Former Louisiana State Police Lt. Colonel Jay Oliphant, whom Natchitoches Mayor Ronnie Williams, Jr., announced on Wednesday, December 7, 2022 that he was tapping to be his Director of Public Safety pending City Council approval on Monday, December 12, 2022.
On Wednesday, December 7, 2022 at 2:40 p.m., we got a call asking us to watch a live stream YouTube video.
What was it? Well, it seems the City of Natchitoches, with about $500,000 in spare change just lying around, had its Mayor, Ronnie Williams, Jr., call a rather impromptu news conference at 2:30 p.m. (he’d be asked about the timing near the end of the news conference) to indicate that the City would spend that spare change to hire former Louisiana State Police (LSP) Col. Jay Oliphant as its Director of Public Safety. It was Oliphant who was considered an extreme long shot to replace outgoing Col. Kevin Reeves, and he was known to be extremely tight with and loyal to Reeves.
Let’s provide that sudden impromptu news conference for our subscribers and casual site viewers at this time:
12/7/22 2:30 p.m. impromptu news conference called by the Mayor of Natchitoches, Ronnie Williams, Jr., to announce his proposed appointment of former LSP Lt. Col. Jay Oliphant to Director of Natchitoches’ Department of Public Safety and be over its Police Chief and its Fire Chief. The Mayor begins to tout Oliphant beginning at the 7:15 mark of the video, and Oliphant begins speaking at the 11:00 mark.
We here at Sound Off Louisiana would respectfully strongly challenge Mayor Williams’ touting of Oliphant’s LSP accomplishments, particularly when he headed patrol and permitted a significant number of problematic acts by troopers to transpire under his tenure. We now present excerpts of a video we produced on January 6, 2021 entailing those problematic acts together with links for news features entailing them:
Excerpts from January 6, 2021 video presented by Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns.
Links for episodes referenced by Burns for areas overseen by former Lieutenant Colonel Jay Oliphant follow:
Near the end of the news conference, Mayor Williams opened it up for Q & A. One attendee asked where the money was coming from for this $500,000 outlay. In layman’s terms, the responder essentially indicated that it was just lying around.
Everyone knows the old saying about money burning a hole in one’s pocket. Looks to us like that’s the case with the City of Natchitoches.
We understand the City Council will take up Williams’ proposal Monday night (December 12, 2022). We think we’ll tune in to the live stream just to watch how it goes!
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In a nutshell, Cavalier asserts there never was a “meeting of the minds” (to which we concur), while LSP claims there was. LSP also asserts a, “binding, enforceable agreement” was reached notwithstanding that no such agreement was reduced to writing nor was any such agreement even formally entered into the record.
We have consulted with a few legal minds regarding the matter, and at least one had sharp words for U. S. Magistrate Judge Richard Bourgeois in stating that he, “botched this whole settlement with the manner in which he handled all of this.” The source said the proper thing to have done would have been to have ironed out the oral agreement and then immediately gone into open court and permanently memorialized the terms of the settlement by formally reading it into the official court record.
Both Motions have been referred on to Federal Judge John deGravelles for rulings. Once he has made any such rulings (or set a date for oral arguments to be posed for same if he goes that route), we’ll certainly update our subscribership.
What we want to do in this feature, however, is to provide some of the highlighted quotes that attorney Jill Craft, Cavalier’s former attorney, who withdrew once Cavalier ultimately balked at the $200,000 settlement, made in recorded phone conversations with Craft which Cavalier’s newly-enrolled lawyers, Dr. James C. Carver and Clifton J. Ivey, included as part of their own Motion to Reopen Cause and Rescind Proposed Settlement.
Why are we doing this? Simple! We believe that Craft, in those recorded phone calls of September 2, 2022 and September 27, 2022 and one undated recorded conversation merely labeled as, “Ex. 5 – Transcription of Audio Recording of Conversation between Jill Craft and Carl Cavalier regarding a Motion to Discontinue the Settlement,” offer a graduate-level course in suing a state governmental entity.
Further, with 32 years experience in doing just that (suing state agencies on behalf of former employees and whistleblowers), there probably is no better expert on the subject than Craft, so we believe the insight she unwittingly provided via those recorded phone calls is absolutely invaluable to anyone contemplating filing just such a suit!
Before we provide some of Craft’s quotes, however, we do want to emphasize one thing that we find very crucial. On April 14, 2022, Craft was very emphatic that she “did not” want to “continue” (i.e. postpone) Cavalier’s hearing before the Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC) to get his job back. She was angry at LSP and two retired LSP officials for having dishonored her subpoenas and thereby delaying Cavalier’s efforts to obtain his job back. Further, on or around May 14, 2022, again speaking before the LSPC, Craft lamented that Cavalier’s hearing was once again being delayed, and she was not happy and wanted to get the show on the road. Let’s refresh everyone’s memory with Craft’s commentary before the LSPC at this time:
April 14, 2022 and May 14, 2022 LSPC Meetings during which former Cavalier attorney Jill Craft pushes hard for his LSPC hearing to proceed and laments LSP’s delay tactics.
We provide the above video mainly to contrast how drastically Craft’s eagerness for Cavalier to have his day before the LSPC plummeted in Cavalier’s recorded phone calls. What changed? Well, the only thing we can think of is that, on the video above, there was no $200,000 offer from LSP on the table. Obviously, as evidenced by the contents of the recorded phone calls, once that $200,000 offer surfaced, Cavalier claims Craft hauled off and, “switched up on me overnight.”
O. K. Now for a few quotes by Craft and/or Cavalier:
JILL CRAFT:
Carl — Carl, you agreed to settle everything, so that’s the problem.
CARL CAVALIER:
Yeah, but it — it concerns me, just like I told you before, Miss Jill, that you switched up on me overnight. Like you thought this was the best case ever, and then all of a sudden you think I need to settle.
JILL CRAFT:
Nobody (inaudible) overnight. What part of the judge telling you it was a fantastic settlement did you not hear?
CARL CAVALIER:
Yeah, I heard the judge saying a fantastic settlement, but, as my counsel, you knew how I felt about that. I didn’t think it was a fantastic settlement. And you knew that. I told you that, Miss Jill.
As we’ve stated, legal minds we’ve consulted strongly chastised Magistrate Judge Bourgeois for his entire handling of the settlement process, but one thing we want to point out is our own observation. We firmly believe that Bourgeois had no business whatsoever telling anyone that LSP’s offer constituted a, “fantastic offer.” That is not supposed to be his role in attempting to mediate a settlement, and for him to have uttered such a statement, from our perspective, had the following unspoken words attached to his characterization of the offer as “fantastic”: “Because you’re sure as hell not going to get a settlement that high in proceeding forward with this case.”
We buttress our contention via this August 17, 2022 Order Staying Discovery pending the outcome of this December 30, 2021 Motion to Dismiss filed by LSP. We are not at all baffled by any influence Gov. Edwards’ folk (or he himself) and their potential influence over the $200,000 offer being made; however, we are quite perplexed by Attorney General (and only announced candidate for Louisiana Governor) Jeff Landry agreeing to extend the offer, and it is Landry who has final say over making such an offer. As we’ve stated before, however, we’ll leave that explanation for Landry to make next year as he pursues being Louisiana’s next Governor (unless he opts to drop out of the race if U. S. Sen. John Kennedy opts to run).
Okay. Time for more graduate-level guidance on suing state agencies compliments of attorney Jill Craft:
JILL CRAFT:
It’s possible. Yeah. I mean, I just, I worry a lot, because we’ve got the EEOC plugged in, you know, in negotiations. The court system. You know, everybody under the sun.
CARL CAVALIER:
Yeah.
JILL CRAFT:
So, I mean that is something that intangibly could also be negative for you. And it’s something that I’m not willing to tell you, you know, make a knee-jerk reaction and and do this. That’s just not smart.
CARL CAVALIER:
Okay.
CARL CAVALIER:
What happens to the EEOC case in the meantime?
JILL CRAFT:
There’s no — Carl, what she is likely going to do is kick it back to enforcement. But you need to understand, the EEOC doesn’t investigate anything. They can’t. That was one of the emails I sent you.
CARL CAVALIER:
Yeah, I know, but what’s the point of filing the EEOC claim if they can’t —
JILL CRAFT:
Title 7 requires you do so. It requires that you file (inaudible) with the EEOC. That’s a Labor Department matter (inaudible). And the only (inaudible), really, is the retaliation. Racism. The state (inaudible) claim does the same thing, but the EEOC claim is kind of like your belt and suspenders.
CARL CAVALIER:
Okay.
JILL CRAFT:
But the point is, that’s still on the calendar. It got upended because the (inaudible). EEOC, there’s nothing that’s going to happen. They’re not going to investigate your charges no matter what happens. Because they can’t. Because (inaudible) or — or whatever, there’s — they get thousands of charges (inaudible), and there are three investigators in the New Orleans office.
CARL CAVALIER:
So you’re saying there’s no possible way they’re going to investigate it, or they just — it’s a slim chance because they don’t have the number of investigators to do so?
JILL CRAFT:
Right. There’s no way — I can tell you, from my experience, it would be extraordinarily rare if they did. Extraordinarily rare.
JILL CRAFT:
But they set them up in 1964 as a clearinghouse, and back then the EEOC actually did things. But it’s gotten so big, and the issues of discrimination so systemic, that the EEOC frankly has no resources by which they can investigate or do anything.
CARL CAVALIER:
Are the, um — is — at some point, will Miss Goff or the EEOC tell us, Hey, we can’t or we won’t investigate this?
JILL CRAFT:
No. All she is, is she is in the mediation, the conciliation section. She doesn’t investigate.
CARL CAVALIER:
Okay. What, um — so as of now, what — what answers — what questions did you need answered from me?· Like as far as going forward —
JILL CRAFT:
(Inaudible) I just wanted to explain to you what my thought process was in terms of let’s get the magistrate involved now, and let’s see if she can’t broker — I think it’s a she on your case can’t broker resolving the remaining issues that the parties don’t agree on. And I’d like the flexibility of, Okay, if you’re not going to agree to the non-monetary stuff, then you’re going to have to pay him more money. But I need an 800-pound gorilla to do that, meaning, I need a federal judge person. The EEOC woman, Ms. Goff? Nice, wonderful, but she has no power.
CARL CAVALIER:
All right. Well, how about this. How about we let our Commission hearings happen first? At least the ones —
JILL CRAFT:
No. I do not agree with that, Carl. No.
CARL CAVALIER:
Why not?
JILL CRAFT:
Because you lose settlement leverage. You lose all the leverage you have right now. The leverage you have right now is the great unknown. Okay? That’s what you lose. So my recommendation, absolutely, 100 percent, is let’s get in front of the magistrate and see if she can iron out these last issues. But — but why would you want to lose leverage?
CARL CAVALIER:
I definitely don’t want to lose leverage, but — but I mean they have been kicking me in my ass, and still have intentions of kicking me in my ass, obviously, so I would — I don’t see me losing anything
going to the Commission and — and —
JILL CRAFT:
You’re losing (inaudible) 90 percent of your case goes out the window.
CARL CAVALIER:
I lose what?
JILL CRAFT:
You absolutely lose leverage. Right now you have the pressure of — the termination hearing is set for November 10th.
CARL CAVALIER:
Correct.
JILL CRAFT:
Right now you have the pressure of an existing federal lawsuit and no decision on the motion to dismiss. Right now you have all of those pressures on your side. The unknown. I mean that — that’s what I — that’s what I need — I would like for you to understand, is that is in a — you’re in a good position to settle your case now. Because we’re not having to fight, if the Commission goes south, in the Court of Appeal on whether or not your termination was appropriate or inappropriate.
CARL CAVALIER:
Well, my — my thing is — my thing is this: Why would I settle, you know, or be willing to settle, on terms that I don’t agree to? I don’t agree to those terms.
JILL CRAFT:
I’m not asking you to do that, Carl. All I’m saying is, let’s go talk to the magistrate and see if she can help them see the light and agree to the terms that you will. That’s all I’m suggesting.
CARL CAVALIER:
Yeah, I — I just feel like we miss out on things that, you know, that comes out in the Commission hearing and all — you know, all those things that we can, you know, possibly use later on, you know, if we have to go forward and fight. I mean it seem like we have to go forward and fight —
JILL CRAFT:
Carl, the Commission hearing’s not going anywhere.
CARL CAVALIER:
It’s going —
JILL CRAFT:
I need you to trust me, honestly.
CARL CAVALIER:
Yeah, I — I understand that, but, I’m — I’m not comfortable.· I’m not — I’m not comfortable, and I’m not comfortable for a reason —
JILL CRAFT:
(Inaudible due to cross-talk). You’re not doing anything, Carl. Except — all I’m telling you is, we need to get in front of the magistrate so she can help us secure the non-monetary stuff that you want. And now is the time to do it.
CARL CAVALIER:
I get that. I get it. I promise you I get it. I get the avenue you want to take, I get it. But I’m just talking about the timing of it. And I heard your explanation of the timing of it and losing leverage. I get that. But I need time to think about that, because I — I just — I just don’t see, you know — I just don’t see why we need to rush and go to the magistrate right now, as far as the leverage things go. If the magistrate is there, it’s going to be there.
JILL CRAFT:
Carl, you’re going to have to trust me, and you’re going to have to, I think — because I know what it means if you have a bad result in front of the Commission and what that does to the rest of your case. It — as we talked about before, it kills it. If the Commission concludes that your termination was in good faith and for cause, your only avenue at that point in time is to appeal that to the First Circuit Court of Appeal.
CARL CAVALIER:
Correct.
JILL CRAFT:
But Carl, the — the First Circuit Court of Appeal — please go look at those decisions, because I litigate there too. You have — if you lose in front of the Commission, your chances on appeal aren’t that great.
CARL CAVALIER:
So you’re saying — that appeals, they’re — they’re going to agree with the Commission, most likely? That’s what you’re saying?··They’re not going to look at the case?
JILL CRAFT:
The majority of times, yeah.
JILL CRAFT:
I am very concerned that, at the end of the day, with watching what I see in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal and what they’re doing — I mean they just issued a — a whistleblower case, a 1983 First Amendment case where they dismissed half of it, for no good reason. But we have the most conservative federal appellate district in the United States right here in New Orleans. It unfortunately, in the last five years, got stacked with a bunch of judges who really don’t give a shit about civil rights. And so what I’m seeing as a trend line coming out of the Fifth Circuit is, dismissing employment claims, whistleblower claims, discrimination claims, because they can, not because they should……..
And then the final thing is, if the State Police Commission — if — and I don’t necessarily think it’s set in stone, but I sure as shit don’t like those people. But if they were to rule that your termination was — was lawful, your claims in front of that federal judge are now significantly diminished……
We reached out to the LSPC to inquire if Chairman Simien desired to comment on the above quote by Craft concerning the LSPC. This is Chairman Simien’s response: “Since this is a matter currently pending before the Commission, I am not in the position to make any comments.”
Things should only get even more interesting, huh?
We doubt anyone would challenge our contention that attorney Jill Craft offered all of us a graduate-level class on suing state government agencies alleging discrimination or whistle-blowing, and we, for certain, found it to be very, very eye-opening and we trust many of our readers and subscribers (especially potential filers of such suits) did as well. The best part? She charged us no tuition!
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Also, when we published this feature on Ronald Greene’s mother chastising LSP Col. Lamar Davis, we assumed (incorrectly, as it turns out) that most video viewers would know exactly what Ms. Mona Hardin (Greene’s mother) was talking about when she indicated she “hates like hell” the “back-door deals” being done in her son’s case.
Our assumption was wrong because some of the most dedicated subscribers to our blog indicated to us that they did not know what she was referencing. Hence, let’s spell it out in no uncertain terms! The most prominent “back-door deal” Ms. Hardin was referencing was this $200,000 settlement offer made to fired LSP Trooper Carl Cavalier which was clearly made in an effort to shut him up about what all transpired in Greene’s death and the ensuing massive coverup of same and make him just go away off into the sunset.
Let’s take just a moment to isolate Ms. Hardin voicing her frustration over these “back-door deals.”:
Mona Hardin, Ronald Greene’s mother, states how much she “hates” the “back-door deals” being cut regarding her son’s death. By far the most prominent of those “back-door deals” was the $200,000 (of which, after attorneys fees and costs, the offer would likely approximate $110,000 or so) offered to LSP Trooper Carl Cavalier with the stipulation that he just go away and shut his mouth about what all transpired in her son’s death at the hands of LSP.
Of course, as we have reported, Cavalier has indicated to us that he had zero interest in merely accepting the money (which Ms. Hardin has previously said would be nothing short of “blood money”) if it meant he did not get his job back.
He made that crystal clear to us from the outset of our discussions with him a long time ago.
Obviously, as everyone is aware, we’ve extensively provided video coverage of both he and former attorney Craft’s efforts to obtain his job back through meetings at the Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC) to accomplish that very goal. For Craft to just throw in the towel and try to “coerce” Cavalier into just “taking the money and run” (which would, of course, result in a huge payday for her as well) causes us to openly question why she engaged in such extensive efforts in front of the LSPC in the first place!
Being blunt, if her true belief was that the LSPC would “never” agree to grant Cavalier his job back, then why go through all those extensive efforts and tie up the massive amount of LSPC members’ time if she thought any such potential was dead on arrival given that Col. Davis would actively and forcefully testify against Cavalier’s reinstatement (which he most certainly would)?
Whatever the case on Craft’s extensive efforts before the LSPC, on November 3, 2022, Judge John W. deGravelles signed an order permitting attorneys James C. Carver and Clifton Ivey to enroll as Cavalier’s Counsel of Record. Earlier today (Wednesday, November 30, 2022), those two attorneys filed this motion to reopen the cause and rescind the proposed settlement.
We’re not bragging (well, maybe just a little), but when we published this feature on October 22, 2022, we predicted that the settlement would ultimately not be enforceable due to there being an absence of a “meeting of the minds.” [The business law classes they require CPAs to take and the fact that the CPA exam is 25% business law questions come in handy from time to time]. From the feature just linked:
Here is our take on the matter. If Cavalier reached a settlement under the mistaken belief that settling the Federal litigation had no impact upon his ability to obtain his job back (i.e. agree never to work for LSP again), and we don’t know whether that’s the case or not and are not about to ask Cavalier if that is the case, then, in our minds, there never was a required “meeting of the minds” at the Settlement Conference for which the $200,000 can literally be crammed down his throat and him be told, “That’s it for you ever working for LSP again.”
As part of the Cathy Derbonne (former LSPC Executive Director) settlement, she had to execute a document which specified that she would never seek employment with the LSPC again. If Cavalier reached agreement on the $200,000 settlement but didn’t understand that it also meant he could not continue to pursue employment with LSP, then our own opinion, for what that’s worth, is that he is on sound ground for the settlement to be rejected based on a lack of full and complete “meeting of the minds.”
Now let’s take a look at some highpoints of Carver and Ivey’s Motion:
The instant matter was dismissed, without prejudice, subject to a sixty (60) day reopen period if the Settlement was not consummated. The alleged Settlement was oral and was never consummated nor reduced to writing. Further, the Oral Settlement was never offered in open court. There is no transcript of any agreement to a settlement.
In addition, Plaintiff’s objections to the terms of the proposed Oral Settlement were never included in the settlement discussions. Plaintiff’s attorney, at the time of the purported Oral Settlement discussions, refused to follow her client’s demands to ask for reinstatement to his job with the Louisiana State Police as part of any settlement. Counsel for Plaintiff coerced Plaintiff into apparently agreeing to the Oral Settlement. Since there was no actual meeting of the minds, the purported agreement to settle was forced onto Plaintiff under duress.
Wow! One doesn’t get more damning words entailing Cavalier’s former attorney, Jill Craft, no? Furthermore, the scenario described is even far worse than what we’d assessed. Judging by the wording of the above Motion, it appears Cavalier did understand the settlement and its terms but that Craft, “refused to follow her client’s demands to ask for reinstatement to his job.” Follow that up with, “Counsel (Craft) coerced Plaintiff (Cavalier) into apparently agreeing to the Oral Settlement…..was forced onto Plaintiff under duress,” and all we can say is that we’ve sat through tons of court hearings and we have read tons and tons of court pleadings, and we have to rank this court pleading as being among the top three we’ve ever read in our many years in terms of alleged attorney misconduct.
From our standpoint, the entire veil of secrecy of the attempted settlement smacks of the same type secrecy which led to the massive coverup of Ronald Greene’s death in the first place. Being blunt, it’s despicable! We are beyond elated that Cavalier has chosen two attorneys who are so willing to expose just what all allegedly transpired (particularly on the part of former Counsel Jill Craft if their allegations are true) because it smacks of, as Hardin states on the brief video above, pure-rank “politics” entailing the death of a man that never should have transpired on or around May 9, 2019!
We’re sure this will be covered by local media in short order, and we’d love to see if Craft is willing to make a statement on camera to those media outlets!
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