Belinda Parker Brown, at the September 19, 2024 meeting of the Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC), after first having served attorney Lenore Feeney with discovery materials pertaining to an alleged Open Meetings Violation, indicates she’s, “serving Sound Off Louisiana and Robert Burns for publication (of the discovery requests).”
On March 18, 2024, Belinda Parker Brown, along with six (6) fellow St. Tammany residents, sued the individual Members of the LSPC for an alleged Open Meetings Violation. They had to be sued individually because violations of Louisiana’s Open Meetings Laws entail personal liabilities and Board or Commission Members must therefore be sued individually.
On June 17, 2024, the LSPC failed in its efforts to toss the suit via a Peremptory Exception of No Cause of Action.
Thirty-nine (39) days before that, at the May 9, 2024 LSPC meeting (the last one held until the most-recent meeting of September 19, 2024), Parker Brown called upon Gov. Landry to seek the resignations of those Members engaging in the alleged violation.
At the most recent meeting of the LSPC on September 19, 2024, Parker Brown personally served discovery materials to the LSPC. Let’s take a look at her perfecting service upon those individual LSPC Members through hand delivery to their attorney of record, Lenore Feeney:
September 19, 2024: Parker Brown serves individual LSPC Members with discovery material.
At this time, let’s take a look at a few highlights of the requested discovery materials propounded upon the LSPC Members by Parker Brown via hand delivery on September 19, 2024.
(Production of Documents)
Please produce all email correspondences entailing the letter which the LSPC Members mailed to the campaign of Collin Sims dated on or around January 20, 2024.
This production should include, but not be limited to, all emails distributed among LSPC Members irrespective of how few or many may have received the email(s), emails to/from LSPC Executive Director Jason Hannaman to/from LSPC Members, emails concerning the letter sent to or received from any members of the public, and any emails concerning the letter sent to or received from any LSP trooper.
Should any of these emails contain drafts of the proposed letter, please provide those drafts of the letter.
You may exclude any correspondence, be it email or otherwise, transpiring between LSPC Members and their legal counsel.
(Admission of Facts)
Please admit that past and/or present Commissioners, including two Defendants in this subject litigation, have been the subjects of one or more media reports entailing alleged impermissible campaign contributions to various political campaigns. {Note: Other media report: WWL 1/11/19.}
Please admit that Defendant Simien gave false testimony on November 3, 2022 when he testified that his law firm had not made any political contributions during his tenure as an LSPC Commissioner.
Please admit that, contrary to Defendant Simien’s testimony in Request for Admission Number Seventeen, Simien’s law firm made contributions to the campaign of then-Governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, of $4,917 on March 10, 2017; to the campaign of 19th JDC District Judge Wilson Fields of $500 on November 28, 2018; and to the campaign of EBRP Metro Councilwoman candidate Erika Green of $250 on February 9, 2017.
Please admit that Defendant Simien drafted a letter dated November 9, 2022 to the Judge overseeing the matter being litigated on November 3, 2022 wherein Simien apologized for his false testimony {See PAGE THREE (3) of above link}
Please admit that former LSPC Executive Director Cathy Derbonne sued the LSPC.
Please admit that Derbonne stated in her lawsuit that she was “constructively discharged” over reporting allegedly illegal campaign contributions to the State Board of Ethics.
Please admit that Defendants Simien and Riecke were LSPC members who accepted a hurriedly-drafted resignation letter from Derbonne composed during an Executive Session at the LSPC meeting in January of 2017.
Please admit that the LSPC ultimately settled the Derbonne litigation for $130,000.
Please admit that, beyond the $130,000 settlement referenced in Request for Admission Number Twenty-Five that the LSPC also incurred approximately $80,805 in legal fees defending the Derbonne litigation.
Please admit that former LSPC Commissioners T. J. Doss and Monica Manzella resigned mere days after they were videotaped checking into the Watermark Hotel mere hours after an LSPC meeting.
Please admit that Defendant Riecke had a feature role in a reality television show featuring teams of race cars speeding across the nation’s highways at speeds exceeding 100 MPH.
Please admit that, pertaining to Request for Admission Number Six, Defendant Riecke is on video making a $50,000 bet on one such racing team.
Please admit that, pertaining to Request for Admission Number Six, a race car team is on video opening the trunk of a car to expose approximately 10 or more license plates for swap out, “in the event our license plate is called out over our inboard police radar scanner.”
Please admit that, pertaining to Request for Admission Number Six, Defendant Riecke is on video bragging about concealed radar-detection equipment in the right dashboard of his vehicle.
Please admit that, pertaining to Request for Admission Number Six, Defendant Riecke, after exposing his inboard radar detection and police scanner capabilities, then replaced the in-board façade dashboard utilized to conceal that equipment and also stating on video that, “police tend to frown on this sort of thing, so….”
Please admit that former LSPC Commissioner Sabrina Richardson has been the subject of one or more payroll fraud investigations while serving as a New Orleans Police Officer.
Please admit that former LSPC Commissioner Sabrina Richardson received a suspension from the NOPD as a result of the most-recent payroll fraud investigation involving her.
Please admit that former LSPC Commissioner Sabrian Richardson resigned from the LSPC after media reports of her alleged payroll fraud were aired.
We guess anybody could say that current and past LSPC Membership comprises a group of fine, upstanding citizens!
We sought comment from one long-term LSPC observer with extensive knowledge of LSPC operations who spoke with us on condition of anonymity. His observation: “What this shows is that the LSPC Members are derelict in their duties, and the troopers they oversee are equally if not more derelict in the performance of their duties.”
Based on our own eight-year history of observing LSPC meetings, we find it very difficult to argue against that observer’s assessment of the agency.
The only other update to the suit that we have at this time is this September 20, 2024 answer to the suit filed by the individual LSPC members along with this October 2, 2024 Motion to Enroll additional Counsel of Record in the person of Harry J. Phillips, Jr.
We will keep our site visitors updated with future developments in this litigation as they unfold.