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Lots of finger-pointing, throwing Edmonson under the bus by two State Troopers demoted for Oct. ’16 San Diego trip

October 2, 2017 by tomaswell

The fallout from last October’s cross-country drive to San Diego via the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and Las Vegas in a state police vehicle has resulted in the demotion of two state troopers who took part in the drive.

Lt. Rodney Hyatt was demoted to sergeant, and Capt. Derrell Williams was bumped down to lieutenant. Both troopers received corresponding reductions in pay along with their demotions.

Both men have the option of appealing their respective disciplinary actions.

But they didn’t go down without a fight and without throwing former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson, who was forced into retirement over the trip that also included a dozen other state police personnel, under the bus. It all comes down to “who do you believe?”

And Hyatt, so sure was he that he was blameless in the circuitous route taken by the four, recently applied for promotion to captain despite his pending demotion.

Moreover, Williams was cited for receiving a semi-nude photograph from a female friend on his state police email account via his state-issue cell phone and for transmitting a suggestive photo of himself to that same female friend on his state email account.

Both men fired off lengthy letters defending their actions to the State Police Internal Affairs Section that Williams once headed. In Hyatt’s case, his letter was 12 pages in length while Williams’s letter was 10 pages.

Hyatt, in particular, attempted to shift the blame for driving the state vehicle (which was assigned to then-Assistant Superintendent Charles Dupuy, for overstating his overtime, for staying in expensive hotels, and for visiting Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam along the way, to Edmonson.

Williams, for his part, said simply that “None of the (other) officers in the state vehicle were in my chain of command,” and that upon his return to Baton Rouge, Edmonson “signed off on my state credit card expenditures showing the prices and places where we stayed.”

The disciplinary letters from State Police Superintendent Col. Kevin Reeves to Hyatt and Williams were each 10 pages in length but the letter to Hyatt appeared to pack the most punch and its entire 10 pages were summed up in a single sentence:

“Your response merely attempts to shift responsibility for your actions to others,” Reeves said.

Still, it’s difficult to imagine that the four would have gone off on a sightseeing trip in a state vehicle without Edmonson’s knowledge and blessing.

Reeves also said that Hyatt not only submitted padded time sheets for hours not worked but that he forwarded copies of his time sheet to Troopers Thurman Miller and Alexandr Nezgodinsky, who also made the trip in the state vehicle, “to show them how to claim their time for the travel and training.”

Hyatt, in his letter said he was initially asked by Edmonson if he wanted to attend the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference that was held in conjunction with the State and Provincial Police Planning Officers Section (SPPPOS) meeting. Hyatt said he told Edmonson he did wish to attend both conferences at which point Edmonson said, “If you go, you have to drive.” He said Edmonson then said, “Take your wife and have a good time.”

“I have never taken my wife in my entire 20-year career to any work-related conference,” Hyatt said. “Had Edmonson not told me to, I would not have brought her. However, being a paramilitary organization, I took his order to mean that I am going to the conferences in San Diego, California with my wife, and we were to have a good time and drive there. Additionally, I followed his order because I did not want to violate Louisiana State Police Policy and Procedure, which states that I shall obey and execute all lawful orders of a superior officer.”

Moreover, Hyatt said it was Edmonson who suggested that the four troopers and Hyatt’s wife take the “northern route” because there was “nothing but desert along I-10.” That was the route that included the side trips to the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and Vegas.

Edmonson was quoted earlier this year when news of the trip first became public that he did not sign off on the side trip but Williams backed Hyatt’s version of events by saying he had “no doubt” that Edmonson knew the whereabouts of the four “at all times” during the trip.

On telling part of Hyatt’s letter as well as Reeves’s letter of demotion to Williams was the issue of text messages and emails on state cell phones.

LouisianaVoice requested copies of all such messages and photos, particularly those between the four troopers in the state vehicle and Edmonson months ago but was told by State Police Legal Affairs that no such messages existed.

Yet Hyatt, in his 12-page response alluded to emails, text messages and photographs sent by Hyatt’s wife to Edmonson throughout the trip.

And Reeves, in his letter, cited the sexually explicit photo sent to Williams’s state email account by a female friend and received on his cell phone and Williams’s photo of him straddling a cactus that he texted to that same lady friend.

Because the disciplinary letters and the responses are so lengthy, it has been decided that rather than try to relate what they said, it would be better to simply publish the links to the respective documents.

So here is the disciplinary letter to RODNEY HYATT, along with his response.

And here is the disciplinary letter to DERRELL WILLIAMS, followed by his response.

Posted in Corruption, Ethics, Finances, Fraud, State Police | 14 Comments »

Rhetoric over whether or not Louisiana State Law Institute is public body turned up notch in email exchange with attorney

October 2, 2017 by tomaswell

The debate over what is and what is not a public meeting has been ramped up a notch by an email exchange between blogger Robert Burnes and Baton Rouge attorney Todd Gaudin.

It was Gaudin, whose law practice specialty is adoptions, who, when Burns insisted he was entitled to videotape proceedings of last Friday’s meeting of the Louisiana State Law Institute (LSLI) because it was a public meeting, said, “I don’t agree with your interpretation.”

Gaudin was in attendance because LSLI was meeting to act on House Concurrent Resolution 79 of the 2016 legislative session. HCR 79, introduced by State Rep. Rick Edmonds (R-Baton Rouge), directed LSLI to “study and make recommendations to the legislature regarding abuse of incentives in the adoption process.”

In an email exchange between Gaudin and Burns, Gaudin explained his position further:

“I was referring to the issue of whether our group is actually a public body,” he said. I assumed it was not because it is a group of professionals who volunteer and (who) are not appointed to improve our laws by discussing their merits.”

Actually, LSLI was chartered precisely to “improve our laws by discussing their merits,” but I’ll get to that point presently.

After reading his response to Burns, I sent him the following, lifted verbatim from the Louisiana statute (R.S. 42:13):

  • “Public body” means village, town, and city governing authorities; parish governing authorities; school boards and boards of levee and port commissioners; boards of publicly operated utilities; planning, zoning, and airport commissions; and any other state, parish, municipal, or special district boards, commissions, or authorities, and those of any political subdivision thereof, where such body possesses policy making, advisory, or administrative functions, including any committee or subcommittee of any of these bodies enumerated in this paragraph. (emphasis mine.)

Clinging doggedly to his position, he replied an hour later:

“That may be your opinion whoever you are but I disagree. This committee does not meet any of those definitions. So, what is clear to you apparently is not so clear.”

Okay, it’s on now. I’m not an attorney but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so I fired off this email to Gaudin:

“LSLI was created by the Louisiana Legislature to advise the legislature on drafting bills for law reform. The fact that members are volunteers makes not a whit of difference.”

This is from the LSLI home page:

  • The Louisiana State Law Institute, originally authorized by the Board of Supervisors of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, with its domicile at the Law School of that University, was chartered, created and organized as an official law revision commission, law reform agency and legal research agency of the State of Louisiana, by Act 166 of the Legislature of 1938 (Chapter 4 of Title 24 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950).
  • The Institute is sustained by legislative appropriation. (Again, this is from the LSLI home page on the web.)
  • This organization originated in a movement, initiated here at L.S.U. in 1933, to establish an institute dedicated to law revision, law reform and legal research. Due to economic reasons that project was postponed until April, 1938, when the Board of Supervisors authorized its revival, under its present name. The Legislature, later in the year, chartered, created and organized it as ‘an official, advisory law revision commission, law reform agency and legal research agency of the State of Louisiana.’(Ditto.)

(All emphasis in the above paragraphs mine.)

And if that’s not sufficient, here is the first paragraph of the LSLI charter (also on its web page):

LOUISIANA REVISED STATUTES OF 1950
TITLE 24
CHAPTER 4. LOUISIANA STATE LAW INSTITUTE

R.S. 24:201. Creation and functions

The Louisiana State Law Institute, organized under authority of the Board of Supervisors of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, domiciled at the Law School of the Louisiana State University, is chartered, created and organized as an official advisory law revision commission, law reform agency and legal research agency of the state of Louisiana.

This definition extends to all reports generated by LSLI, to wit:

R.S. 24:205. Reports; advisory capacity; printing and distribution of reports

The Louisiana State Law Institute, in submitting reports to the legislature shall act solely in an advisory capacity. Its reports, studies, and recommended publications shall be public and available as provided by law. (As before, all emphasis mind.)

“Now I respectfully ask, what about this do you not comprehend? Everything about LSLI—even its very charter—screams public body.”

There has been no response from Gaudin to that last message.

 

Posted in Politics | 13 Comments »

LouisianaVoice fundraiser continues: Your help needed

October 1, 2017 by tomaswell

LouisianaVoice is about to embark on a special project that should be dear to all our hearts: the exposure of illicit, most likely, illegal adoptive services run by unscrupulous operators who profit from lax oversight of the industry by Louisiana regulatory agencies, including the attorney general’s office.

It’s a lucrative business, this process of forcing prospective adoptive parents into bidding wars against each other in efforts to adopt newborn babies.

This is what I do at LouisianaVoice and it’s not easy. It costs me time from my family, wear and tear on my vehicle, an eight-year-old pickup truck, and it costs me money for gasoline, the cost of public records and, occasionally, the cost of litigation to obtain those public records.

I don’t get paid to do this. I don’t accept advertising (though I’m seeing pop-up ads beginning to appear on my posts without my authority and certainly without my receiving anything for them) and I don’t charge a subscription fee.

So, why do I do this? Quite simply, I love Louisiana but I don’t love what our politicians have allowed her to become: a national (sometimes international) laughingstock that ranks number one in only one statistic: the number of people incarcerated in our prisons. We rank at or near the bottom in health care, wage disparity, poverty, obesity, education, income, pollution, infrastructure, and any number of other areas.

And what have our politicians done to improve the quality of life for our citizens? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Oh, they take care of themselves, raking in campaign contributions which they manipulate to pad their own lifestyle.

The mission of LouisianaVoice is to burrow into these darkened corners of state government and to shine a little light on the mischief wrought by elected officials and their appointees. Call it my own special way to flip off the entrenched political establishment: Payback for what they’ve done to Louisiana’s citizens who deserve better.

To achieve this ambitious goal, I need your financial support. You won’t get a spiritual blessing like those promised by televangelists, but you will get a warm fuzzy feeling every time these ethics-bending, morally corrupt “public servants” are exposed for what for what they are.

Please help me do this lonely job—lonely because there are so few investigative reporters out there today. Look around you and see what the mainstream media has become. Once distinguished daily newspapers have been scooped up by corporations headquartered in the northeast who know little of our culture, politics, or history. Reporting staffs have been gutted and those who remain don’t have the time or energy to probe for the what, why, where, when and how.

Please click on the yellow “DONATE” button to the upper right on this page and contribute by credit card or mail your checks, large or small (they’re all appreciated) to:

LouisianaVoice

P.O. Box 922

Denham Springs, LA. 70727

As always, thanks for your help and keep reading.

Posted in Politics | 3 Comments »

Louisiana State Law Institute: a room full of lawyers and no one knows the Louisiana open meetings law (R.S. 42:13-23)

October 1, 2017 by tomaswell

You would think a room full of lawyers wouldn’t have to be told the legal definition of a public meeting as it pertains to cameras. But then again, members of the Louisiana State Law Institute’s Children’s (LSLI) Code Committee aren’t used to media coverage.

So, it might be somewhat understandable that they were a little surprised when blogger Robert Burns showed up with a video camera. But freaked out to the point that members demanded that Burns turn off his camera? Seriously?

It’s a poor reflection on a committee, whose membership includes a judge and a ton of lawyers, to even suggest, let alone demand, that Burns, who publishes the video blog Sound Off Louisiana, shut his camera off during its meeting on Friday. And it’s even more astonishing that one member, an attorney, would tell Burns that his interpretation of the open meeting laws entitled him to record the meeting on video was incorrect.

Judge Ernestine Gray, a judge of Orleans Parish Juvenile Court since 1984, should certainly know better than to chirp, “As an individual, I have a right not to be on there (the video).”

Um…sorry, your honor, but you do not have that right. This was an open meeting of an official state government body and the open meetings statutes clearly contradict your claim. And it’s a sad indictment of our judicial system that you, a sitting judge, should lay claim to such blatantly inaccurate privilege.

The committee was meeting pursuant to House Concurrent Resolution 79 of the 2016 legislative session in which State Rep. Rick Edmonds (R-Baton Rouge) requested that LSLI “study and make recommendations to the legislature regarding abuse of incentives in the adoption process.”

The full text of HCR 79 can be seen HERE.

LSLI was to have a report to the legislature “no later than 60 days prior to the 2018 regular session of the legislature.” That would put the committee’s deadline somewhere around Jan. 18, 2018 and more than a year after passage of HCR 79, nothing had been done by the committee, which found itself up against an imposing deadline when it convened last Friday.

In fact, member Isabel Wingerter kept repeating during the meeting that there was no way the committee could have a report completed in time for proposed legislation to be introduced in 2018.

Edmonds, however, told members that while he had gone through the committee out of respect, there would be legislation filed for the upcoming session and that he already had a number of co-sponsors for his anticipated bill.

Abuses in the child adoptive process is a subject that Burns has already done extensive work on and, with his assistance, LouisianaVoice is going to be taking a long look at those who broker adoption deals between birth parents and adoptive parents and how those individuals can sometimes become part of a “bidding process,” playing one set of adoptive parents against another in order to broker a better deal.

It’s a murky area, virtually unknown outside the immediate circle of those families actually involved in the process of adoption and frankly, those involved would like to keep it that way. While LouisianaVoice is coming in a little behind the curve already established by Burns, we feel strongly that the entire process deserves a thorough investigation—from the aforementioned so-called “bidding process,” to the shirking of responsibility for investigating same by various state agencies who consistently punt when the subject of a possible criminal enterprise is brought to their attention.

All that probably explains the sensitivity to video on the part of the committee members but it certainly does not excuse either their attempted evasion of the open meetings law or of their trying to make up new law on the fly.

The meeting started with LSLI staff attorney Jessica Braum can be heard on the video whispering to Burns to turn his camera off. “It’s a public meeting,” Burns responds, “and I’m going to videotape it.

Burns said Braum made her request after being prodded to do so by fellow LSLI member attorney Todd Gaudin.

Moments later, Burns was again confronted, this time by committee member Isabel Wingerter who asked if he was videotaping the meeting to which Burns responded, “Clearly, yes.”

“We are not sure that’s appropriate,” Wingerter said. “What would you do with the film?”

Burns responded with a question of his own: “Is this or is this not a public meeting of a public body?”

“Yes, it is.”

“That’s all I have to explain,” Burns said, “and I’m not going to explain any further.”

It was at this point in the exchange that Judge Gray said she had a right not to be on video. “Not if you’re part of a public body,” Burns said. “Not if you’re attending a public meeting.”

Baton Rouge attorney Todd Gaudin inquired of Wingerter if Burns would be publishing the video. When Wingerter relayed the question to Burns, he again responded, “Is this a public meeting?” When she again affirmed that it was, Burns said, “It has every right to be republished.”

And this was when it really got interesting. Gaudin, whose practice primarily is in the area of adoption services and who served as the attorney for a prospective adoptive couple who ended up losing the child to another couple at the last minute, told Burns, “I don’t agree with your interpretation of the statute.”

That’s quite a statement coming from someone who is supposed to know the law.

Burns, digging his heels in, told the committee, “I have a right to videotape these proceedings and short of law enforcement coming in here and dictating it be turned off and escorting me out, the camera stays on.”

The camera stayed on.

And for Gaudin’s erudition, it can be found in R.S. 42:13. Here is the link: Public policy for open meetings.

And just in case he’s too busy to read the entire statute, here are the relevant parts:

  • “Meeting” means the convening of a quorum of a public body to deliberate or act on a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power. It shall also mean the convening of a quorum of a public body by the public body or by another public official to receive information regarding a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power.
  • “Public body” means village, town, and city governing authorities; parish governing authorities; school boards and boards of levee and port commissioners; boards of publicly operated utilities; planning, zoning, and airport commissions; and any other state, parish, municipal, or special district boards, commissions, or authorities, and those of any political subdivision thereof, where such body possesses policy making, advisory, or administrative functions, including any committee or subcommittee of any of these bodies enumerated in this paragraph.
  • Every meeting of any public body shall be open to the public unless closed pursuant to R.S. 42:16, 17, or 18. (R.S. 42:16, 17, and 18 give very specific reasons under which a public body may enter into executive session—that that is a moot point since the committee never entered into executive session.)

And there is this statute which addresses the right to video record public meetings:

23. Sonic and video recordings; live broadcast

  • A. All or any part of the proceedings in a public meeting may be video or tape recorded, filmed, or broadcast live.
  • B. A public body shall establish standards for the use of lighting, recording or broadcasting equipment to insure proper decorum in a public meeting.

Again, it’s worth mentioning that the members of the LSLI Children’s Code Committee are law school graduates.

Could it be that Gaudin, Wingerter, Judge Gray, and Braum were all absent on Videotaping Public Meetings day?

Posted in Boards, Corruption, Courts, Ethics, Judges, Legislature, Legislators, Media, Public Records, State Agencies, Transparency | 7 Comments »

‘American Made,’ the fictional story of Barry Seal, is only about 5% ‘based on a true story’ (if that), but mostly hype

September 29, 2017 by tomaswell

Spoiler alert:

It’s 9:30 p.m. Friday and I just returned from watching American Made, the Tom Cruise movie about Baton Rouge drug smuggler Barry Seal.

In brief: more plot holes than a meerkat colony.

If you want to catch the movie for yourself and don’t want to know in advance about the movie’s adherence to or deviation from the facts, stop here because I intend to go into more detail than you normally find in a movie review.

To cut to the chase, if you just want to be entertained, the story line is passable, if implausible. If you want historical facts, stay home and read retired FBI agent Del Hahn’s book Smuggler’s End. Hahn is the one who eventually nailed seal and yours truly edited the manuscript for his book, so I know a little about the story of Barry Seal and Del Hahn knows even more—a lot more.

After watching American Made, I now understand why they start the movie with the graphics “Based on a true story” instead of “True story.” I can state unequivocally that it’s not based on Hahn’s book.

The true parts of this movie are;

  • The main character was indeed named Barry Seal.
  • He was the youngest pilot in TWA history.
  • He did smuggle drugs.
  • He did live in Baton Rouge.
  • He was, in fact, assassinated at the Baton Rouge Salvation Army headquarters.

The rest of the “true” part is pure garbage. Some examples:

  • Seal was fired from TWA, he did not quit as the movie depicts it.
  • Seal and his family never moved to Mena, Arkansas, as they did in the movie.
  • Seal was never prosecuted by the Arkansas attorney general; he was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney in Baton Rouge.
  • It was not an Arkansas judge who sentenced Seal to 1,000 hours of community service—in Baton Rouge; it was a Baton Rouge federal judge who sentenced him to spend nights at the Baton Rouge Salvation Army headquarters. Even screenwriters should know an Arkansas state judge would not be able to cross jurisdictional lines to sentence someone to community service in another state.
  • Following his fictional arrest by DEA, Arkansas state police, ATF, and sheriff’s deputies as all four agencies conducted improbable simultaneous raids on his Mena airport (in fact, he was never arrested in Arkansas), the Arkansas attorney general was ordered by “Governor Clinton” to let him go, another absurd only-in-Hollywood scenario of a state governor ordering the FBI to stand down.
  • Seal never “owned” the Mena Airport and the adjoining several thousand acres. He only parked his planes there (I just don’t know how that was concocted by the script writers).
  • Contras were not smuggled into Mena to train at a paramilitary base to return to Nicaragua to fight the Sandinistas. No such paramilitary base ever existed at or around Mena.
  • Seal never had a brother-in-law who stole from him and was subsequently killed in a car bombing. It just didn’t happen—except in the movie. I call that filler material thrown in to lengthen the movie.
  • He was never drafted to photograph the Medellin cartel unloading drugs for the Sandinista by the CIA, the DEA, The National Security Administration, or any other federal agency; he offered himself up to Vice President George H.W. Bush’s South Florida Drug Task Force in a plea bargain to stay out of jail after his indictment for smuggling barbiturates and that plan to photograph the cartel was the end result.
  • That mission was part of the complex Iran-Contra drugs-for-arms deal hatched by Col. Oliver North. The movie barely mentions Iran-Contra and does so as a plot pitched after Seal was killed, which is chronologically skewed.
  • He was not prosecuted in Baton Rouge for his part in the Iran-Contra drugs for arms deal; he was prosecuted in Baton Rouge because he resumed smuggling drugs into Louisiana and was caught.
  • He was married to Debbie Seal, his third wife, at the time of his death, not “Lucy.”

I suppose 5 percent fact and 95 percent fiction can pass as “based on a true story” to suit the purposes of Hollywood screenwriters but I would much prefer at least a 50-50 balance before I would concede that it was, in fact, “based on a true story.”

 

Posted in Politics | 24 Comments »

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