Sound Off Louisiana

Dr. Ken Starling, a dentist from Slidell, Louisiana.

We want to begin today’s Sound Off Louisiana feature with the introduction of a brand new website we rolled out today:  LABoards-Commissions.  The website is an accumulation of videos and Sound Off Louisiana features of various boards and commissions in Louisiana (hence, the URL name) which have been identified to us as problematic and therefore worthy of our close scrutiny.

We chose today to roll out the website to coincide with our commitment to providing sunlight to one such problematic board which has been extensively referenced to us a problematic, and that is the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry (LSBD).

On April 7, 2018 and May 16, 2018, we provided a feature of numerous dentists providing testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee regarding Mafia-like tactics which they assert the Board has historically deployed.  Only 23 days later, the LSDB fired back at the dentists by placing the following material on its home page:

UPDATE JUNE 8, 2018
Please see our News page for information related to
recent false allegations against the Louisiana State Board of Dentistry.

We can only openly ponder why the LSDB would merely place such a defense on its website when they knew full-well this testimony would be transpiring.  Why didn’t they show up and pose a live defense?  We’ll provide what we believe to be the answer to that (aside from the fact they feared being grilled by the Senate Committee about the actions) in just a moment.

At any rate, we weren’t real thrilled with the LSDB’s action, so we decided to ratchet up the exposure of its historical corruption.  We did so by educating the public of Dr. Don Donaldson’s dominating influence over that body and exposing both his sway with legislators as well as his guilty plea in Federal Court in Mississippi for violating the Lacey Act by illegally transporting trophy deer into Louisiana from a herd of deer in Pennsylvania which had tested positive for chronic wasting disease.

Not content with merely placing the above defense to the dentists’ testimony on its website, the LSBD essentially lost any element of common sense that it may have possessed when it sent one of the critical dentists, Dr. Ryan Haygood, notice that it intended to convene an administrative hearing on him for his commentary at the hearing.

Basically, the LSBD accused Haygood of violating an agreement reached between him and the LSBD that, as a condition of them not revoking his license a few years back, he would not disparage the LSBD.  At one point, Haygood even had a website called Dental Board Corruption up which we used to visit with regularity; however, they also forced him to take that website down (though we believe they had ZERO authority to do so, but corrupt entities fear transparency with a passion).

As corrupt as the Auctioneer Licensing Board has been, they’ve never taken total leave of their senses as the LSBD has obviously done.  It’s difficult to believe Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns could make a statement like this, but he feels it’s true:  “The Louisiana Auctioneer Licensing Board members could qualify for nomination for Sainthood when placed beside the members of the LSBD!”  That is an incredible statement to make!

At any rate, two of the Louisiana Senators, Fred Mills and Danny Martiny, who serve on the Senate Commerce Committee, were not at all pleased with the LSBD’s action, and so they fired off the following letter to its Executive Director, Arthur Hickman, Jr. dated December 17, 2018:

The letter speaks for itself (and we believe states very clearly what OUGHT to be common sense for the LSBD members), so we’re not going to even comment on it other than to encourage everyone to read it.

In a lightening-fast three-day turnaround, outgoing LSBD President Dr. Marija LaSalle who, in consultation with LSBD attorney Celia Cangelosi, made the decision to pursue Haygood, turned the matter over to incoming President Jerome Smith.  He, in turn, wasted no time flat in responding in writing to Sens. Martiny and Mills that he, “had a bad feeling about going forward,” but that the Disciplinary Oversight Committee, “felt that the administrative law judge could review this matter and make the call on this convoluted and complex issue.”  Smith then indicated that, with LaSalle turning the matter over to him, it was being immediately dropped.

Martiny repeatedly stated during the Senate Committee hearing that he was so frustrated with the LSBD that he was insisting that they move their offices from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, so that he could “keep tabs on them easier.”  Obviously, the LSBD complied.  Since Martiny advanced the baton that far, we’ll take it from there and begin initiating video coverage of LSBD meetings going forward to where everyone in the world can see what they’re up to.

In doing so, we hope to stop dead in its tracks what our viewers are about to witness as a first-hand account of what one dentist, Dr. Kenneth Starling, alleges was point-blank extortion regarding forcing him to sign a consent decree under threat of his license being revoked.  Dr. Starling gave his presentation to the LSBD at its meeting of Friday, March 15, 2019, and we now provide video coverage of that presentation:

Starling gives his presentation to LSBD members on Friday, March 15, 2019.

Now, prior to Starling being able to even make this presentation to the LSBD, he first had to clear the hurdle of the “Disciplinary Oversight Committee,” (i.e. the same one that didn’t possess sufficient common sense to adamantly refuse to acceed to LaSalle and Cangelosi’s patently absurd attempt to restrict Haygood’s right to free speech).  Here’s video of that proceeding, and we find it amazing how one member of the committee, Patricia Hanson (a hygienist), seems fixated on how and why Starling has chosen to seek to clear his name now (with particular emphasis on the fact Haygood and/or Sens. Martiny and Mills may have provided him with the motivation).  Here’s that feature:

Starling gives presentation to DOC in hopes to get to advance to full LSBD on Friday, March 15, 2019.

As is obvious by the first video above, the LSBD opted to punt this matter into Inspector General Stephen Street’s lap.  That ought to get very, very interesting given that, as Executive Director Hickman points out in the video, Street has (unwisely in our opinion) issued a letter dated May 2, 2018 granting the LSBD a clean bill of health.  That letter follows:

The preceding letter is merely another example in a VERY, VERY, VERY long list of instances of Stephen Street conducting himself in a pure puppet manner and doing whatever he is told to do by a sitting Governor or other state agency head.  We have provided examples ad nauseam of him doing so, and all anyone has to do is search for the phrase “Stephen Street” on this blog to see precisely what our opinion of him is.  We’ve gone to great lengths to substantiate our statements about him, and we’ve been blunt in stating that a CPA and lawyer who couldn’t even manage his own finances to prevent Federal tax liens and occupational licensing tax liens from being filed against him had ZERO business being appointed to the position he presently holds.

Nevertheless, Street, just like former LSP Col. Mike Edmonson, with his absolutely abysmal disciplinary record with LSP as clearly demonstrated by the following items, served as Jindal’s (and Edwards’) perfect appointee because he could be TOTALLY and COMPLETELY controlled, and it’s appointments like Street and Edmonson that has this state in the horrendous condition it now finds itself in:

1.  Reprimand for crashing LSP vehicle and being at fault.

2.  10-Day Suspension for violating payroll protocol.

3.  Letter of reprimand for careless operation of vehicle.

4.  40-Hour Suspension for “not being aware of
 your condition” behind the wheel and crashing yet another
vehicle (with it being a total loss).

5.  16-Hour suspension for careless operation of vehicle.

That’s also why we were absolutely incredulous to learn that Sen. Bill Cassidy was actively promoting Street as the next U. S. attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana, and we directly confronted Cassidy head-on regarding his efforts (which he flatly denied, for what that’s worth).  At least someone up in Washington, DC must have utilized some common sense in awarding Brandon Fremin that position over Street!

So, what’s our prediction on the LSBD’s request of Street?  As Hickman states in the video above, he is first going to call Street, and we predict that, during that phone call, they’ll mutually agree that what’s being requested is not a function of the Inspector General’s Office (i.e. “Our office does not exist for the purpose of clearing a licensee’s name,”) and the matter will get punted right back to the LSBD.

Whatever the eventual outcome is, we’ll certainly let our subscribers know, but our message to the LSBD follows:  The days of back-room Mafia-like extortion tactics are over unless you’re willing to engage in such tactics with a video camera going and the knowledge that the world can see your despicable acts which so many dentists have testified to under oath within mere hours.

We’ll conclude by providing this link for the LSBD meeting of March 15, 2019 in its entirety.  We will draw particular attention to commentary beginning at the 5:00 mark by Dr. Michael Haight, who is not pleased that agendas merely provide the date, time, and place of the meeting (can anyone imagine the Legislature operating in such a slipshod fashion?) and the extended lags before anyone can find out what transpired.  Well, Dr. Haight, that’s going to be a thing of the past now that Sound Off Louisiana is involved.  You’ll be able to watch everything going forward in a matter of mere days (two in this instance).  We believe every citizen of this state is benefitted by transparency of a board with such an unbelievable reputation of pure, rank corruption!

If you would like to be added to our Sound Off Louisiana email list to be notified of future posts, simply go to our home page and scroll to the bottom (mobile devices) or to the top of the right-hand column (desktops).  Supply your email address within the subscribe box.  You’ll then receive an automated email from Word Press, and all you have to do is click on the blue “confirm follow” bar contained within that email, and you’ll begin receiving great posts such as the preceding one above.

Contractor Billy Broussard, mere moments after he filed complaints against four (4) attorneys with the Louisiana Office of Disciplinary Counsel on Monday, March 11, 2019.

Subscribers will recall from our last feature that contractor Billy Broussard sent formal demand letters to attorneys Robin Sylvester and Mark “Tiger” Pharr seeking their malpractice insurance policy information, and he provided a deadline of noon on March 7, 2019 for them to fulfill his demand.  On Monday, March 11, 2019, Broussard telephoned us and informed us that both attorneys had failed to conform to his demand and that he was in transit to the Louisiana Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC) for the purpose of filing complaints against both attorneys for failing to provide the requested information.

Broussard also informed us that he had isolated an audio clip of his former attorney Robin Sylvester advising him that he should file formal complaints with the ODC against the attorney for the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury, Sam Gabb, and against Russell “Rusty” Stutes, attorney for Gravity Drainage District 8 of Ward 1 of Calcasieu Parish.  The audio clip is only 50 seconds in length, and Broussard provided it to ODC as part of his documentation against those two attorneys.  Let’s take just a moment to listen to Sylvester explaining exactly how she alleges Stutes and Gabb “violated all the ethics rules.”:

 
Robin Sylvester, in a meeting with her former client, Billy Broussard, on September 12, 2018, explains exactly how Stutes and Gabb “violated all the ethics rules” as she encourages Broussard to file complaints with the ODC over those alleged ethics violations.  Broussard took her advice and, on Monday, March 11, 2019, he filed a complaint against Stutes as well as a complaint against Gabb.

Now, when Broussard called us, we asked if we could meet him at the ODC and produce a brief video of him moments after he filed the complaints.  Here’s that video:

Broussard speaks with Sound Off Louisiana founder Burns moments after filing complaints against Russell “Rusty” Stutes, Sam Gabb, Robin Sylvester, and Mark “Tiger” Pharr.

Regarding reference in the above video, Stutes’ response to our public records request for his invoices for filing the restraining order he filed against Broussard, here’s the letter he sent in response:

Let’s take a brief look at the substance of Broussard’s complaints against Stutes and Sylvester, shall we?

Also, in reference near the end of the video about Legislative Auditor staffer John Morehead’s statements that “all the debris had to be eligible because Dan Kennedy signed off on it,” that’s contained in this Sound Off Louisiana feature.  In the video above, Sound Off Louisiana’s founder, Robert Burns, states that that meeting was in March of 2018; however, the actual date of the meeting was April 13, 2018.

There is a significant group in Calcasieu Parish which has gotten fed up with what they contend is massive governmental corruption in Calcasieu Parish and what they also contend is an abysmal failure on the part of the local paper, the American Press, to cover such corruption.  As a result, they have formed their own substitute medium for disseminating items of concern to them, and it has over 2,000 members!  That group is named Calcasieu Parish – In Check.  We’ve been extended a membership invitation which we accepted, and we’ve found their posts to the group to be of great interest to us.

Finally, frustration with American Press notwithstanding, they published an article yesterday regarding a proposal to consolidate all of the Calcasieu Parish Drainage Districts into only two.  Interestingly, in the third-to-last paragraph of that article, we find the following matter addressed by Chris Landry, Calcasieu Parish Police Juror for District 7, to be intriguing:

Landry also pointed out various issues drainage districts have encountered, such as not following budget requirements under state law, several years of not providing records and minutes of meetings and inadequate drug screen policies.

We find the “several years of not providing public records and minutes of meetings” to be quite revealing to be made in such a public format by a sitting Calcasieu Parish governmental official.  It’s possible Landry is referencing Broussard.  If not, it sure looks like there may be a pattern of withholding public documents, particularly when those documents may implicate Calcasieu Parish officials entailing alleged fraud against FEMA which  Broussard has contended for an extended period did in fact transpire regarding the Indian Bayou project in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita.

 If you would like to be added to our Sound Off Louisiana email list to be notified of future posts, simply go to our home page and scroll to the bottom (mobile devices) or to the top of the right-hand column (desktops).  Supply your email address within the subscribe box.  You’ll then receive an automated email from Word Press, and all you have to do is click on the blue “confirm follow” bar contained within that email, and you’ll begin receiving great posts such as the preceding one above.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry as he visits with President Donald Trump.

Subscribers will recall from a recent feature we published that the attorney representing contractor Billy Broussard, Robin Sylvester, cited as a key reason for withdrawing from representing Broussard her expression of reluctance to go up against Kelly Fontenot, who is the Business Compliance and Fraud Analyst at the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury (though Fontenot describes her position as “layman’s terms ‘internal auditor'”); Rusty Stutes, who serves as legal counsel for Gravity Drainage District 8 of Ward 1 of Calcasieu Parish; and “crooked judges” serving in 14th JDC (presumably to include Judge David Ritchie since he is the specific judge that would have heard Sylvester’s arguments on Broussard’s behalf).  In fact, let’s take just 30 seconds to hear Sylvester state her sentiments on the matter as she angrily withdrew as Broussard’s counsel:

  30-second audio clip of Sylvester, on October 4, 2018, angrily withdrawing from Broussard’s litigation and citing key factors of why she’s doing so.

Broussard contends that he managed to obtain very damning documents which he asserts were withheld from his attorneys (Sylvester and Attorney General Jeff Landry, back when Landry was a private citizen practicing law) during his original case’s discovery phase.  Upon him obtaining them, he visited with Sylvester, and Broussard has indicated that she was impressed enough to enter into a contingency contract to file a brand new cause of action which Broussard and Sylvester executed on April 4, 2017.

As we indicated in our most-recent post on Broussard, he asserts that Sylvester repeatedly emphasized the importance of the date October 5, 2017 as being the deadline for Broussard to file the litigation to avoid prescription problems (statute of limitations in other states).  We asked Broussard if he could provide any documentation to substantiate Sylvester’s fixation on that date, and he provided us with the following document to fulfill our request of him:

As is obvious from the preceding document, Sylvester has clearly identified Friday, October 6, 2017 as the deadline for filing litigation for Broussard and cites the fact that the October 6, 2017 date represents “one year from the date that Danielle Aymond from GOHSEP told Billy that she had an additional disk not produced by Ben Plia.”  Plia served as Executive Counsel with GOHSEP at the time.  Broussard further provided us with a draft of a lawsuit Sylvester created seeking to sue GOHSEP entailing what all transpired regarding Broussard.

As we also referenced in our most-recent post on Broussard, he became concerned by Sylvester’s new-found timidity regarding suing GOHSEP and, as a result, retained the services of William Most to work in coordination with Sylvester, who had filed a motion to vacate the restraining order under which Broussard was placed prohibiting him from making further public records requests of the Drainage District or the Police Jury.

Broussard asserts that he made it clear to both attorneys what their roles were to be, and he sought for Most to be the “bulldog” attorney (given Sylvester’s new-found timidity) to sue to recover damages, and Sylvester’s role would be strictly to continue forward with having the restraining order lifted.  Nevertheless, as is obvious from the feature above, Sylvester, whom Broussard states that Most indicated had permitted his claim to prescribe, described all of Billy’s actions of prodding her to be more agressive as “bull s—” and proceeded to file a Motion seeking to substitute Most for ALL litigation, including the restraining order.  Broussard has indicated he protested Sylvester’s withdrawing from the entirety of litigation entailing him, but Sylvester nevertheless told him, “I quit.”

Most, whom Broussard indicated he was not happy with regarding signing the preceding linked motion, then represented to Broussard that, with him (Most) living in New Orleans, significant additional expense would be involved toward the litigation Sylvester initiated to have Broussard’s restraining order lifted.

None of these events went over well with Broussard, and accordingly, via a certified letter dated February 18, 2019, he demanded for Sylvester to provide the name and policy number of her malpractice insurance provider.  Broussard provided us with a copy of his letter, and it follows:

Broussard also sent a similar letter to the law firm of Galloway, Johnson et. al. for what he has indicated to us are his concerns regarding Judge Ritchie having stated that Attorney General Jeff Landry, while serving as a private-practice attorney with Galloway, Johnson, et. al. “filed an illegal lien” in an effort to collect money Landry represented to the Court that Broussard was owed.  Here’s that letter:

As the above letter makes clear, Broussard indicates that he visited the office of Galloway, Johnson, et. al. on Friday, December 14, 2018 “to seek your malpractice insurance policy carrier and policy number.”  Broussard has provided us with a copy of a recording of his meeting on December 14, 2018, and we believe it to contain some of the most intriguing dialogue we’ve ever presented on Sound Off Louisiana.  Broussard met with Ms. Jennifer Barnes, whom he has described to us as “about the nicest person you could ever hope to meet in your life.”  Their dialogue was very intriguing and, since less than 30 seconds into the audio, Broussard said that he “feels like Trump” in that “like Trump, I hired an attorney like Trump hired (Michael) Cohen..,” we figured we’d provide as a still photo for the audio, Attorney General Jeff Landry, whom Broussard repeatedly references in the dialogue, leaning over to state something to President Trump.  Here’s 20 minutes of the intriguing dialogue between Ms. Barnes and Broussard (we think you’ll find it WELL worth the listen!!):

Excerpts of dialogue between Galloway, Johnson associate Jennifer Barnes and contractor Billy Broussard of Friday, December 14, 2018.

Both letters provide a deadline of Thursday, March 7, 2019 at noon for providing the information.  Broussard indicates neither responded to his letter by today’s deadline.  We’ll report on whatever course(s) of action Broussard may pursue as his letter concludes “that I deem appropriate.”

 If you would like to be added to our Sound Off Louisiana email list to be notified of future posts, simply go to our home page and scroll to the bottom (mobile devices) or to the top of the right-hand column (desktops).  Supply your email address within the subscribe box.  You’ll then receive an automated email from Word Press, and all you have to do is click on the blue “confirm follow” bar contained within that email, and you’ll begin receiving great posts such as the preceding one above.