a grand jury, impaneled by any court or by any public servant authorized by law to impanel a jury. The term juror also includes any person who has been summoned or whose name has been drawn to attend as a prospective juror. (emphasis mine)

Certainly, I am not an attorney nor am I a legal scholar by any stretch of the imagination.

But if the House does ultimately approve articles of impeachment for President Donald Trump—which now seems inevitable—then the question of jury tampering could conceivably arise, which could explain why Mitch McConnell advised Trump to back off his tactic of CRITICIZING SENATORS who may soon be sitting in judgment of him.

As a disclaimer, let me say up front this is not a partisan essay but a legitimate question about a legal conundrum that may need to be addressed down the road if the laws concerning jury tampering are to be enforced across the board at all levels of jurisprudence.

The potential problem revolves around the fact that (a) the House, which will have to vote to impeach, will act in the same role as a grand jury does when it indicts an individual and (b) the Senate will serve as the jury in the trial that would follow.

That means that every member of Congress—435 House members and 100 senators—would be serving at some point as either a member of the grand jury (House) or the petit jury (Senate).

So, when Trump goes tweets any criticism of any representative or senator over the issue of impeachment, is he committing the crime of jury tampering? When he says Republicans need to “GET TOUGHER AND FIGHT” on impeachment, could that be considered an attempt to influence a juror’s vote?

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) is one of Trump’s more vocal supporters who championed the impeachment of Bill Clinton but now rails against a similar move to impeach a president from his own party.

And Graham’s sometimes steadfast defense of Trump and his strident criticism of the impeachment hearings creates a glaring jury tampering problem in its own right.

You see, Graham heads up a political action committee (PAC) called FUND FOR AMERICA’S FUTURE. In fact, on the PAC’s web page is a quote from Graham: “I helped establish Fund for America’s Future several years ago to support conservative candidates for federal and state office. We will work hard to grow the Republican Party and chip away at the Democrats’ control of Washington.”

And as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “Ay, there’s the rub” (often misquoted as “Therein lies the rub”).

Of 21 Republican senators up for reelection next year, 15 have accepted $110,000 between them from Fund for America’s Future this year alone—all since the subject of impeachment was first broached inside the Beltway. These senators, with the amounts they received, include:

  • Dan Sullivan, Alaska: $10,000;
  • Tom Cotton, Arkansas: $5,000;
  • Cory Gardner, Colorado: $5,000;
  • David Perdue, Georgia: $10,000;
  • Joni Ernst, Iowa: $10,000;
  • Mitch McConnell: $10,000;
  • Susan Collins, Maine: $5,000;
  • Cindy Hyde-Smith, Mississippi: $5,000;
  • Steve Daines, Montana: $10,000;
  • Ben Sasse, Nebraska: $5,000;
  • Thom Tillis, North Carolina: $5,000;
  • Jim Inhofe, Ohio: $5,000;
  • Lamar Alexander, Tennessee: $10,000;
  • John Cornyn, Texas: $10,000;
  • Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia: $5,000.

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy had no contributions from Graham’s PAC, though he did receive $11,200 from Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas Republican power brokers. Several other senators also received contributions from the father and daughter from Nevada.

Additionally, several senators received contributions from Citizens United Political Victory Fund. That’s the PAC that convinced the SUPREME COURT to remove limits on corporations spending on political campaigns, a decision that led to the creation of super PACs.

Interestingly Citizens United Political Victory Fund provided compensation of an undetermined amount to Kellyanne Conway, who never passes up an opportunity appear on Fox News to defend Trump and to attack the impeachment hearings. No explanation was provided as to the purpose of that payment to her. That compensation, of course, further clouds the issue of jury tampering.

Cotton ($5,000), Daines ($10,000), and Graham ($5,000) also received funding from Citizens United Political Victory Fund while 10 received contributions from Citizens for Prosperity in America PAC, an organization that contributes 100 percent to Republican causes and candidates. Those included:

  • Sullivan: $15,000;
  • Gardner: $5,000;
  • Perdue: $10,000;
  • Ernst: $10,000;
  • McConnell: $5,000;
  • Daines: $5,000;
  • Tillis: $10,000;
  • Inhofe: $5,000;
  • Graham: $5,000;
  • Cornyn: $11,600.

Money is never given to any politician without the expectation of something in return. And inasmuch as these senators received these contributions this year with the full knowledge that they would likely be sitting as a jury in judgment of fellow Republican Trump, the question of (wait for it) quid pro quo comes into play and that would appear to constitute jury tampering.

In 1929, the Louisiana legislature voted to impeach Gov. Huey Long but he pulled a brilliant move that guaranteed victory. He convinced 15 senators to sign a pledge, the so-called “ROUND ROBIN” not to vote to convict. They were later rewarded with state jobs and other favors with some even alleged to have been paid in cash or given lavish gifts. That certainly was jury tampering by every definition of the term.

As far as we know, Trump has yet to attempt to get 34 senators to sign such a pledge.

As far as we know.

Posted in Campaign Contributions, Corruption, Courts, Ethics, Senate | 5 Comments »

From St. Tammany to Livingston, disturbing events in law enforcement, judiciary giving Florida Parishes a bad name

November 3, 2019 by tomaswell

Livingston Parish, where I have live, is just across the Amite River from East Baton Rouge Parish and many of the people who live here work in Baton Rouge. Among those commuters are Baton Rouge City Police officers, East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s deputies, and Louisiana State Troopers.

This once quiet, largely rural parish is no more. Thanks to a mass exodus from East Baton Rouge Parish by those desiring better schools and cheaper land, the population has exploded since I moved here in 1981. With the growth, however, necessarily comes problems and Livingston has certainly had its share in recent weeks and months.

In fact, if you travel east on I-12 out of Baton Rouge, you will encounter three successive parishes where arrests of law enforcement officials and stories of questionable behavior on the part of judges have shaken once peaceful communities heretofore insulated from the sordid stories of illicit sex and judicial misconduct normally found in larger cities. The parishes of St. Tammany, Tangipahoa and Livingston are peppered with law enforcement and legal officials currently residing in jail.

  • In Livingston Parish, a sheriff’s deputy and his wife, a junior high school teacher, are being held without bond after their arrest on CHILD RAPE AND PORNOGRAPHY
  • In Tangipahoa Parish, which is in the same judicial district at Livingston, the 21st JDC, the state paid a legal settlement of $100,000 over a malicious prosecution lawsuit against 32nd JDC Judge Elizabeth Wolfe.
  • A former Hammond city council member claimed in a sworn affidavit last Wednesday that Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Jeff Hughes, III, offered him $5,000 to switch his endorsement in the Nov. 16 runoff for an open seat on the state’s high court. (Hughes formerly held the same Division F seat in the 21st JDC now held by Judge Wolfe.)
  • In December 2016, the FBI raided the offices of the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards, the Hammond Police Department and arrested longtime DEA agent and former Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s deputy Chad Scott, who was subsequently convicted on seven counts that included perjury, obstruction of justice and falsification of government records.

According to former council member Johnny Blount, HUGHES approached him and offered him $5,000 to switch his endorsement of 1st Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Will Crain, supported by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) in favor of 5th Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Hans Liljeberg, favored by trial lawyers, particularly the Baton Rouge firm of Talbot, Carmouche and Marcello, one of the leading firms fighting the oil and gas industry in the state.

If the allegation is true, it would raise a number of questions about judicial ethics, according to New Orleans Advocate columnist JAMES GILL.

Hughes has declined to comment on Blount’s claim, but in a separate case involving allegations of misconduct in a controversial child custody case that attracted the attention of federal investigators, he responded to reporters’ inquiries by referring them as “idiots.”

Perhaps the bad vibes emanating from the 21st JDC is a spillover from the adjacent 22nd JDC.

  • Former St. Tammany District Attorney WALTER READ was sentenced to four years in prison in 2017 for political corruption and his son was given five years’ probation, prompting the elder Read to call it “a good day.”
  • Former St. Tammany Parish Sheriff JACK STRAIN was arrested in July on charges of aggravated rape, sexual battery, incest, and indecent behavior with a juvenile.

Whatever the reason, residents of Livingston and Tangipahoa must be wondering what it takes to have a community where it’s safe to raise children without having to be concerned about the behavior of judges, district attorneys, teachers and cops.

That is not, of course, to paint all such public servants with the same broad brush. That would be grossly unfair to all the excellent teachers, judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officials who show up for work every day wanting only to do their jobs in the way that is in the best interests of their fellow citizens.

Livingston Parish Sheriff’s deputy Dennis Perkins, who along with his wife, was arrested last month for child pornography and child rape, was hired on the recommendation of then-deputy Jason Ard in 2001 and earlier for the Walker Police Department. Ard also served a reference for Perkins during his application for that position.

Perkins came under investigation by the Walker Police Department in 2002 when records show he took sick leave to attend a wedding but was seen by a coworker at a bar and later took a week of sick leave to attend the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office training center in violation of orders not to attend.

In 2014, an officer from a different agency contacted Ard, who by then was sheriff, to allege that Perkins had an affair with the agent’s wife and that he inappropriately touched a teenage girl in his family. Ard said he asked Perkins about the allegations and he denied them and the investigation went no further.

Ard now calls Perkins “monstrous,” but the fact remains that the head of the sheriff’s office’s SWAT team and his wife flew under the radar for a long time.

And innocent children suffered.

As for Judge Wolfe, she waded into a domestic dispute between a woman who divorced her husband who had been rendered a quadriplegic and unable to speak because of a brain aneurysm to marry the judge’s stepson.

The disabled man, Daniel Hoover was living in a medical facility. He communicated to his childhood friend, Scott Lemoine, that his wife had taken everything from him, sold their house, gave away his ruck and tolls, and was keeping him from seeing their young son.

Lemoine posted comments online suggesting Wolfe had abused her judicial position.

Wolfe, in an INCREDIBLE ADMISSION for a sitting judge, admitted in her deposition, “OK. I can’t tell you about the First Amendment protection because I don’t know exactly what would or wouldn’t be. I haven’t studied it in a long time.” Obviously, she was absent from law school on Bill of Rights Day.

So, duly ignorant of that section of the Constitution, she met with Tangipahoa Parish sheriff’s deputy Toby Aguillard who, after booking Lemoine on suspicion of cyber stalking, in an equally incredible move, twice called Wolfe’s husband to suggest that Judge Wolfe call the duty judge, Robert Morrison, to increase Lemoine’s bail in order to keep him locked up.

In what could pass for an episode of Judges Gone Wild, if such show were to ever be made, Judge Morrison obligingly increase Lemoine’s bail from $25,000 to $100,000 and ordered him to wear a GPS ankle bracelet if he did make bail. Morrison would later admit that he increased bail in response to a phone request but conveniently, could not remember who made the request.

When Lemoine’s family was prepared to post bail the sheriff’s office—conveniently again—discovered it was out of GPS gear, meaning Lemoine had to remain in jail.

But this story gets even better and is worthy of some sort of bizarre comedy skit were it not such a tragedy of due process.

Two days after his arrest, based on the dubious “testimony” of a jailhouse snitch, Lemoine was booked again—this time on a felony count of solicitation of murder. Inmate Brian Register claimed Lemoine offered him $10,000 to kill Judge Wolfe. He even offered a note he said Lemoine had written on how to make a pipe bomb.

Register later sent Wolfe two letters. First, he identified himself as the inmate who had “set up” Lemoine and asked her advice should federal authorities or Lemoine’s attorneys question him. Then, in the second letter, he thanked Judge Wolfe for sending a public defender to see him and asked her to reduce his bail amount, adding, “I’m going to testify on Scott Lemoine for you!”

and that note on the making of pipe bombs Register said were written by Lemoine? It was later found to have been written in Register’s handwriting instead.

The upshot of the whole sordid affair was Lemoine sued, the state defended Judge Wolfe at an undisclosed cost to taxpayers, and the state ended up settling for an amount that was disclosed: $100,000.

The masthead on this blog reads, “Graft, Lies & Politics—A Monument to Corruption.”

It also says right under that: “It is understandable when a child is afraid of the dark but unforgivable when a man (or woman) fears the light.”

Thanks to some excellent reporting by The Baton Rouge Advocate and New Orleans Advocate, that light continues to shine.

But in the end, it is you, the voter, who makes the choices on who will serve as our law enforcement officials, our prosecutors, and our judges. Make the wrong choices based solely on television sound bites, and people get hurt.

Posted in Politics | 4 Comments »

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