Category: Uncategorized

Dr. Shiva Akula, who has been incarcerated since approximately January 9, 2024 and who was convicted on 23 counts of Medicare fraud totaling approximately $115,000 on November 6, 2023, awaits sentencing on April 10, 2024 at 2:00 p.m., at which time the New Orleans U. S. Attorney’s Office seeks the maximum 30-year prison sentence as well as a restitution order totaling $42 million.

2.  U. S. Attorney’s 1/28/24 Motion to Appoint Receiver.

3.  Judge Africk’s Order for Akula to Respond to the Motion to Appoint a Receiver No Later than Friday, March 8, 2024.

4.  Lis Pendens (Filed Monday, March 4, 2024):  St. Charles Avenue Condo in New Orleans;  Covington Hospice Facility; Clearview Hospice Facility in Metairie.

5.  U. S. Attorney’s March 5, 2014 Memorandum for Loss Calculation and Restitution Amounts.

Toward the middle of page five (5) of the Memorandum for Loss Calculations, it should be noted that a significant amount of Akula’s billings, according to the U. S. Attorney’s Office, entailed patients who were, “not hospice eligible.”

We can’t help but be reminded of our past February 13, 2019 feature in which Billy Broussard went to excruciating lengths to authoritatively demonstrate his contention that Gravity District 8 of Ward 1 of Calcasieu Parish sought to defraud FEMA/GOHSEP by having ineligible debris reported to FEMA/GOHSEP as eligible.  All of this dealt with the “Indian Bayou project,” which entailed cleanup in the aftermath of the 2006 flood.

He did so via his October 4, 2018 email for which we supplied a link (two paragraphs above the audio file on the above-linked feature).  The email provides a link for a May 20, 2009 email from internal auditor Kelly Fontenot to FEMA/GOHSEP-contracted folk indicating a need to get those GPS locations to go away.

It must be nice when you’re the government and you can somehow make “GPS locations go away” such that potential FEMA/GOHSEP fraud goes undetected.  We bet Dr. Akula sure wishes he had a way to get, “those Medicare billing codes to go away.”

It appears he may spend the remainder of his life in Federal prison (along with complete liquidation of all of his assets) as a result of his having no such ability!

Attorney J. Michael Small, who is representing Louisiana State Police (LSP) Trooper Kory York in the case of Ronald Greene, is appealing to the Louisiana Supreme Court the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’ denial of his Motion to Quash the charges against York.

As we concluded our most-recent feature on LSP Lt. John Clary and the dismissed bogus indictment against him for “concealing his body-worn camera for almost two years,” we had this to say entailing the status of LSP Trooper Kory York:

Also, entailing York, on January 31, 2024 the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeals Denied his Appeal of Judge Rogers’ Denial of his Motion to Quash.  Interestingly enough, it took the Second Circuit 2-1/2 months to issue the Denial and provide zilch in the way of explaining why the Writ was Denied.  We’ll see if that ends up being the final word on the matter; however, as we see it as a 100 percent certainty that York’s attorney, J. Michael Small, appeals that “blank denial” of the Second Circuit on to the Louisiana State Supreme Court.

Union Parish Sheriff Deputy Chris Harpin, who is the lone remaining defendant other than York in the Greene matter, was supposed to have his trial commence on March 25, 2024; however, his attorney, Eugene P. Circado, Jr., along with Assistant District Attorney Hugo Holland, on Wednesday, February 28, 2024, filed this Joint Motion to Continue the Trial Until October 28, 2024.  Here’s the rationale provided for the continuance:

This matter is scheduled for trial on March 25, 2024. The parties wish to continue the trial date as (a) the State desires to try codefendant Cory York prior to Chris Harpin, (b) Cory York’s case is not currently in a posture for trial due to writ applications pending with the Louisiana Supreme Court which could be dispositive of his case, and (c) defense counsel for Harpin has relied upon the State’s representations relative to trying the York case first in delaying the expense of preparing for trial.

Undersigned defense counsel does hereby specifically waive the presence of his client for purposes of this motion, consents to the signing of the accompanying order in open court or in chambers, and moves that this matter be set for pretrial hearings at 10 a.m. on October 25 2024, and jury trial on October 28, 2024.

We will point out that we have seen only one subpoena issued pertaining to the Harpin trial, and it is this subpoena by Harpin seeking the testimony of FBI Special Agent Glenn “Jeff” Methvin.  Our best assessment of that subpoena harkens us back to December of 2021 when a Federal Grand Jury was empaneled entailing any possible indictments against anyone on the scene on May 10, 2019, the day of Greene’s in-custody death.

We received what we deem to be reliable reports way back then that the Federal Grand Jury struggled mightily with ascertaining whether pepper spray was used in Greene’s arrest.  That is the charge pending against Harpin, and our best assessment of Methvin’s role as a defense witness will be to cast doubt on whether pepper spray was in fact used.

As everyone may recall, former LSP Sergeant Albert Paxton, at the 4:46 – 4:50 mark of this March 22, 2022 testimony of Paxton before the House Greene Committee, stated:  “I think, based on the evidence, that they’re putting OC spray in his face.”

This is why we’ve emphasized that Paxton is likely to be a star witness for the prosecution; however, we’ve also emphasized that we, “wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of John Belton (Hugo Holland) when it comes time for cross-examination.”

We are not going to extensively rehash why we believe that Paxton’s credibility is going to be problematic for the prosecution, but we believe it’s a horrendously-bad look that Paxton changed his testimony within mere minutes on the just-linked video regarding when he first learned of the Clary body-cam video.  His testimony changed from learning of the video on or around October 2, 2020 (corroborated by LSP’s then Use-of-Force Expert, Scott Davis, who we’d anticipate being another prosecution witness), to April 9, 2021.

A Supplemental Report was then drafted by Paxton and electronically signed by him on May 6, 2021 at 2:39 p.m.  That same Supplemental Report was then subsequently signed by Paxton’s then-supervisor, Johnny Scott Brown, a mere three minutes later at 2:42 p.m.

That report points the finger of blame entailing the Clary video (which, in reality had never been concealed by Clary at all) directly at Clary.

The report wound up in the hands of the media, and voila, the whole Clary disaster took full flight 18 days later, on May 24, 2021.  It is something that LSP should absolutely and without question hold its collective head in utter shame over, and that is why we’ve openly called for a full-blown LSP investigation into just what happened in the months of April and May of 2021 regarding the Greene matter.

At this point, our best guess is that the “investigation” will transpire in open court as we firmly expect a number of very probing questions will be posed by all three defense attorneys (T. Taylor Townsend, another prominent lawyer representing York, is often overshadowed by Small, but we suspect there will be some legal muscle flexed by him during York’s trial as well).

Now, regarding our quote above regarding York and his pending appeal before the Louisiana Supreme Court, we can only surmise that a response is expected back from the Court in time for a September 23, 2024 York trial commencement.

We didn’t hesitate to speculate on how the Second Circuit Court of Appeals would rule on York’s Quash Motion (that it would be granted), so we’re not going to become timid at this stage of the game.

It’s our opinion that the Louisiana Supreme Court is going to grant the Motion to Quash.

Why?  Because whatever the Supreme Court rules is going to set case law on the matter and, if the Writ is denied, we believe it’s going to have a very chilling effect on law enforcement officers who are called into Internal Affairs for interviews!

After all, when an officer is told, “nothing you say in this interview can be used against you in a criminal prosecution,” and then actual audio of the interview itself as well as the report derived in part from the interview are then turned right over to the prosecution, to us, at least, that is a big-time problem!

The prosecution calls it a “mistake” and admits that it never should have happened.  The problem, at least in our eyes, in taking a no-harm-no-foul approach is that law enforcement officers across Louisiana will likely take heed of what happened in this matter, and they are much more likely to clam up completely without an attorney present if there is even the most infinitesimal chance that a criminal charge may arise from their words uttered during the interview.

In other words, the Louisiana Supreme Court’s ruling on this matter is going to extend far beyond Kory York in the Ronald Greene criminal case, and we believe the prospective adverse impact on future law enforcement officers’ willingness to cooperate in such internal affairs investigations is simply too great to deny the Motion to Quash.

That’s our thoughts for what they may be worth.

At any rate, irrespective of whether we’re right on the Supreme Court’s ruling on York’s Motion to Quash, it appears things are very likely to get very interesting in the Ronald Greene matter once football season arrives this year!

Daniel Erspamer, CEO of the Pelican Institute, addresses the Baton Rouge Press Club on Monday, February 12, 2024.

Daniel Erspamer, CEO of The Pelican Institute, a free-market think tank based in New Orleans, Louisiana, was the guest speaker at the Baton Rouge Press Club meeting of Monday, February 12, 2024.  Erspamer covered a number of topics, and we are going to cover those topics in individual features.

Given that today is the opening day of Gov. Landry’s Special Session on Crime, we’ll start our coverage with commentary that Erspamer provided regarding the potential for “knee-jerk reactions” to perceptions that criminal justice reform initiatives of 2017 wherein nonviolent criminals obtained releases from prison, which were championed by the Edwards administration but strongly supported by the Pelican Institute, may not be working.

In fact, a gentleman speaking on behalf of Catholic charities posed a question of Erspamer echoing Erspamer’s  concerns and stating that, given what some of the bills may entail, “we have our work cut out for us.”  Let’s take a look at Erspamer’s commentary as well as his fielding of the question regarding the crime initiatives set to kick off with today’s Special Session of the Legislature:

2/12/24:  Erspamer expresses some concern over potential content of bills introduced for the 2024 Special Session on Crime and fields a question on same.

Earlier today (Monday, February 19, 2024), the Legislature provided this index of bills filed by category which folk may find as a useful tool to get a general feel of the nature of the bills which have been filed.  Thereafter, anyone can use the Bill Search webpage for the Special Session to ascertain where a given bill stands in the process of being enacted into law and, if so inclined, show up and testify at Committee hearings on individual bills.

As we mentioned, we’ll be covering other aspects of Erspamer’s presentation in coming days and weeks; however, for those who like to “skip ahead” a little, we’ll be placing a heavy focus on Erspamer’s commentary on occupational licensing in Louisiana, which still ranks as the single issue about which Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns is most passionate.  In fact, it was Burns’ own frustrations with the Louisiana Auctioneer Licensing Board (LALB) and the inherent corruption which he asserts has been present for decades on that Board which led to the very formation of this blog.

As part of that “jump ahead” for those curious, however, we would draw everyone’s attention to this Federal lawsuit filed by would-be florist Angele Mixson, who is represented by the Pelican Institute.  The suit was filed on Wednesday, April 14, 2024.  Mixson asserts that she became passionate about floristry after the heartbreaking death of her 26-year-old daughter from fentanyl poisoning.  Mixson would arrange flowers at her daughter’s gravesite.  We would encourage anyone to click on the lawsuit and scroll to page 45 to begin seeing some of the beautiful arrangements created by Mixson.

Nevertheless, on November 2, 2023, Tina Peltier, Director of Louisiana’s Horticulture and Quarantine Commission, sent Mixson a letter informing her that she had failed the retail licensing exam for florists with a score of 25 (see page 80 of the lawsuit linked above).  The minimum passing score is 70.  The letter concludes by stating, “if you need further information…….,” but Mixson obviously decided she had all the “information” she needed for filing the above-linked lawsuit in Federal Court.  We’ll monitor it as well as other initiatives of the Pelican Institute and keep site visitors abreast of developments as they unfold.