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Partner in law firm defending OIG married to Supervisor of AG’s Civil Division; firm assigns three attorneys for defense

January 5, 2017 by tomaswell

Despite Inspector General Stephen Street’s impassioned plea for a stay of proceedings in the Corey DelaHoussaye defamation lawsuit against the Street and the Office of Inspector General (OIG) “for the sake of conserving judicial resources and preventing the waste of valuable taxpayer dollars,” it has been brought to the attention of LouisianaVoice that one of the biggest and most expensive law firms in Baton Rouge has been retained to defend OIG.

And apparently it’s not enough that the firm Taylor Porter was retained but the firm has assigned not one, not two, but three of its attorneys to the DelaHoussaye matter.

As evidenced by OIG’s MOTION TO STAY PROCEEDINGS filed on Nov. 15, Taylor Porter attorneys Preston Castille, Jr., Katia Bowman and Ne’Shira Millender signed off as “Special Assistant Attorney General Counsel to OIG Defendants.”

Talking about using a baseball bat to swat a gnat…

Not that DelaHoussaye is a gnat by any means. He appears to have a pretty solid case against Street and OIG, given that his home was raided by Street on the basis of a search warrant the OIG has no authority to issue and based on the fact that Street initiated the prosecution of DelaHoussaye even though DelaHoussaye did not work for any state agency.

It’s also telling that by the attorneys signing off as “Special Assistant Attorney General” counsels for OIG it is implicit that the Taylor Porter contract was issued by the Office of the Attorney General.

You may remember how Attorney Jeff Landry got his drawers in a wad over Gov. John Bel Edwards’ appointment of attorneys to represent the state in litigation against oil companies for their contribution to the destruction of Louisiana’s coast. Landry just flat refused to sign off on the contracts and Edwards was forced to cancel their appointments.

That’s because State law gives the attorney general the final say-so in approving the appointment of all lawyers who represent the state.

So what’s wrong with that? Not much except that LIZ MURRILL is Chief of the Attorney General’s Civil Division and as such has direct supervision over Taylor Porter.

And her husband, JOHN MURRILL, just happens to be a PARTNER at Taylor Porter.

Now I’m not an attorney but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once and it appears to me that the Taylor Porter contract comes awfully close to a violation of the STATE ETHICS CODE which says, in part:

  • GENERAL PROHIBITIONS (R.S. 42:1111 – 1121): For public servants, other than legislators or appointed members of boards and commission, bidding on or entering into any contract, subcontract or other transaction under the supervision or jurisdiction of the public servant’s agency. This restriction also applies to the immediate family members of the public servant and to legal entities in which the public servant and/or his family members own an interest in excess of 25 percent. (Emphasis added)

Granted, John Murrill doesn’t “own” 25 percent of Taylor Porter but he is a partner in the firm.

And the State Ethics Law covers that little contingency when it goes on to say:

  • 1112 – Participation by a public servant in a transaction involving the governmental entity in which any of the following persons have a substantial economic interest: (1) the public servant; (2) any member of his immediate family; (3) any person in which he has an ownership interest that is greater than the interest of a general class; (4) any person of which he is an officer, director, trustee, partner, or employee; (5) any person with whom he is negotiating or has an arrangement concerning prospective employment; (6) any person who is indebted to him or is a party to an existing contract with him and by reason thereof is in a position to affect directly his economic interests. (Emphasis added)

Does Taylor Porter and thus John Murrill have an “economic interest” through contracts with the Attorney General’s Civil Division?

Well, consider this: Taylor Porter, from August 2015 through November 2016, was approved for 13 contracts totaling more than $2 million, about $160,000 per contract on average.

And that didn’t even include Taylor Porter’s contract to defend OIG. That contract has yet to be entered on the state’s online LaTrac program, which lists contracts with every state agency.

Perhaps there is a perfectly logical explanation for all of this. If so, we’d love to hear it.

Otherwise, we’ll just refer to the immortal words of the late C.B. Forgotston:

“You can’t make this stuff up.”

Posted in Attorney General, Contract, Contracts, Courts, Ethics, Governor's Office, Lawsuits, Public Records, Transparency | 14 Comments »

OIG needs to consider changing agency name to SQUIRM: ‘State’s Quirky Unilateral Investigations Rendered Moot’

January 4, 2017 by tomaswell

Louisiana’s Inspector General Stephen Street recently accused LouisianaVoice of not letting facts get in the way of a good story.

He should know.

It was Street’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) that went after Corey Delahoussaye for overbilling for hurricane cleanup in Livingston Parish at the same time Delahoussaye was working as an informant for the FBI to assist in challenging more than $50 million in charges submitted to FEMA by Livingston Parish.

It was Street’s OIG that raided Delahoussaye’s home with the assistance of the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office in the early–morning hours on July 25, 2013, even though nowhere in the statute establishing OIG is the agency authorized to obtain search warrants. The raid was conducted at 6 am with multiple agents bearing firearms in a home that was only occupied by Mr. and Ms. Delahoussaye and their two young children.

It was OIG that served subpoenas on Delahoussaye’s fitness club and his doctor seeking personal and medical records even though state law requires a judge to issue a written reason for the subpoena. No such written reason was ever obtained.

But never let law get in the way of a good raid.

The Office of the State Inspector General was established by the Louisiana Legislature. Its purpose is set forth in LA R.S. 49:220.1-220.26. Section 220.21 reads in part:

  • The prevention and detection of waste, inefficiencies, mismanagement, misconduct, abuse, fraud, and corruption in all departments, offices, agencies, boards, commissions, task forces, authorities, and divisions of the executive branch of state government as specifically provided in Title 36 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950, all hereinafter referred to in this part collectively as “covered agencies” and individually “covered agency” is an important responsibility of the state.”
  • In the view of the responsibility of the state, it is the purpose of this part to establish an independent office of the state Inspector General in the office of the Governor to examine and investigate the management and affairs of the covered agencies.” (Emphasis added)

Livingston Parish, with whom Delahoussaye was contracted, is not part of the executive branch of state government. Accordingly, OIG had no authority to carry out a raid on Delahoussaye. None. Nada. Zilch.

The obvious solution was to claim he was contracted to the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP). Except he was not and never had been.

Never let facts get in the way of a good witch hunt.

Of course Street was not alone in this exercise of the absurd. Scott Perrilloux, District Attorney for the 21st Judicial District which includes Livingston Parish, took his “evidence” to a grand jury which promptly refused to indict Delahoussaye. Undeterred, Perrilloux simply proceed to indict Delahoussaye on a bill of information. After all, there were $56 million in bogus charges for Livingston Parish cleanup uncovered by…Delahoussaye. But they thought they had Delahoussaye dead to rights for a couple of thousand dollars in unwarranted charges they said, incorrectly, it turns out, that he billed for.

Instead, all the charges were thrown out and now Delahoussaye is out for his pound of flesh as payback for the hell Street and Perrilloux put him through—as he should be. He has filed a DEFAMATION-LAWSUIT against OIG and now Street, after spending untold thousands of dollars pursuing criminal charges and now that the is suddenly a defendant in an unexpected turn of events, suddenly is thinking about the horrific costs to be incurred by the state in the discovery phase of Delahoussaye’s lawsuit. SAVING-TAXPAYER-DOLLARS

“For the sake of conserving judicial resources and preventing the waste of valuable taxpayer dollars, the OIG requests a stay of this proceeding, including a stay in discovery,” read OIG’s motion to stay proceedings pending a First Circuit Court of Appeal decision on OIG’s writ application. (Emphasis added)

Okay, so Street wants to talk about “wasted taxpayer dollars?” How about the sheer volume and man-hours for lodging an almost-guaranteed-to-fail appeal? Here’s the link for the OIG’s APPEAL: It rambles on for 169 pages on something that is almost certain to fail based on an earlier ruling by the First Circuit wherein the court said that if a state agency lacks jurisdiction to investigate (as 21st JDC Judge Brenda Ricks made it clear in her rulings), then a cause of action can survive a motion for Preemptive Exception based on “invasion of privacy.”

So, bottom line, we have the Office of Inspector General:

  • Serving subpoenas absent the required judge’s written reasons;
  • Carrying out an early morning raid on the basis of a search warrant even though the law creating OIG never gives search warrant power to the agency, and
  • Taking a leadership role in carrying out the raid even though that same law relegates OIG to a “back seat” role once it determines it has credible information of criminal activity.

Finally, that “credible information” is the belief that Delahoussaye was contracted by GOHSEP when in fact, his contract was with Livingston Parish.

But never let facts…..

And only after all that did it occurred to Street that he should suddenly now be concerned with conserving judicial resources and preventing the waste of valuable taxpayer dollars.

Lest we forget, this is the same agency that went after former State Alcohol and Tobacco Control Director Murphy Painter when Painter got crossways of Bobby Jindal and one of his biggest campaign contributors, Saints owner Tom Benson.

And we know how that turned out: The state had to end up paying Painter’s legal costs of $474,000 after Painter was exonerated in federal court.

 

Posted in Contract, Contracts, Corruption, Courts, Crime, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, GOHSEP, Governor's Office | 11 Comments »

Bobby, you got $34.6 million lying around? That’s what your mismanagement of Northrop Grumman refund cost the state

January 3, 2017 by tomaswell

Bobby Jindal, the Rhode Scholar who rode into town on the crest of a billion-dollar surplus nine years ago this month, rode out 12 months ago leaving the state wallowing in red ink and now it is learned that he inflicted even more fiscal carnage on his way out the door.

And knowing the way in which he and his final Commissioner of Administration, Kristy Nichols, juggled the books, it’s not at all unreasonable to think that Jindal’s final example of fiscal irresponsibility may well have been an intentional act of political chicanery carried out to buy him time so that his successor would be left with the mess to clean up. (Of course, Kristy didn’t become commissioner until Paul Rainwater left in 2012, but that does not change the fact that a lot of dollars were moved around—swept—before and after she was promoted.)

Hey! It’s not that far-fetched. He did it with the Office of Group Benefits. He did it with higher education. He did it with the LSU Hospital System. Boy, did he do it with the hospital system—with a contract containing 50 blank pages, yet!

By the time Jindal left office, virtually the only state agency left with a shred of credibility and integrity was the office of the Legislative Auditor—and that’s largely because the office has complete autonomy and is independent from outside political pressure, particularly from the governor’s office.

And now, coincidentally, it is that same Legislative Auditor who has issued a damning AUDIT REPORT that reveals a major SNAFU (if that’s truly what it was) in which the Jindal administration “misclassified” a $34.6 million default payment made by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems made in 2011.

The payment was made to Louisiana Economic Development after the shipyard failed to meet required hiring quotas but instead of using the money to pay off equipment the state had financed for Northrop Grumman, the audit says the Division of Administration “swept” the money when it was balancing the budget. As a result, the state has already paid some $2 million in interest and administrative costs on the equipment, and is potentially on the hook for some $6.2 million more.

Bobby and Kristy loved the process of “sweeping” agencies of excess funds lying around in order to try and plug gaping holes in the state budget that dogged Jindal every single year he was governor. “Sweeping” for funds is something like picking up crumbs off the floor in an attempt to gather enough to make a bundt cake.

“Since the debt could not be immediately defeased (a provision that voids a bond or loan) because of the limited prepayment options, the funds should have been segregated into a sinking account for defeasement of the debt, not a statutorily dedicated fund account that could be swept by legislative action,” the audit report says.

But the Louisiana Office of Economic Development (LED), then headed by $300,000-a-year Director Stephen Moret, failed to do that and, presto! The funds got swept by the Jindal Housecleaning Service and as a result, the state “will continue to incur additional interest and administrative costs until the debt (on the equipment) is defeased,” the audit reads. “If not defeased before the Oct. 2022 … the state will incur more than $6.2 million in additional interest and administrative costs.”

LED entered into a Cooperative Endeavor Agreement with Northrop Grumman in the early 2000s. The company had acquired Avondale Shipyard in Jefferson Parish and Northrop Grumman, under the terms of the deal, agreed to maintain employment levels of some 3,500 jobs a year with an economic impact of $1 billion. In return, the state agreed, among other things, to issue bonds to finance more than $34 million worth of cranes and equipment that would modernize the shipyard.

But dreams and schemes are made of fragile things. Northrop Grumman fell short of its job requirements and LED notified the company in early 2011 that it wasn’t living up to its employment obligations. Northrop Grumman agreed to settle with the state for $34.6 million, which represented the acquisition cost of the equipment. It wired the money to LED in March 2011, the report says.

But the state didn’t use the money to pay off the debt on the equipment, nor did it set the funds aside in an escrow account to pay it off in the future. Instead, it “swept” the money into the Louisiana Medical Assistance Trust Fund, was enacted during the 2011 session to help supplement the state’s Medicaid program.

But don’t worry, folks. It’s just another example of the superb financial management of the state’s resources about which Jindal would boast—in Iowa, certainly not Louisiana—during his comical quest for the Republican presidential nomination in 2015, his final year I office.

And now the state finds itself hanging out to dry while trying to come up with that long gone $34.6 million, plus about $2 million in interest and administrative costs.

In a written response to the audit’s findings, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne pointed out that Jindal’s actions, while ill-advised, were nonetheless legal. “The (Jindal) administration’s decision to use the funds for other purposes was not prohibited by the terms of the (agreement) with Northrop Grumman,” he says, noting that the Legislature approved of the financial maneuver.

Perhaps, but we all know the definitions of the legal thing and the right thing are sometimes poles apart. In this case, those responsible knew what that $34.6 million was for and they chose to do what was legal but not what was right.

The question now is does the Office of Risk Management carry excess coverage that would allow the State to make a claim for recovery of the money on the basis of stupidity? Should Jindal, Nichols, and Moret be asked to dig deep into their pockets to come up with the money?

Nah. It’ll never happen.

Posted in Budget, Contract, Contracts, Corruption, DOA, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, Governor's Office, Incentives, Jobs, Legislature, Legislators, Office of Group Benefits, Office of Risk Management, Public Records, State Agencies | 10 Comments »

Terrebonne sheriff, parish president, businessman named defendants in federal lawsuit over unconstitutional search

January 3, 2017 by tomaswell

What’s the difference between Evangeline and Terrebonne parishes?

Apparently only about 120 miles, judging from the manner in which the respective sheriffs’ offices ignore and abuse the constitutional rights of their citizens.

Where the U.S. Justice Department recently issued a report highly critical of the practice of “investigative arrests” in Evangeline, the First Circuit Court of Appeal has ruled unconstitutional a raid carried out by the Terrebonne Parish sheriff last summer because he didn’t like what a blogger said about him.

And, LouisianaVoice has learned, the Terrebonne sheriff and others are targets of a federal investigation over other business dealings of the sheriff’s office.

Following the filing a federal lawsuit filed against Sheriff Jerry Larpenter last August, the anticipated second shoe has now fallen on several other leading business and political leaders of Terrebonne Parish.

The fallout stems from an ill-advised—and unconstitutional—warrant and RAID executed against a Houma police officer on Aug. 2 over no greater offense than criticism of the sheriff’s department on a local Internet blog.

It now has spilled over to a general indictment of Gordon Dove and the parish government’s relationship with a local insurance agency.

Wayne Anderson, a former deputy sheriff and currently a Houma police officer, and his wife, Jennifer, filed suit on Aug. 10 against Larpenter over the raid carried out on their home by sheriff’s deputies and now have amended Parish President Dove and others into the lawsuit.

The latest AMENDED PETITION adds as defendants:

  • Dove, individually, and in his official capacity as President of the Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government;
  • Anthony J. Alford, individually, and in his official capacity as President of the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District Board of Commissioners;
  • The Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office;
  • The Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government, and
  • The Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District.

The blog, ExposeDat, began posting critical stories of Dove and Larpenter in early July, prompting the illegal raid on the Andersons’ home. While unconstitutional, the raid did have the apparent effect of successfully causing the blog to be taken down, thus infringing on the First Amendment that protects free speech.

But in the interim, Larpenter, who was quoted as saying, “If you’re gonna lie about me and make it under a fictitious name, I’m gonna come after you.”  did just that. Executing a warrant signed by State District Judge Randy Bethancourt instead of the “Duty Judge,” who the latest legal filing says should have reviewed and considered the warrant.

Sheriff’s Detective Lt. Glynn Prestenbach Jr., who took the warrant application to Bethancourt for his signature, since said he “just did what (Terrebonne Parish District Attorney) and Jerry (Larpenter) told him to do,” the Andersons’ amended petition says.

Following the raid, law enforcement personnel arrived at the Plaintiffs’ residence, the petition says. Anderson was informed he was being placed on administrative leave indefinitely and was the subject of an internal affairs investigation for failing to uphold the law and for engaging in conduct unbecoming of a law enforcement officer. Anderson was stripped of his badge, his duty weapon, his law enforcement commission card and his marked patrol unit—all in full view of the Andersons’ neighbors, action that they say has caused embarrassment and harm to their reputations.

Bethancourt denied the Plaintiffs’ Motion to Quash, finding the defamation statute to be sufficiently broad to allow him a “look-see” to determine if the evidence wrongfully seized contained defamatory statements. Writs were taken to the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeals which quashed the search warrant on August 25 and ruled that the search and seizure (were) unconstitutional.

The amended petition accuses the defendants of conspiring together “to initiate unjustified and factually and legally baseless criminal proceedings against the plaintiffs. The Defendants lacked probable cause and/or any viable legal justification to initiate the said proceedings. The Defendants acted maliciously and as a consequence of these actions, the Plaintiffs suffered deprivation of their liberties and have sustained damages,” the petition says.

“Defendants Gordon Dove, Jerry Larpenter and Anthony Alford all met and/or discussed a jointly accepted and agreed upon the illegal plan discussed hereinabove,” it says. “Sometime immediately after a July 11, 2016, article entitled ‘You Scratch Mine & I’ll Scratch Yours’ was published on the website that detailed the business dealings between the Defendants, Defendant Dove allegedly announced to the entire Synergy Bank4 Board of Directors that he was going to shut the Exposedat website down and that he was having subpoenas issued. Defendant Anthony Alford lodged his criminal complaint within three days of the article’s publication.”

Once Alford filed his complaint, Larpenter wasted no time in initiating an investigation by his office by instructing Prestenbach to immediately conduct an investigation, the Andersons claim. “Prestenbach did as instructed and immediately met with and interviewed Alford. Prestenbach also sought by subpoena records from Facebook relating to John Turner (an alias used by Anderson), and within a period of five days obtained information relating to various IP addresses. Prestenbach searched the IP addresses and noticed that they were assigned to a corresponding AT&T account. Prestenbach then subpoenaed records from AT&T to identify the IP addresses that corresponded to the Facebook posts of John Turner.”

On or about August 1, 2016, Prestenbach received and reviewed the documents which had been subpoenaed from AT&T. These records revealed that the computer used to send the various posts was located at the Plaintiffs’ home address. Prestenbach immediately contacted Larpenter and advised him of the results of his investigation including the fact that the address obtained was the residence of Wayne Anderson, who was a police officer for the Houma Police Department. Larpenter allegedly told Prestenbach to stand by for further action. Later,

TPSO Detective Kody Voisin called Prestenbach and advised him that he had spoken to Defendant Larpenter who wanted a search warrant issued, and that he [Larpenter] had spoken to Terrebonne District Attorney Joe Waitz who also agreed to continue the investigation and obtain a search warrant. HERE is Prestenbach’s report as well as threads from Facebook postings.

The question that must be asked and the issue that must be determined at this point is by what authority did Larpenter obtain the Facebook and AT&T records? Who issued the subpoena for that information? If the search warrant was unconstitutional, it would seem that the subpoena seeking the private records would be as well.

The amended petition is seeking actual and punitive damages, court costs and attorney fees.

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Judges, Lawsuits, Politicians, Public Records | 5 Comments »

Avoyelles DA Charles Riddle puts aside personal pain in demonstrating the true purpose of being a public servant

December 29, 2016 by tomaswell

LouisianaVoice was founded more than five years ago on the belief that not enough was being done to expose official wrongdoing. I set out with the stated purpose of connecting the dots between campaign money and bad law and going into any parish, anytime to contribute in some small way to rooting out the rot that has for too long corrupted this state.

Of course, there have been the occasional book reviews, stories about friends (and pets) who have died, and a couple of April Fool’s stories that apparently were of sufficient originality to have tricked some of my readers. But those aside, I have stuck steadfastly to my original mission of shining a light into the dark corners of the state that I love in the hope of somehow bringing about a change in the way public officials have historically treated the citizenry like so many serfs in some personal fiefdom.

And while there has been no shortage of such stories to write (notwithstanding my wife’s tongue-in-cheek prediction of a couple of years ago that I’d have nothing to write about when Bobby Jindal left office), there is the occasional story that merits special attention.

This is one of those.

It’s about a man who carried out what is probably one of the most painful things a man can do: turn in his own son for suspected criminal activity, in this case committed against the district attorney’s office in the 12th Judicial District in Avoyelles Parish.

The father’s name is Charles Riddle III.

He is the District Attorney for Avoyelles Parish.

Riddle is a former State Representative who, in 1999 introduced legislation that became Act 1118 which prohibited the state from recovery of the costs paid by the state under Medicaid for individuals residing in nursing homes. The act protected the patients’ homes from seizure.

He co-authored the bill that made Louisiana State University in Alexandria a four-year school and in 1997. He also introduced the constitutional amendment that ultimately allowed LSU to take control of the Louisiana Charity Hospital System which created one of the premier teaching hospitals in the nation until the system was dismantled by Bobby Jindal.

He was reelected in 1995 and 1999 and resigned from the legislature in 2003 after being elected as district attorney. He was re-elected without opposition both in 2008 and 2014 and in 2008 he was elected President of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association.

His selection in 2012 to the Louisiana Justice Hall of Fame appears in retrospect to have been justified by his subsequent candor as a father and his dedication as a public official sworn to uphold the law impartially, uniformly and fairly.

Riddle took to Facebook with what the BATON ROUGE ADVOCATE described as “an emotional post that his son, John Riddle, is also being investigated for possible wrongdoing in Avoyelles Parish—in a case where the DA’s Office is the alleged victim and his father is the complainant.”

Riddle told The Advocate he could not discuss the case in which his office was victimized in detail but did say his son took advantage of his access to “certain things” because of their relationship. He said he personally called Marksville police to report what he felt was a criminal violation by his son.

In an apparently unrelated development, John Riddle was arrested by St. Tammany officials for trashing a hotel room and for possessing counterfeit money.

The elder Riddle said he wanted to defuse the story about his son because, he said, people have tried to use his son’s legal problems “in an effort to gain a more favorable result by threatening me in a form of blackmail, thinking that I would do anything to protect my son,” Charles Riddle wrote.

Riddle said his office would be recused from involvement in any case filed against his son in Avoyelles Parish; instead, the matter would be handled by the state Attorney General’s Office.

“Know that as a parent, I love my son and will do what any parent would do to obtain the correct result. Yet, I will not compromise this office. I do not condone any action that he is accused of doing,” he said.

In light of recent stories by LouisianaVoice about preferential treatment accorded by district attorneys in St. Landry and Livingston parishes to an individual with a laundry list of felonies and misdemeanors, including multiple DWIs, Charles Riddle’s story, while heartbreaking, is nonetheless a refreshing change from the norm.

In short, Charles Riddle’s character and honesty has shone through in this unfortunate incident and his handling of a difficult matter has shown all of us what public service should be about.

Posted in Ethics, Legislature, Legislators, Media, Politicians | 15 Comments »

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