Sound Off Louisiana

Robert Allen Stanford, Federal prison inmate and mastermind behind a Ponzi scheme which allegedly cost Southeast Louisiana investors $7 billion.  Sixteen (16) years after the scheme collapsed, on July 23, 2024, the class action lawsuit of his victims against the Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions (OFI) commenced.

In today’s Sound Off Louisiana feature, founder Robert Burns provides a very brief update on the matter of LSP Lt. John Stelly v. LSP and provides highlights of the first two days of the trial entailing the class action lawsuit of the Stanford Trust Ponzi scheme victims wherein the Louisiana OFI is the defendant:

 7/24/24:  Brief update on Stelly v. LSP and overview of first two days of Lillie et. al. vs. OFI.

Support documents for the brief update on LSP Lt. Stelly in his reverse discrimination suit against LSP:

1.  Minute Entry indicating the Stelly Settlement Conference was fruitless.

2.  Stelly’s Opposition Memorandum to LSP’s Efforts to Strike Evidence in his Opposition Memorandum to LSP’s Motion for Summary Judgment (and his, “request the Court deny the motion in limine and award Plaintiff attorney fees and sanctions for filing this opposition to such a frivolous motion.”

3.  LSP’s response to Stelly’s Opposition Memorandum seeking “attorney fees and sanctions…”

4.  Stelly’s Motion to Strike LSP Major Robert Burns’ Declaration and Request for Expedited Hearing (obviously the trooper, not Robert Burns the blogger).

Former LSP Lt. Prentiss “Trey” Bellue, who abruptly retired effective today,  July 22, 2024, after his arrest for DWI in the aftermath of the first night’s meeting of the 2024 Louisiana State Trooper’s Association Convention on Thursday, July 18, 2024 at approximately 11:30 p.m.

When we published this June 17, 2024 feature entailing the Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC) failing in its efforts to toss an Open Meetings lawsuit filed by eight (8) St. Tammany Parish residents, one of the Plaintiffs, Rita McDonald, threw founder Robert Burns a curveball when she became the interviewer and asked Burns for his thoughts on LSP Col. Robert Hodges.

Burns responded, as evidenced by this video from the 20:26 mark to the 22:45 mark, that, “as evidenced by past features on this blog, I am not a big fan of Col. Hodges.”  Burns went on to say, on the 22:00 – 22:45 mark of that video, that he was “troubled” by troopers expressing displeasure entailing “deals being cut” by Col. Hodges entailing legacy Davis discipline issues.  Burns indicated that he’d have to seek public records to obtain the specifics of these “deals.”

The most noteworthy “deal” entailed the controversial reinstatement of Justin “Stalekracker” Chaisson, who had been terminated by former Col. Lamar Davis.  That “deal” is said to have transpired as a result of Chaisson threatening litigation since the LSPC chose to reinstate Sheldon Perkins entailing similar circumstances (Chaisson is white and Perkins is black).

At this time, let’s present a table, complete with links for the settlement agreements, of five (5) other alterations that Hodges has made to legacy discipline issues he inherited from Davis:

In order to provide as much information to site visitors as possible, we are now going to present the ratification of these settlement agreements by the LSPC:

 2/8/24:  LSPC ratifies Master Trooper Keith Bergeron’s settlement agreement.

 3/14/24:  LSPC ratifies Russell Brue’s settlement agreement.

 2/8/24:  LSPC ratifies Sgt. Daniel Cedars’ settlement agreement.

 3/14/24:  LSPC ratifies Master Trooper Mathew Clair’s settlement agreement.

5/9/24:  LSPC ratifies polygrapher Kevin Ducote’s settlement agreement.

We are going to refrain from making commentary on the above videos and let the public at large and current and former LSP troopers make their own observations.

After permitting Gov. Landry a few days to celebrate his victory, we openly questioned if he would extend LSP’s downward spiral by appointing Frank Besson (a/k/a Edmonson 2.0) as LSP Colonel.  We stressed Edmonson’s “party down” tendencies, and that Besson was similarly inclined.  We also divulged the fact that numerous sources told us Besson, upon going through a bitter divorce, chose to reside at LSTA headquarters and that, one evening, he returned to that “temporary residence” and crashed his vehicle into the building causing extensive damage.

LSTA events are notorious for heavy drinking, and we’ve already covered the alleged domestic abuse Cynthia Chapman endured at the hands of former trooper and pilot Michael Satcher at the July, 2018 LSTA convention (a cruise no less).

Well, as the old saying goes, “history repeats itself.”  On Thursday, July 18, 2024, former LSP Lt. Prentiss “Trey” Bellue was arrested by BRPD officers for alleged DWI.  Bellue had only traveled a very short distance from the first night’s meeting of the annual LSTA Convention held at a swank Baton Rouge hotel.  From the preceding incident report:

On listed date and time, while working the quick reaction force extra duty for crashes, I heard a crash go out on the radio in the area of W 110 near Perkins. I proceeded to the area in order to work the crash.

Prior to my arrival, several uniform patrol units had arrived on scene. I arrived on scene and contacted Ofc. Herbert Allen, who stated that he had initially contacted the driver of Veh 1 and he believed that the driver was intoxicated. Ofc. Allen had called for a DWI unit to respond. Driver of Veh 1 was already detained and in the back seat of a patrol unit. Due to this being a criminal investigation I did not question driver of Veh 1.

Veh 1 was incapacitated with heavy front end damage.
Roadrunner arrived and towed Veh 1. As soon as the roadway was cleared we moved to Dalrymple Dr to await the DWI officers arrival.

Sgt Scott Johnson arrived on scene and conducted his DWI investigation ( see his report under this file).

The following officers were also on scene:

Sidney Williams
Damien Collins
James Thomas
LT Troy McCreary

Nothing Follows
——————————————————————————————————————————– ——————————————————————————————————————————–
Disclaimer: All information below this line is auto-generated from report data. ——————————————————————————————————————————– ——————————————————————————————————————————–
Vehicle 1 Driver Distraction Action: DROPPED CELL PHONE

Here is the crash diagram from that incident report:

It sure looks to us like everyday citizens are extremely lucky they weren’t near Bellue less their lives may have been lost.  We’ll also point out that Bellue had been with LSP for 26 years, but his promotion to Lieutenant had transpired only weeks ago under Col. Robert Hodges.

LSP confirmed that Bellue retired today, and its Public Affairs Division issued the following statement:

Lt. Bellue submitted his letter of intent to retire to the department this morning with an effective date of July 22, 2024.

The Baton Rouge Police Department is handling the criminal investigation, and no further information can be provided regarding the ongoing investigation or legal proceedings.

In an email to DPS employees on the day of the arrest, Colonel Hodges stated, “Professionalism and accountability are paramount within our agency and the entire public safety profession.  When those expectations are not met, we owe it to ourselves and the public we serve to ensure transparency and personal accountability for our actions.  As you have my steadfast support and commitment to serve with professionalism and personal accountability, I expect the same from each of you.”

We made public records request of BRPD for the body cam and/or dash cam video pertaining to this arrest. We received the incident report and have provided it to our site visitors via the link above; however, regarding the body cam and/or dash cam video, BRPD issued the following statement:

Good afternoon,

This case is still pending prosecution, therefore all records except the initial report are not subject to release under LSA-R.S. 44:3 at this time. 

Sincerely,

Deelee Morris

Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns’ cell phone began receiving numerous texts at around 9:30 a.m. on Friday, July 19, 2024.  According to those texts, all of the BRPD officers who arrived on the scene are black and, we’ll just say that, according to those reports, some very interesting and intriguing dialogue transpired as they attempted to effectuate Bellue’s arrest.

Obviously, we expect the video to be made public once the “investigation” is complete, and one former trooper, who was incredulous at BRPD’s response, said, “There is no criminal investigation.  He blew and got processed.  Cut and dry.  No other charges to investigate.”

Whenever any body cam videos are deemed available to the public, we have to believe they may be very revealing.  So, just as we predicted when we broke the Ronald Greene matter on September 10, 2020, we have a feeling the mainstream media will soon be forced to report more than just the bland press releases which LSP has issued on this matter (with no TV station that we’ve seen doing anything more than placing it on their websites), and publications like The Advocate doing little more than regurgitating LSP’s press release on the matter.

Republican pro-business political activist Lane Grigsby prepares to respond to a question by Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns at the Baton Rouge Press Club (BRPC) meeting of Monday, July 15, 2024.

Last week, prominent Republican pro-business political activist Lane Grigsby put on a full-court press trying to make a Special Session next month as a precursor for a Louisiana Constitutional Convention a reality.

Grigsby was the guest speaker at the BRPC meeting of Monday, July 15, 2024, and we were present to cover his presentation.  Irrespective of whether one agrees or disagrees with Grigsby’s efforts, his passion is evident; furthermore, he does not shy away from providing clear, succinct, and direct answers to tough questions.  Additionally, he has a very strong sense of humor and demonstrates a unique ability to be quite quick-witted.

At this time, let us present an eight (8) minute highlight of Grigsby touting the widespread support he states exists for a Convention along with several of the more tough questions he fielded from the mainstream media.  Thereafter, we’ll provide the two (2) questions Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns posed of him.  Here’s that eight-minute highlight video:

 7/15/24:  Eight-minute video of highlights of Grigsby’s presentation.

As is evident in the above video, Grigsby makes brief reference to Louisiana Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson’s simultaneous push for a Special Session to overhaul Louisiana’s tax policies.  Since there obviously can’t be two Special Sessions in August, Burns asked Grigsby if he would be supportive of a Special Session by Nelson as sort of a “fallback” even though it is obviously not the scenario Grigsby is actively pushing for.  Let’s take a look at his response:

 7/15/24:  Grigsby responds to Burns’ question of whether he would support Nelson’s push for a Special Session on tax overhaul if one for a Constitutional Convention fails to materialize.

Finally, followers of this blog are keenly aware of our position that Gov. Landry lost a tremendous amount of trust of Louisiana voters when he pushed so hard to cut off access to public records.  Burns therefore asked Grigsby if he felt Landry’s strong push in that regard may have cast a dark cloud over Grigsby’s efforts and whether Grigsby agreed or disagreed with Landry’s strong push to, “choke off access to public records.”  Here’s Grigsby’s response:

 7/15/24:  Grigsby responds to Burns’ question on whether Landry’s efforts to “choke off” access to public records and whether it may have caused an unintended-consequences effect of creating distrust entailing Grigsby’s initiative.

We believe that anybody who follows this blog knows just how strongly founder Robert Burns advocates for free enterprise with as little government interference in the ability to conduct business operations as possible.  The tail end of Grigsby’s commentary perhaps demonstrates both his humor, humility, and his quick-witted ability to escape from an admittedly tough question.

We would like to point out, however, that contrary to Grigsby’s attempt to portray Landry’s efforts as strictly a counter attack against “the liberals,” there was an absolute flood of opposition to Sen. Heather Cloud’s SB-482 by conservatives.  Since, in the eight-minute highlight video outlined at the outset of this feature, Grigsby had a few harsh words for the Louisiana Senate, Burns, as evidenced by the above video, decided to respond to Grigsby’s inquiry of Burns of, “Did it pass?” with, “Well, no, but we have the Louisiana Senate to thank for that I guess.”  Anybody has to truly admire Grigsby’s humble comeback to Burns’ response.

At any rate, conservatives, in general, are going to be less trustful of government operations than liberals and, while we hate to break this news to Gov. Landry, that fact does not miraculously get changed mere seconds after he is sworn into office as Governor.

To further illustrate our point on the strong blowback Landry got on his attempts to deny the public access to public records throughout Louisiana State Government, Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser had a representative testify in favor of Cloud’s bill at Senate Committee.  Nungesser was also a recent guest speaker at the BRPC, so Burns availed himself of the opportunity to let Nungesser explain why he supported the bill.  Let’s take a few seconds to watch Nungesser’s response:

6/3/24:  Lt. Gov. Nungesser responds to Burns’ question entailing why he supported Sen. Heather Cloud’s bill to curtail the public’s access to public records.

Here’s something we have to wonder:  Senator Heather Cloud ran for Louisiana Senate (and won in a massive landslide) primarily because she was fed up with the outrageously-high insurance rates that she and her family have to pay for their small trucking operation.  Now, Landry certainly didn’t hesitate to use Cloud to run his bill (and make no mistake, it was Landry’s bill) for him.

How does Landry say, “Thank you?”  Well, by vetoing HB-423, a tort reform bill which likely would have a hugely-beneficial impact upon Cloud’s insurance premiums.  We can’t speak for Cloud, but what we can say is that, if we were in her shoes, we’d be fuming mad at Landry and, trust us, there is an avalanche of conservative pro-business folk who in fact are angry at Landry over his willingness to place trial lawyer interests over their own.

As if Landry hadn’t already inflicted enough pain to pro-business folk in Louisiana with his veto of HB-423, he insisted on pouring massive salt on the wound by appointing arguably the most-noteworthy trial lawyer of all, John Carmouche, to the LSU Board of Supervisors.  That would be the same John Carmouche who led the charge in raising $6 million for GUMBO PAC for the defeat of David Vitter (largely because of his support of tort reform) by freeing up funds for Edwards’ direct campaign coffers to run prostitutes over patriots television attack ads!

Landry also angered Louisiana Sen. Alan Seabaugh over his veto of HB-423 (Seabaugh’s law partner authored the bill).  In fact, Seabaugh took to the Moon Griffon show recently to absolutely lambast Landry over not only that measure but also the redistricting issue.  Seabaugh contends that the Legislature should not have redrawn any map and simply let U. S. Federal Judge Shelly Dick draw her own map, which would have then been challenged and overturned by the U. S. Supreme Court, thus leaving the Districts intact for the upcoming election.

Also, there was a recent newspaper article that indicated that, when then-candidate Jeff Landry and Congressman Garret Graves met for a meal in Livonia at which Landry sought Graves’ support and likely endorsement, Graves was reportedly taken aback at Landry’s near total fixation with social conservative causes, with Graves contending infrastructure and financial matters were the far bigger concerns for Louisiana voters.  That’s exactly what we explained in our feature on Landry’s hypothetical email to the Members of the Louisiana State Board of Cosmetology.

Seabaugh’s frustration with Landry and Graves’ early-on reservations are precisely why we were so unenthusiastic about Landry’s potential to be an effective Governor of Louisiana, and why we gave him a totally back-handed endorsement.  Sadly, he is proving to be precisely what we expected him to be when it comes to non-social initiatives in Louisiana.  Further, trying to combat Louisiana’s massive problem on governmental corruption seems to rank dead last on Landry’s priority list, and his picks for leadership positions at Louisiana State Police demonstrate that fact in very authoritative fashion in our strong (and we believe very well-informed) opinion.

We’re certainly not prepared to state that Landry has gone through all of his political capital in only one Regular Legislative Session, but we are prepared to state that he certainly blew through a significant amount of it!  Further, in our opinion, he can expect serious competition if he hangs around Louisiana until 2027 and runs for reelection and doesn’t accept a Trump Cabinet position should Trump prevail this November.  Who knows?  Perhaps that “serious competition” just may be Graves himself now that Landry has ensured Graves has got time on the sidelines to relax and gear up for just such a challenge if he’s so inclined!

CLICK HERE for Grigsby’s presentation in its entirety.