“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
—First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (emphasis added).
Posted in Politics | Leave a Comment »
Apparently Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter has never read the First Amendment. Neither, apparently, has 32nd Judicial District Court Judge Randal Bethancourt. Nor does it seem that either has ever checked into the constitutional status of Louisiana’s criminal defamation statute.
Larpenter made national news last Tuesday (August 2) when he sent a posse of six deputies to the home of a suspected blogger and hauled away two laptop computers because the blogger said bad things about the high sheriff. Somehow, six men to confiscate two laptop computers approaches overkill, but perhaps that’s the way things are done in Terrebonne Parish. After all, the laws that apply to the rest of us don’t seem to hold much water with Larpenter and Bethancourt. https://theintercept.com/2016/08/04/sheriff-raids-house-to-find-anonymous-blogger-who-called-him-corrupt/
The blogger, after all, had said some really bad things about Larpenter and Parish President (and former State Rep.) Gordon Dove and Dove’s business partner Tony Alford, who landed a huge benefits package brokerage contract for Larpenter’s office, and their jointly-owned trucking firm, and Dove’s former legislative assistant Debbie Ortego who was given a $79,000-a-year job as Dove’s new officer manager, and Debbie’s husband Dana who is Dove’s Risk Manager, and Dana’s nephew Parish Attorney Joe Waitz, III, District Attorney Joe Waitz Jr.’s son, and Sheriff Larpenter’s wife Priscilla who has a six-figure job as manager of Tony Alford’s office, and Jackie Dove who is married to Assistant District Attorney Sye Broussard. There were a few other names in the organizational flow chart compiled by the publisher of the Internet blog http://exposedat.in/wp/ but it gets complicated and somewhat confusing after that.
But the gist of the story is that certain connected entities have successfully evaded their responsibility to pay nearly $400,000 in parish taxes, malfeasance on the part of local officials for not pursuing the collection of the delinquent taxes with, in the words of the late John F. Kennedy, “great vigor,” nepotism, ethics violations, and violations of environmental regulations.
To give you a bit of background, LouisianaVoice had a post two years ago about Dove and his trucking company which got into trouble with the environmental watchdogs in Montana who, unlike their counterparts in Louisiana, tend to do their jobs with no consideration given to oil company political contributions and highly paid oil and gas lobbyists milling around the State Capitol’s rotunda with steak restaurant vouchers for famished legislators. https://louisianavoice.com/2014/06/01/gordon-dove-fox-in-the-house-natural-resources-committee-henhouse-or-perhaps-its-just-louisiana-jindaltics-as-usual/
As we read through the mystery blogger’s most recent post about Terrebonne Parish (the one that got him into trouble with Larpenter and Judge Bethancourt), we couldn’t help but be impressed with the detailed thoroughness with which he laid out his case, supported by document after document.
He had documents and links to documents to support every claim in his post and yet all that made no difference to the two officials who went after the presumed publisher of the blog, one Wayne Anderson who just happens to be a police officer for the City of Houma and who formerly worked as a Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s deputy.
Despite his denials that he is the owner of the blog, he was placed on paid leave a little more than an hour after the raid.
Regardless whether or not Anderson is being truthful in denying authorship of the blog, the entire thing should be a moot point. The blogger, Anderson or whomever, has a right to free speech guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. It’s not that there hasn’t been an effort to thwart freedom of speech. Louisiana’s criminal defamation statute comes immediately to mind.
http://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/2013/code-revisedstatutes/title-14/rs-14-47
That law was passed way back in the beginning of John McKeithen’s last term as governor. It was also the start of the final four-year term for Attorney General P.F. “Jack” Gremillion of whom former Gov. Earl Long once said, “If you want to hide something from Jack Gremillion, put it in a law book.”
Bethancourt said he had to stay within the “four corners” of the warrant and affidavit (whatever that means) and that he was unable to discern if Alford was a public official (under the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Sullivan v. New York Times which ruled that for a public official to claim libel, he must prove not only malicious intent but “reckless disregard for the truth”)—despite Alford’s status as a member of a local levee district. Louisiana’s criminal defamation statute, he said, is “pretty broad” and that he would the state to have a “look-see” at what was contained on the computers that might have defamatory statements on them.
The only problem with the judge’s interpretation of the state’s “pretty broad” defamation statute is that it is non-existent.
David Ardoin, Anderson’s attorney, correctly pointed out that Bethancourt made a mistake in approving the warrant to raid his client’s home because in 1981, the second year of former Gov. Dave Treen’s term of office, the law was declared unconstitutional. http://www.lsli.org/files/unconst_report2016.pdf
Just to put things in their proper perspective, that was 35 years ago. Way to stay current on the law, Judge. And Judge, one more thing: since the law was held unconstitutional, it would seem that neither your nor the sheriff—nor anyone else, for that matter—has any right to have a “look-see” at what is contained on Anderson’s computers. That, yer honor, is invasion of privacy.
I happened to run into former Gov. Edwin Edwards last Friday when we each were guests on different hourly segments of the Jim Engster Show in Baton Rouge. I asked him if he remembered the defamation law and he immediately responded, “Of course. It was later declared unconstitutional.” A pretty sharp mind for a man who turned 89 on Sunday (August 7).
When I explained what had occurred in Terrebonne Parish, he said, “It sounds to me like the sheriff has some very serious legal problems. I would love to be that blogger’s attorney in that civil litigation.”
Sheriff Larpenter and Judge Bethancourt have greatly overstepped their authority and their responsibility to the citizens of Terrebonne Parish. So much so that the local newspaper, the Houma Daily Courier, took a big risk in alienating the local power structure when it took the sheriff to task in a sharply worded EDITORIAL on Sunday (Aug. 7). The paper, however, stopped short of condemning Judge Bethancourt for going along with the sheriff’s Gestapo-like tactics.
Just a cursory read of ExposeDat makes it abundantly and undeniably clear that there are some cozy—too cozy—relationships that border on political incest in Terrebonne Parish. Too much authority and power is vested in the hands of too few people to allow for a workable system of checks and balances. Those few control how millions upon millions of public dollars are spent. Whenever that occurs, there is no oversight and invariably, greed becomes the motivating factor that drives virtually every action.
And it is the citizens who are the ultimate losers.
Local media are subject to economic realities, they can be—and are—squeezed by those in power so that any real investigative reporting is tempered by whatever financial pressure (read: advertising revenue) can be applied by those with the most to lose.
Because of that, bloggers like ExposeDat who are not beholden to the Chamber of Commerce or the local banks are more important than ever before.
Whenever a blogger draws the ire of a public official or is referred to as a “chronic complainer (as in the case of LouisianaVoice recently), it only means that blogger has struck a nerve. Whenever someone says “They’re just a blogger” like a State Trooper ally of State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson recently said in an attempt to discredit LouisianaVoice, we just smile and say, “Yep. We are ‘just a blogger’ who exposed an attempt by Edmonson to enrich his retirement benefits by about $30,000 a year—illegally, we might add—and stopped that little scheme in its tracks.
To ExposeDat, we strongly urge the publisher, whoever you are, to keep the heat on. You’ve already done the heavy lifting and we support your lonely vigil. Don’t relent. If you know you’re doing the right thing, then follow the advice of Winston Churchill: “Never give up. Never, Never, Never.”
Posted in Computers, Corruption, Ethics, Judges, Lawsuits, Legislature, Legislators, Media, Politicians, Politics, Public Records, Transparency | 22 Comments »
Stephen F. Campbell has been around quite a while in a number of capacities within the Department of Public Safety (DPS) and now he’s back as something called a Confidential Assistant to Louisiana State Police (LSP) Superintendent Mike Edmonson at the Joint Emergency Services Training Center (JESTC) in Zachary—with a benefit package that includes free room and board.
Campbell is a former Deputy Secretary of DPS in the Transportation and Environmental Safety Section. Following his retirement in 1987, he served as a public safety and transportation advocate in Washington, D.C., where he represented the American Trucking Association, the Motor Freight Carriers Association and the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.
On July 11, 2011, he returned to LSP as Training and Development Program Staff Manager at $84,000 per year.
He remained at that position just over a year, terminating on July 31, 2012. Five days later, on August 5, 2012, he was appointed by Bobby Jindal as Commissioner of the Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV) to succeed former State Sen. Nick Gautreaux.
http://kpel965.com/new-director-for-the-office-of-motor-vehicles/
He started out at a salary of $99,000 but on July 1, 2015, during a time state civil service employees were going yet another year without pay increases, he was bumped up to $104,000.
But political realities being what they are, Campbell’s position as head of OMV was destined to be short-lived. Four months later, Democrat John Bel Edwards was elected governor and in December, the governor-elected pegged former Democratic State Rep. Karen St. Germain of Plaquemine to the position and Campbell appeared to be out.
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/12/john_bel_edwards_appointees.html
But wait. When you’re a FOE (Friend of Edmonson), you’re never out.
Campbell had no sooner cleaned out his desk than Edmonson appointed him as his Confidential Assistant on January 11, coincidentally, the day Edwards was inaugurated as Governor.
Edmonson attempted to negotiate a salary for Campbell that was comparable to what he was making as OMV director but was told that Campbell was not qualified for that salary grade.
So, his salary is $64,500 per year and while his official title is Confidential Assistant, he is assigned to JESTC as an assistant manager, a position that never existed before. Observers at JESTC insist that he does little, if anything, to earn his salary.
One insider said, “An assistant manager was never needed during those years that JESTC was training foreign officers, nor when Triple Canopy had a large portion of the property leased for their training operations.”
Triple Canopy, founded in May 2003 by veteran U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers, is a private security company that provides risk management, security, and mission support services for corporate, government and non-profit clients.
“There have been no outside agencies doing substantial business with JESTC since Triple Canopy moved away a couple of years ago,” our source added.
A search by LouisianaVoice of current and expired contracts turned up no contracts between LSP and Triple Canopy, so the terms of the lease agreement remain obscured. LouisianaVoice has made a public records request for that lease agreement.
The JESTC features a Staff Development Center (SDC), a motel-type facility. SDC rooms are commonly assigned to troopers when they arrive from out of town for extended training. The rooms are assigned by the SDC staff during normal office hours and by an LSP Barracks supervisor after normal office hours. Rooms are also rented by outside agencies which use the facility for various activities, including training.
LouisianaVoice has been told that the Barracks Lieutenant assigned Room 613 to Campbell, apparently on something other than a temporary basis because a recent mix-up stirred the ire of Campbell.
Recently, the Control Room Supervisor at the LSP Barracks received an irate call from Campbell. Edmonson’s Confidential Assistant, it seems, was complaining that Room 613—his room—had apparently been assigned to another trooper by mistake. Campbell told the supervisor that the room was reserved for his exclusive use only and was not to be assigned to anyone else in the future, according to our sources.
This is reminiscent to our story a couple of month ago which revealed that State Police Major Jason Starnes, subsequent to his separation from his wife, was residing in the LSP Training Academy’s VIP quarters, aka the “Charlie Dupuy Suite,” so named because Edmonson’s Chief of Staff Charlie Dupuy also resided there during his own divorce.
There seems to be a developing pattern here: If you are a FOE and in need of a place to crash, there’s plenty of rent-free space available, complete with all the amenities, including meals, at the LSP cafeteria.
These are perks not available to anyone outside Edmonson’s tight little circle.
Rank does have its privileges.
Posted in Governor's Office, State Police | 12 Comments »
For those who live in the Baton Rouge area and don’t yet have a copy (and for those who wouldn’t mind driving a few miles), I will be signing my book, Bobby Jindal: His Destiny and Obsession, at the Perkins Rowe Barnes and Noble Booksellers from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. this Saturday (Aug. 6).
In case you haven’t been keeping up, this book is not a puff piece promoting Jindal. Instead, it is an accurate account of the eight years of wanton destruction he inflicted upon this state as governor in absentia and wannabe Republican presidential candidate.
The book, which includes chapters written by such notables as:
Of course there also are about 40 chapters written by yours truly, none of which can be considered complimentary of the one once praised by the likes of Rush Limbaugh but whose once-shining political light was snuffed out by his own blundering economic, education, ethics, and political ineptness.
I am also extending an invitation to those named above who so graciously agreed to write chapters—and to whom I will be forever grateful—to come by and also sign copies of the book.
Besides writing their respective chapters, they are also valuable resources for information and policy on whom I have called many times for assistance and advice.
And even if you already have a copy of the book, come on by and say hello. I always love to meet and hear from readers of LouisianaVoice.
Posted in Book Review, Governor's Office | 4 Comments »
quid pro quo
ˌkwid ˌprō ˈkwō/
noun
A favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something.
Unless decisive action it taken over the next few days, our theory that nothing gets done about official chicanery, shady dealings and outright corruption will have been validated at the highest levels of state government.
And lest there are those who think I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, let me assure them that I will keep pounding the keyboard as long as I am physically and mentally able to put the glare of the spotlight on them and their deeds.
At one point in 2015, someone said to me, “Once Bobby Jindal leaves office, you won’t have anything to write about.”
Not a chance.
Unfortunately, as long as politicians are intoxicated by money and power, there will be plenty to write about. And, as Johnny Mathis sang his song The Twelfth of Never, “that’s a long, long time.”
Take Kristy Nichols, for example. Someone, please. (Sorry, Henny Youngman.)
Or, just for fun, compare the strikingly similar cases of Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry.
Kristy, as LouisianaVoice reported last September, jumped the Jindal ship to join Ochsner Health System as Vice President of Government and Corporate Affairs (read: lobbyist).
The only problem with that was that as Commissioner of Administration for Jindal, she presided over virtually every facet of state government except the legislative and judicial branches, but worked closely with those as well. State law prohibited her from lobbying the administrative and legislative branches but apparently there was nothing to prevent her from lobbying local governmental entities.
On November 5, 2015, less than two months following our story, Kimberly L. Robinson, an attorney with the Jones Walker law firm, acting on behalf of Ochsner, requested an advisory opinion on the question of whether or not Kristy could legally lobby the state.
A month later, Gov.-elect John Bel Edwards named Robinson as the new Secretary of the Department of Revenue, prompting her resignation from Jones Walker.
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/12/john_bel_edwards_appoints_kimb.html
Robinson was replaced by R. Gray Sexton as counsel for Kristy.
Sexton was an obvious choice, given his years as Chief Administrator for the Louisiana Board of Ethics. His knowledge of the system was so keen that in 2007, he pulled his own end-run when he resigned and the board immediately rehired him in a new capacity which allowed him to skirt a requirement under a newly-passed ethics law that he disclose clients in his private law practice (how’s that for irony?).
http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/07/ethics_administrator_quits_the.html
But back to Kristy’s dilemma.
On December 16, Sexton submitted a request to the ethics board to withdraw the request for an advisory opinion. Then, on January 22, 2016, Sexton submitted an Application for Declaratory Opinion on behalf of Kristy. That was followed by a request to withdraw the Application for Declaratory Opinion on March 31. The board granted the request to withdraw at its April 15 meeting.
The chronology was provided to LouisianaVoice in an e-mail Tuesday (Aug. 2) from Deborah S. Grier, Executive Secretary for the Board of Ethics. Here is that email:
——– Original message ——–
From: Deborah Grier <Deborah.Grier@LA.GOV>
Date: 8/2/16 9:14 AM (GMT-06:00)
To: azspeak@cox.net
Subject: RE: Opinion on Kristy Nichols: Public Records Requests
Good morning, Mr. Aswell:
Pursuant to your public records request of July 29, 2016 regarding an opinion issued by the Board with respect to former Commission of Administration Kristy Nichols’ employment as a lobbyist by Ochsner Health System, please be advised of the following:
A request for an advisory opinion dated November 5, 2015 was submitted by Kimberly L. Robinson with the Jones Walker law firm on behalf of Ochsner Health System and Kristy Nichols. Ms. Robinson subsequently left the private practice of law and was replaced by R. Gray Sexton as counsel for Ms. Nichols as indicated in correspondence to our office from Mr. Sexton dated December 11, 2015. On December 16, 2015, a request to withdraw the request for an advisory opinion was submitted to our office. The Board considered and granted the request to withdraw the request for an advisory opinion at its December 18, 2015 meeting.
Mr. Sexton, by correspondence dated January 22, 2016, submitted to the Board an Application for Declaratory Opinion on behalf of Ms. Nichols. A request to withdraw the Application for Declaratory Opinion was received by this office on March 31, 2016. The Board considered and granted the request to withdraw the Application for Declaratory Opinion at its April 15, 2016 meeting.
No opinion has been rendered by the Board with respect to this issue.
Should you have any questions or need additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Deborah
Deborah S. Grier
Executive Secretary
Louisiana Board of Ethics
So, what does all that mean?
Could it be that Ochsner and Kristy have decided to let sleeping dogs lie? After all, if she proceeds with lobbying efforts and no one files an official complaint, then it’s no harm, no foul, right? That would certainly run true to form for Jindal’s Gold Standard of Ethics.
A quick check by LouisianaVoice, however, revealed that Kristy is not registered among any of Ochsner Health System’s 10 lobbyists. Sexton told LouisianaVoice today that Ochsner had apparently decided not to pursue the matter and it was his understanding that the company was pursuing “other plans” for Nichols. “Ochsner has a number of other lobbyists,” he said.
So if she is not a registered lobbyist, then just what is it that she does to earn her keep as Vice President of Government and Corporate Affairs?
Or was her employment simply some form of payback as we initially suggested in light of the $31 million Ochsner received in takeover of the Leonard Chabert Medical Center by Southern Regional Medical Corp. and Ochsner as part of Jindal’s haphazard state hospital privatization plan?
We’d no sooner received Ms. Grier’s email on Tuesday than the Baton Rouge Advocate posted a couple of stories, also on Tuesday, that caught our eye.
The first involved a claim by Gonzales City Council candidate Wayne Lawson that Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa and Gonzales businessman Olin Berthelot attempted to bribe him not to seek a city council seat against incumbent Neal Bourque.
The Pelican Post news website first published the report that Matassa and Berthelot had offered Lawson $1,200 and a parish job if he would withdraw from the race. The deadline to withdraw was last Friday (July 29) at noon. Lawson, after posing for a photograph with the cash, a parish job application form and candidate withdrawal forms, returned the money and documents to Berthelot’s office without completing either of the forms.
Ricky Babin, District Attorney for the 23rd Judicial District, said his office would investigate Lawson’s claims. He said the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office are also investigating the allegations.
The Attorney General’s Office may be in something of a quandary as it embarks on that investigation, however.
The second Baton Rouge Advocate story, by reporter Gordon Russell, conjured up the ethics complained filed against Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal.
https://louisianavoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ethics-complaint.pdf
In his story, Russell said that Landry, after trailing incumbent Buddy Caldwell by two percentage points in the primary election for Attorney General last October, received the endorsement of third place finisher Geri Broussard Baloney of Garyville in St. John the Baptist Parish, who had polled 18 percent.
With her endorsement in his back pocket, Landry, a former U.S. Representative, easily won the November runoff over Caldwell (who can forget Caldwell’s concession speech?). Soon thereafter, Baloney’s daughter, Quendi Baloney, was given a $53,000-a-year job by Landry.
At the time of her hire, all would-be employees of the AG’s office were required to sign a form agreeing to background checks and were also asked, in writing, if they had any criminal record.
In her case, she did. In 1999, she was charged with 11 felony counts of credit card fraud and theft, eventually pleading guilty to three counts, according to court records from Henrico County, Virginia. She was sentenced to six years in prison, all of it suspended.
Her new job? Well, it’s in the AG’s fraud section. More irony.
But in the end, her background is of less interest, given that her conviction was 17 years ago, than the fact that she was given her job as apparent payback for her mom’s endorsement of Landry following the first primary election in October.
A spokesperson for the AG’s office, Russell wrote, did not respond to questions about whether other candidates had applied for Quendi Baloney’s job or whether Landry had hired any other convicted felons.
For her part, Quendi Baloney told The Advocate that her arrest and conviction were “devastating,” but had made her a “stronger, harder-working ethical adult…”
She forwarded to The Advocate a link to the state’s new “Ban the Box” law which prevents state agencies from asking applicants about their criminal records. That law, however, did not take effect until after she was hired.
It’s going to be more than a little interesting to see how Landry’s investigation of Matassa and Berthelot unfolds in light of the same day’s revelations about his own actions.
But we’re willing to wager that when the dust settles on the issues of Matassa, Berthelot, Nichols, Ackal (the state ethics complaint, not the federal indictment) and Baloney, we’ll still be able to say:
Nothing gets done.
Posted in Attorney General, Contract, Contracts, Corruption, DOA, Elections, Ethics, Fraud, Governor's Office, Health Care, Legislature, Legislators, Lobbyist, Media, Politicians, Privatization, Public Records | 5 Comments »
