Dwayne Fatherree, former Daily Iberian reporter whom farmer Billy Broussard alleges posted a libelous feature on him with that publication on August 4, 2021, just 76 days prior to Fatherree accepting a position as Investigative Journalist for The Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization which touts its identifying of “hate groups” and monitoring of their activities.
Sound Off Louisiana subscribers and casual site visitors will surely recall our recent feature entailing farmer Billy Broussard suing The Daily Iberian and a former reporter, Dwayne Fatherree, for alleged libel. The preceding feature speaks for itself, so we’ll not rehash any of it now.
Broussard had little difficulty getting Wilk Communications, the corporate owner of The Daily Iberian, served on July 28, 2022 through Louisiana’s Long-Arm Statute. Broussard has indicated that he will file the affidavit with the St. Martin Parish Clerk of Court evidencing service having been effectuated upon Wilk in coming days.
Meanwhile, Broussard got a real shock on Friday, August 5, 2022 when he was notified in the mail by the St. Martin Parish Clerk of Court that Fatherree could not be served. The stated reason for service being unable to be successfully accomplished was, “Moved. Address unknown.”
What Broussard did not know at the time of his filing of his lawsuit on July 22, 2022 was that Fatherree left The Daily Iberian on October 19, 2021 and, six days later, on October 25, 2021, assumed a new position as an Investigative Reporter for The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which is a non-profit organization based in Montgomery, Alabama which focuses on “fighting hate.”
The organization states that it monitors 733 “hate groups” as outlined on this map. Here are the specific groups that the organization lists in Louisiana and where they are based, and why they have been identified for inclusion on the organization’s list:
IN 2021, 15 HATE GROUPS WERE TRACKED IN LOUISIANA
GROUPS IN LOUISIANA
There are 4 statewide hate groups in Louisiana not displayed on the map
GREAT MILLSTONE
GENERAL HATE STATEWIDE
ISRAELITE SCHOOL OF UNIVERSAL PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE
GENERAL HATE STATEWIDE
LEAGUE OF THE SOUTH
NEO-CONFEDERATE STATEWIDE
NEW BLACK PANTHER PARTY
GENERAL HATE BATON ROUGE
PATRIOT FRONT
WHITE NATIONALIST STATEWIDE
RUTH INSTITUTE
ANTI-LGBTQ LAKE CHARLES
Don’t let the word “poverty” deceive anyone into a belief that the group itself isn’t flush with an abundance of resources. The organization is also very transparent about its operations and its finances. In its latest audited financial statements for the year ended October 31, 2021, it held a staggering $804 million in assets. Of that amount, $731 million is comprised of investments in an endowment fund. The organization receives no governmental support, but its contributions from the public totaled a whopping $99.8 million ($274,000 a day for every calendar day of the year) for its latest fiscal year. The firm also touts 260 lawsuits filed fighting hate-related issues.
Broussard has indicated that he will serve Fatherree via Louisiana’s Long-Arm Statute just as he did Wilk Communications notwithstanding the fact that he now has a new employer in Alabama.
Fatherree has been busy since arriving at his new job. By our count, he has published at least 13 features since his arrival at SPLC. Let’s provide links for those features, since many of them entail his “old stomping grounds” of Louisiana (they’re listed in chronological order):
The SPLC in 2021: A year of accomplishment amid unprecedented challenges;
‘The Common Denominator’: D.C. prosecutor points to Trump as ‘ringleader’ of Jan. 6 attack;
Criminal Injustice: States unfairly prosecute children as adults;
Fighting to Grow: Black farmers continue to battle systemic discrimination;
Mapping Out Justice: SPLC, ACLU file suit to force fair Mississippi Supreme Court districts;
A Constant Reminder: Stadium still honors man who expelled Black people from Louisiana city;
As clearly indicated by anyone who chooses to click on the first feature above, Fartherree clearly didn’t leave New Iberia with very favorable words to convey about his former neighbors when he published that feature with the SPLC. The only point we’ll make in that regard is that it seems a bit ironic to us that, while Fatherree has a career in which he has bounced around quite a bit, he seemed to tend to gravitate back to The Daily Iberian. From the previously-linked profile on his LinkedIn page:
Experience
Investigative Reporter
Southern Poverty Law Center
Wick Communications
3 years
Community Editor
Reporter
Bayou City Broadcasting, LLC
1 year 5 months
News Director
Assistant News Director
Reporter
The Daily Iberian
Correspondent
Houma Daily Courier
Substitute Teacher
Lafayette Middle School
Unlicensed engineer
Guice Offshore LLC
Deckhand/Unlicensed Engineer
Seatran Marine
Staff Reporter
The Daily Iberian
Investigative producer
KATC TV
The Daily Advertiser
2 years 3 months
Sunday/enterprise editor
Metro Editor
Director of Web Operations
NewOrleans.Com Media LLC
Managing editor, NOLA.com
Advance Internet
Online director
The Tuscaloosa News (The New York Times)
Online manager
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Reporter
Opelousas Daily World
Staff officer
Louisiana National Guard
So, our observation is that, while Fatherree is so willing to illustrate alleged bullying of black veterans and depict how poorly that reflects upon New Iberia’s white population, we find it interesting that he’s choosing to do that now rather than when he was employed at The Daily Iberian when so many he points fingers of blame at apparently served just fine to place food on his table, pay electric bills, etc. through those folks advertising with and taking out subscriptions to The Daily Iberian.
We can state one thing for sure, however. A significant portion of Fatherree’s wages from The Daily Iberian went to a gentleman by the name of Nelson Jack Rowe. In fact, by our estimates, a total of approximately $61,826 of his wages went to Rowe in the form of interest over the last six (6) years. Who is Rowe? Well, he would be the gentleman who was gracious enough to refinance Fatherree’s home in 2016 at a rate of 12% annual interest. In fact, let’s construct a quick table outlining Fatherree’s home purchase in Lafayette and just what all transpired:
| Date of Fatherree's Lafayette Home Financial Event & The Event | Added Details of Financial Event |
|---|---|
| April 11, 2013: Purchased Home At 1301 Felicie Drive in Lafayette, Louisiana | Purchase price: $112,500 with $18,000 down and $94,500 owner financed at 5% interest for three (3) years, with an anticipated final balloon payment of $79,556.48 due at the end of the third year. |
| June 9, 2014: Tax Deed purchased on property. | Approximate payment for buyer of tax deed: $331.79. |
| June 16, 2015: Tax Deed again purchased. | Approximate payment for buyer of tax deed: $1,042.85. |
| April 18, 2016: Fatherree redeems property from tax deed purchases. | Fatherree's payment to redeem property from tax deed purchaser(s) approximated $2,104.51. |
| April 19, 2016 | Upon balloon payment coming due, Fatherree refinances with Nelson Jack Rowe by issuing promissory note for $87,000 at 12% interest for 30 years, calling for monthly payments of $894.89. |
| May 26, 2018 | Married Sarah Ruth Spell (not related to house purchase, but we figured we'd throw it in anyway). |
| April 22, 2022 | Sells home for $182,000, which, if Fatherree made all his payments timely, should have caused him to net approximately $97,600 to apply toward a new home in Montgomery Alabama. |
Maybe Fatherree will give us a little credit and not claim any monopoly on being able to “dig things up.”
If the final row in the table is accurate, and it should be awfully close, Fatherree may have been able to pay cash for his new home at 1938 McKinley Avenue, Montgomery, AL Of course, as evidenced by his Facebook post of July 17, 2022, that home may be sort of a fixer-upper. Here’s what he had to say in his post along with a photo to further explain:
I haven’t been real active on Facebook lately because we are hip-deep in renovation and restoration on the house right now. Here’s some of the ugliness we discovered when we pulled the old floors. Once this is done, we’ll frame up the expansion for the bathroom and master closet, bring in the new kitchen cabinets, and have the flooring and tile contractors through. It’ll look WAY prettier in a few weeks!
Well, we wish him luck on all the hard work he’s apparently investing in this latest home purchase.
Now, this is a video blog, so we want to wrap things up with a video Fatherree re-posted on Facebook of a May 29, 2022 entry by Alec Fatherree. We figure that Alec wanted as much exposure as possible, so we’re certainly willing to assist in that regard. To that end, here’s the video:
5/29/22 Video posted by Alec Fatherree in which other countries are characterized with flattering nouns to describe them, but America is repeatedly characterized as a “gun.” The post was made by Alec in the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
At any rate, Broussard has indicated that he will deploy Louisiana’s Long-Arm Statute to effectuate service upon Fatherree, and he said he is extremely frustrated at the picture and caption Fatherree placed in the online version of the Daily Iberian feature as the second picture and caption. Broussard only noticed that picture and caption last week, and here it is:
Broussard takes particular umbrage to Fatherree’s commentary of St. Martin Parish President Chester Cedars’ rebuttal being “blistering.” Broussard openly asked rhetorically to us, “What was so impressive about it?” Our response (jokingly obviously): “Who knows? Maybe Cedars’ rattling off the terms of your own purchase and Fatherree maybe secretly knowing you got 3% when he was having to pay 12% just got under his skin!”
Getting back on a more serious note, Broussard alleged in his lawsuit that, “the obvious bias of Defendant Fatherree’s article, which, upon information and belief, was nothing short of a hit piece done to appease, and upon information and belief, was drafted in coordination with, St. Martin Parish President Chester Cedars……”
Broussard also took exception to Fatherree’s first caption beneath Broussard’s own feature. In it, Fatherree indicated that Broussard said that, if the ordinance passed, it would make it, “impossible for him to do business at his current location.” Broussard has contended all along that no “business” is being conducted on Duchamp Road, and he contends that, with Fatherree making that statement, readers likely came to the conclusion that he was “no longer in business” since the article indicated that he’d be out of business at his current location (which is his own home in Breaux Bridge) if the ordinance passed, and it certainly did pass.
All we can say is, if Cedars did coordinate with Fatherree as Broussard alleged in his lawsuit, then we can only surmise that Cedars is quite likely very much out-of-step with the political ideology of a very significant segment of the populations of the St. Martin Parish and the New Iberia areas if his political philosophies are anything remotely close to Fatherree’s as reflected by his SPLC features which he has published since his arrival at his new position.
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