Louisiana Voice

Editor’s Note: There are quite a few words and phrases highlighted and underlined in CAPITAL BOLDFACE GREEN in the following post. For the as yet uninitiated, those are links to other stories that corroborate what I write. Click on those links to read the stories to which I refer.

Even as Donald Trump, aka the Mango Mussolini, goes about intimidating, INVESTIGATING  and indicting POLITICAL ENEMIES with little evidence or with unqualified prosecutors, he simultaneously grants pardons and commutes sentences for FORMER MEMBERS OF CONGRESS and POLITICAL ALLIES convicted of FRAUD, drugs, even, ironically, HUMAN SEX TRAFFICKING.

Sometimes he even launches investigations of crimes for which his own political allies and/or cabinet members may be COMPLICIT—not that that he allows that pesky little fact to be a deterrent.

Of course, it would be unfair to single out only Trump for his spate of pardons when former President Joe Biden commuted the sentence of a PENNSYLVANIA JUDGE who was convicted of participating in the notorious “cash for kids” scheme of wholesale sentencing of juveniles to privately-run detention centers in exchange for bribes.

But Trump appears to have elevated the practice of pardons for cash to a new level. Nursing home magnate, for example, sentenced to three years for defrauding the government of $38 million (a light sentence in itself), he was pardoned by Trump after seven months and only after paying two lobbyist $960,000 to seek the federal pardon—a luxury not readily available to the average prison inmate. Kinda gives the lie to his claimed love of “the little people.”

Basically, it’s an affirmation to the axiom “Money talks, B.S. walks,” though Trump, as is his wont, has denied any ties to the payments and his granting of the pardon.

At the same time that he is pardoning SWINDLERS (his latest pardon recipient took 10,000 investors for about $1.6 billion) and CON MEN, he is murdering VENEZUELANS on open seas who he claims—without providing any evidence—are members of drug cartels (can you say VENEZUELAN OIL, boys and girls?).

…And thar’s black gold in that thar Venezuela. But the story of how Donald Trump is using the unsubstantiated claim of drug cartels to launch a war with that country, just remember the weapons of mass destruction claim leading up to an insane 20-year, $5.8 trillion Mideast/Afghanistan wars.  At the same time Trump’s murdering so-called members of the Venezuelan drug cartel. Does anyone else see the irony in granting pardons to real DRUG SMUGGLERS?

He also is pardoning traffickers, WAR CRIMINALS and rioters from the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol INSURRECTION (many of whom were later charged with NEW CRIMES). Trump finds times to prioritize the pursuit of political enemies by weaponizing Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice—most often to bad outcomes for his administration.

And before any of you jump in to say Trump was unaware of whom he was pardoning, may I remind you that if you’re going to invoke that as a defense, you’re making two simultaneous admissions: that Trump was a dumbass (actually, that’s a given) for not knowing and that you are equally gullible for defending him on those grounds.

After ordering and failing to convince one U.S. attorney to indict former FBI Director Jack Smith and New York Attorney General Letitia James, he had Bondi appoint an inexperienced—and certainly unqualified—attorney, Lindsey Halligan, who would do his bidding. The result was what most experts thought it would be for a weak case against the two. The cases were THROWN OUT.

After Halligan more or less bypassed the grand jury in issuing the indictments—illegally, it turned out—U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan also ruled that Halligan was also appointed illegally. Was that an embarrassment for Trump, et al? Nope. Bondi immediately announced she would appeal. This bunch of clowns doesn’t learn lessons easily.

No Sooner had Trump gone after Comey and James than he turned his sights on U.S. Rep. ERIC STALWELL, Federal Reserve board member LISA COOK and former U.S. Rep. ADAM SCHIFF of mortgage fraud—the same offense he accused Cook of. . Trump’s victims are beginning to fight back, however. Stalwell has since filed a LAWSUIT  against the director of the Housing Finance Agency.

Those “investigations” are quite likely to go the same way as the Comey/James prosecutions.

But undeterred, Trump has now upped the ante immeasurably with accusation of SEDITION  (“punishable by death”) leveled against DEMOCRATIC VETERANS in Congress, particularly one in particular—Sen. Mark Kelly, a combat veteran (something Agent Orange knows nothing about) and a former astronaut. Their offense? Citing an oath that members of the military must take proclaiming that they do not have to carry out illegal orders.

Plaque in Constitution Corner of U.S. Military Academy erected by the Class of 1943–a class, by the way, with considerably more class than Agent Orange or boozer Hegseth.

Did you ever see a piggy with egg on its face? How about two simultaneous piggies? That’s about what we’re getting ready to witness when this foolhardy effort by PEDO-POTUS falls flatter than roadkill possum.

By taking on someone with the reputation and creds of Mark Kelly, Trump is about to find out just what it means to step over a line, to go a bridge too far. There are some battles even this pretentious buffoon cannot hope to win.

If there was ever a doubt, this ill-chosen fight has revealed him to be a clueless fool.

I defy you to find a single person in Trump’s cabinet who is qualified for his or her position. One single, qualified individual, that’s all I ask. Just one. (Stormy Daniels doesn’t count: she’s not a cabinet member.)

But hey, this is what justice looks like in this administration.

Editor’s Note: There are quite a few words and phrases highlight and underlined in GREEN in the following post. For the as yet uninitiated, those are links to other stories that corroborate what I write. Click on those links to read the stories to which I refer.

Every grade school child in America knows the last line of the Pledge of Allegiance:

“…With liberty and justice for all.”

“…and justice for all.” Have you ever sat back and thought what a joke—what a cruel joke—those four words are?

It’s a great line for indoctrinating children, but the reality is this: in the grown-up world, there is little equality in the administering of justice in 21^st century America.

The FIFTH AND SIX AMENDMENTS to the U.S. Constitution say, “No person…” Notice it does not say “no U.S. citizen,” but “NO PERSON” shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and that in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall “have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”

You might wish to explain that thousands of prisoners, many of them wrongfully convicted, who were provided “free” legal counsel from inexperienced lawyers or civil attorneys with no background in criminal law—and no budget to retain expert witnesses—but who were nevertheless assigned to defend an accused INDIGENT defendants. The prosecution, meanwhile, can—and does—hire any number of experts in such debunked sciences as bite marks and hair follicles to help convict the defenseless defendant.

On the other hand, if you have the financial resources, you retain blue chip legal representation which conducts thorough research, hires top-notch experts and throws witnesses at the prosecution in an attempt to cast a “shadow of doubt” and win acquittal or at least a hung jury, ploys that are often successful. O.J. Simpson comes immediately to mind.

No, the playing field of justice is anything but level.

Just compare the outcomes of George Santos and Willie Simmons:

Santos, the New York Congressman, was expelled from the House, arrested and convicted of lying, cheating and stealing more than half-a-million dollars. Sentenced last April to seven years in prison, he recently had his sentenced commuted by The Mango Mussolini, aka Donald Trump. Willie Simmons? Well, he stole $9 and is serving life without parole (LWOP) in Alabama.

A Louisiana State Trooper who, while driving drunk, crashed into a Baton Rouge policeman. She subsequently retired but next showed up employed as a Rapides Parish sheriff’s deputy. She was never booked after the crash as any other John Doe would be.

A West Monroe resident was arrested for felony second degree battery following a home invasion and another time for possession of a controlled dangerous substance and simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling. Yet, he also is a DEPUTY SHERIFF in Caldwell Parish.

Meanwhile, A Mississippi appeals court upheld the life sentence of ALBERT RUSSELL after police in Hattiesburg raided his apartment and found (gasp) 1.5 ounces of marijuana in his pants pocket. It seems Russell had a prior history of three nonviolent convictions, enough to trigger Mississippi’s habitual offender statute.

Perhaps those numbers persuaded a New Orleans judge to free FATE WINSLOW from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola after serving 12 years of a life sentence—for selling $20 worth of pot to undercover agents in Shreveport.

For KEVIN ALLEN, the arrest and conviction were identical to that of Winslow (selling $20 worth of pot to a confidential informant), identical sentence (LWOP) but with a different outcome. After being declared a habitual offender (because of prior minor, non-felony convictions) he was stashed away at Angola and nearly forgotten until the Louisiana Supreme Court stepped in and ruled that his sentence was excessive and reduced it to…35 years.

Contrast the difference: identical charges and sentences but one is freed after 12 years while another has his sentenced “reduced” to 35 years, a sentence he is still serving. Justice for all? Tell me another good one.

Louisiana has the nation’s highest per capita share of people serving LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE. More than 6,300 prisoners, about 15 percent of whom are LWOPers.

That’s because of a number of factors: poor legal representation for INDIGENT DEFENDANTS is, of course, one reason. Another is that under Gov. Jeff Landry goaded the legislature into making it increasingly more difficult to have paroles approved.

Unless you happen to be an undocumented immigrant. In those cases, prisoners are express-laned through the process—so that they may then be DEPORTED EXPEDITIOUSLY. In each of those cases, parole board chairman STEVE PRATOR intoned, “Today you’ve been paroled to go straight into an ICE facility for deportation from the United States.”

The mentality of locking up people for life for NON-VIOLENT OFFENSES is abhorrent and makes a mockery of that pledge we learned so long ago and lest you think I’m referring only to state courts, think again. The DEMOGRAPHIC DISPARITIES are no different in sentences in federal courts. There is no shortage of RESEARCH ARTICLES to transform this theory into fact.

Next, we’ll see how money and access to power can leverage favorable treatment, if not by the courts, then by those with the means and authority to reduce—or erase—their punishment.

One week ago, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Gerald Sticker posted the following message on Facebook following the defeat of a tax proposal aimed at bolstering the sheriff’s department’s financial position:

Well, a week later, it appears the number of patrolling deputies has been reduced to eight:

Former Deputy Arrested on Multiple Charges

HAMMOND (November 21, 2025)- A former deputy has been arrested following an indecent behavior investigation.

Mike Johnson, 61, has been booked on four counts of Indecent Behavior with a Juvenile and one count of Malfeasance in Office. He had been a TPSO deputy for almost 4 years. This week, TPSO received information that during a recent security detail, Johnson had shown inappropriate pictures to juveniles. He was immediately placed on administrative leave, and following a thorough investigation, he was terminated this afternoon and then placed under arrest.

This investigation is ongoing.

Maybe there’s a reason voters reject additional taxes for sheriffs’ offices.

Maybe folks are finally getting fed up with the good ol’ boy way of doing things, especially when unresisting citizens are being beaten, tased, kicked and even murdered by rogue deputies and state police.

Maybe Louisianans are a little skeptical about the so-called need of all these local prisons popping up all over the landscape that are little more than a means to enrichment for sheriffs offices that are paid by the state, by ICE and Homeland Services to abduct, beat and house innocent, hardworking individuals, many of whom are citizens or have legal status.

Maybe it’s time we started asking some questions and demanding some damned answers.

What’s with these sheriffs’ departments in Louisiana? It appears that they really believe that, like a certain POTUS, they can just ignore laws they don’t like and enforce whatever they think the law should be, the hell with appearances.

That’s because they can—and do. Sheriffs answer to no one but the voters and as long as they can con the citizens of a parish, their jobs are secure. To give you some idea as to just how powerful they are, no candidate for governor of Louisiana can hope to win without the endorsement of the Louisiana Sheriffs Association. Sheriffs’ departments are one of the last vestige of pure political patronage: Supporters get jobs, opponents get shown the door.

I saw abuses so bad that I wrote a book about Louisiana sheriffs: Louisiana Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption. Lately, it seems that new scandals have justified a comprehensive update of that book. The sordid stories pop up so fast that when I dropped off the final manuscript for publication, I returned home to find a breaking story about the arrest of then-St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain on charges of child molestation and incest. I had to call my publisher to instruct him that another chapter was on its way.

In recent days, I’ve published stories about sheriffs in Jackson and Tangipahoa parishes. Immediately following the Jackson Parish story, Sheriff Andy Brown and his third in command, deputy Donovan Shultz, abruptly announced their retirements. Now, we have sheriffs’ officers in Rapides and Caldwell parishes. None of the sheriffs of these four parishes were mentioned in my book so you see, it’s an ever-developing subject.

Yesterday, Chris Nakamoto, an investigative reporter for WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge had a story about a former State Trooper who, while driving drunk, crashed her state vehicle into a Baton Rouge police officer. Belinda Murphy retired in February 2025 following the incident, ending a 23-year career with State Police.

Not to worry, though. Even as two counts of negligent injury, and one count each of DWI, disregarding traffic signals and crashing into the police car remain pending (she was never even booked after the crash the way any other driver would be), she appears to have landed on her feet.

She joined the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office two months ago at a salary of $45,000 per year (in addition to her state retirement) even though a sheriff’s office spokesperson confirmed that the agency was fully aware of her arrest at the time of her hiring.

Now, LouisianaVoice is receiving word of yet another sheriff’s department that may warrant a closer look. The Caldwell Parish Sheriff’s Office has a deputy in its employ whom we’ve had difficulty in contacting.

We wanted to talk to Deputy Jared Graham and his boss, Sheriff Clay Bennett but Graham has not returned our phone calls and Bennett has apparently ignored our email requesting information about several incidents involving his deputies.

The northwest corner of Caldwell, by the way, abuts the southeast corner of Jackson. All three—Jackson, Rapides and Caldwell—are situated in the central and north-central areas of the state, only a short drive apart.

On September 7, 2017, a Jared L. Graham, then age 29 and a resident of West Monroe, traveled with two other men to a residence in Downsville in nearby Union Parish to confront a man who was visiting the estranged wife of one of the men. One of three men (unspecified by name) kicked in the door and two (again unidentified) entered the house. The victim was beaten inside the house, then dragged outside where the beating continued. He suffered two skull fractures, two sinus fractures and displacement of both sides of his jaw, according to a NEWS STORY about the incident.

The story quoted Union Parish Sheriff Dusty Gates as saying all three men wee charged with felony second degree battery and that Graham was also charged with misdemeanor simple battery. He was not arrested for nearly a month, on Oct. 2.

Fast forward to March 26, 2021, and arrest records for the website LOUISIANA.ARRESTS.ORG indicate that a Jared Lance Graham of West Monroe was arrested for possession of a controlled dangerous substance and simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling. A search of Ouachita Sheriff’s Office website of bookings yielded no records of Graham’s arrest but a local observer said he knows of several who were arrested during the same time frame but their names no longer appear, either. “A lot of arrest records had been removed entirely,” he said. This was four years after the Downsville incident and Graham was listed as being 33 years of age. Today, he would be 38.

Today, there also is a Jared Graham employed as a deputy for the Caldwell Parish Sheriff’s Office. A spokesman for the sheriff’s office confirmed that he resides outside Caldwell Parish but was unable to confirm if he lived in West Monroe. But the same source cited in the previous paragraph said he drove past the West Monroe Rogers Road address of Jared Lance Graham and observed a Caldwell Parish Sheriff’s Office patrol unit bearing deputy Graham’s number (42) parked in front of the residence.

Less than a year later, on Jan. 17, 2022, we have the Wayne Spicer incident in which deputies beat Spicer in the head and back with their flashlights and tased him repeatedly – including the insertion of laser prongs into his spine, according to a LAWSUIT filed by Spicer against the department, three of its deputies and a Grayson police officer. In his lawsuit, Spicer contends that he was not in possession of a weapon of any kind, and did not present a risk of injury or bodily harm to deputies before or during the arrest. He contends that he was struck in the face with one or more flashlights, sustaining fractures to his skull and eye socket. He contends that after undergoing facial reconstruction surgery at Ochsner LSU Shreveport and being returned to the Caldwell Correctional Center (CCC), he was placed in a restraint chair in retaliation for requesting pain medication. He also contends that only two of the four officers had functioning bodycams, the two officers (not specified by name) who made initial contact did not have functioning bodycams, and only a portion of the incident was captured on bodycam.

Significantly, it was jail personnel, not the arresting deputies, who transferred Spicer to the hospital.

So, what, exactly, did Spicer do that warranted such a reaction from six deputies?

It seems he’d missed a court date for an unspecified charge. Wow. Call in the SWAT team.

One of Spicer’s arresting officers was Piper Barton, an officer with the Grayson Police Department. Barton himself was arrested in a domestic dispute over child support just three months later, in April 2022, during which Barton told Taylor Barton, “I am gonna f**king kill you.” Both individuals were arrested for domestic abuse battery and Piper was also charged with simple assault.

Sheriff Bennett, in November 2022, posted on Facebook, “Right now, it’s a fad to hate the police” and described news reporters as being on the “hate police bandwagon.”

But he still ignored our email inquiry.

It’s in every major daily newspaper, you can’t avoid it on TV news programs and it’s spread all over the internet. The Jeffrey Epstein ongoing saga is literally a story you cannot avoid unless you live under a rock or on some remote uncharted island.

Yet, Florida’s sex trafficking story goes much deeper than the Epstein/Trump angle and along with that goes the age-old story of political hypocrisy.

Take, for instance, a study by the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA released last July indicates that more than half-a-million people were exploited in labor trafficking and another 200,000 in sex trafficking in the Sunshine State in 2024.

Just today, when I opened and began reading my daily news dispatches, a STORY jumped out at me, proclaiming that the Florida attorney general “threatens child predators with ‘death penalty’ after announcing rescue of 122 children.”

That sound pretty impressive on the face of it. But when one takes a closer look at sex trafficking in the state of Florida, one realizes that all those news stories about nabbing traffickers in sting operations is little more than window dressing to give appearances of progress against what has become a national cancer.

With sex trafficking estimated to be enslaving 200,000 just in Florida, 122 rescues, while a positive note, certainly doesn’t appear to be a significant breakthrough in fighting sex trafficking.

Especially when another news story almost three years ago to the day reveals a trend of official neglect bordering on malfeasance. On Nov. 20, 2022, The South Florida Sun Sentinel revealed that the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (affectionately known as Rhonda Santis) declined to issue fines after 14,000 violations of a sex trafficking law by Florida hotels and lodging establishments.

Could that possibly because the state’s tourism industry must be protected at all costs? Nah, couldn’t be, but an INVESTIGATION by the newspaper found that 6,669 hotels and lodging establishments had received 14,279 citations since a 2019 sex trafficking law mandated that they make modest changes to protect victims.

But not a single fine for the violations? Wow.

Then, there’s the case of ANDREW TATE and his brother Tristen. The two had been held in Romania on charges of trafficking women in three countries but strings were pulled and the charges were dismissed (know of anyone powerful enough to get charges in Romania dismissed?). The pair next showed up in Fort Lauderdale. “The Tates will be free, Trump is the president. The good old days are back,” Andrew Tate posted in X in February.

Their attorney was a man named Paul Ingrassia. That was before he joined Trump’s White House, however, as its Department of Homeland Security liaison.

From his DHS desk, Ingrassia scolded authorities in Fort Lauderdale for the seizure of the Tates’ devices and asked that their property be returned to them. He was careful to note that the “request” was coming from the White House. Never mind that Ingrassia’s intervention on behalf of the accused sex traffickers could be construed as interference with a federal investigation.

Finally, we have this STORY. Note the three individuals in the photo are all from Florida: Attorney General Pam Podi, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pedo-POTUS Trump.

 And yet…and yet, there are legions of Americans who have convinced themselves that Agent Orange can do no wrong – people like U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, the only member of the House to vote no on releasing the Epstein files, and Gov./LSU Athletic Director Squeaky Toy Landry who will unquestionably take up any cause that his Dear Leader tells him to.

We can now assume that Higgins and Landry support misogyny, up to and including rape and sex trafficking, bribery, getting in bed with despotic dictators like “Bone Saw” MBS, kidnapping of innocent persons and zip-tying children.