Louisiana State Police Retirement Board Executive Director Irwin Felps, Jr., who increasingly appears to have committed perjury in his testimony at an April 8, 2019 court hearing entailing litigation by Shelley Sebastian, whom he fired twice (January 7, 2019 and March 27, 2019).
In our most recent feature, we indicated that Louisiana State Police Retirement Board (LSPRB) Executive Director Irwin Felps, Jr., gave “inaccurate testimony” in a courtroom proceeding on April 8, 2019 entailing litigation filed by former assistant Shelley Sebastian, whom Felps fired twice: January 7, 2019 and March 27, 2019.
We pointed out then that Felps testified that all arrangements for Department of Public Safety (DPS) security for Sebastian’s March 11, 2019 return to work was “oral with none of it being in writing.” We provided email exchanges between DPS and LSPRB which directly refute Felps’ sworn testimony.
We tried to be kind and give Felps every benefit of the doubt in that, since his email account was not among those in the email chain regarding such security discussions, it was at least possible that he did not have knowledge of the email exchanges. Under that scenario, it would mean horrendously bad internal communication is applicable among LSPRB staff, but at least it would mean Felps did not commit perjury on the witness stand.
The reality, however, is that statement was not the only falsehood Felps uttered on the witness stand. When questioned by Sebastian’s attorney, Tammeral Hills, regarding whether Sebastian was a specifically-itemized entry on the February 27, 2019 meeting agenda, Felps responded, “No. I think it was just labeled personnel matters.” Well, here’s a copy of the agenda with Sebastian’s entry highlighted:
Since Felps signed the agenda, one would think he would know that Sebastian is very clearly an itemized entry on that agenda!
The most damning falsehood uttered by Felps, however, transpired when Hills asked him if any of the computers in the LSPRB office had been “wiped.” Felps flatly stated that no such “wiping” transpired. The following invoice for outside computer services, which Felps signed approving payment of, plainly states for computer technicians to “take all hard drives and destructively wipe them reformat old server and old desktops.”
Pay close attention to the date of that invoice: November 13, 2018. Why is that date critical? Because, while it should be noted that the following email may not have been among emails and files recovered from the “non-wiping” by the LSPRB office (29,000 such emails were recovered notwithstanding Felps’ sworn April 8, 2019 testimony that “no files were wiped”) only six days before, Felps and his Assistant Director, Kimberly Gann, openly discussed terminating Administrative Assistant Shelly Sebastian:
Now, Sound Off Louisiana has been provided with an absolute plethora of emails being supplied to Louisiana Civil Service entailing Sebastian’s appeal of her double-termination, and we’re going to provide just a small appetizer of two such emails today:
1. On Wednesday, November 4, 2015, 17 days before the election for Louisiana Governor, Tausha Facundus, LSPRB Retirement Benefits Analyst, sent Felps and Gann an email linking this Advocate article which outlined three polls showing then-candidate John Bel Edwards leading then-U. S. Senator David Vitter in the race for Governor, with Facundus point-blank stating that the polls were, “hopefully a good sign.”:
2. The office was clearly strongly supporting Edwards to win the race, and Gann responded back with the following email wherein Sebastian is lambasted for apparently not voting (perhaps she supported Sen. Vitter and was afraid if she admitted as much her termination would be even more expedited?):
When we published our initial feature on Sebastian, we stated that Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns, “found her (Sebastian) to be unbelievably friendly, warm, courteous.”
Burns founded Sound Off Louisiana mere months before the 2015 election for Governor, and he was quite vocal in his support for Vitter! Perhaps Sebastian was so kind and courteous to Burns because she shared his enthusiasm for Vitter but knew in light of the preceding email that she had to represent to her cowokers that she simply just “didn’t vote” because apparently admitting one did not support John Bel Edwards’ candidacy for Governor in 2015 likely may have meant a quick career end, her classified status notwithstanding.
At any rate, even if Sebastian simply does opt not to vote, that his HER RIGHT, and contrary to Facundus’ assertion above that Sebastian, “doesn’t know jack s— about politics or politicians,” it is her right to believe, “they are all idiots,” if she so chooses!
Further, contrary to Gann’s assessment that “not voting” means Sebastian has “no right,” her mere act of refraining from voting does not deny her ANY right (including that of being employed by State government)! Yes, we at Sound Off Louisiana openly encourage voting, but in the end, that’s an individual’s own prerogative to not vote if he/she so chooses, and the commentary of Gann and Facundus above is absolutely inexcusable. It is therefore no wonder Felps and Gann sought to have computer hard drives “wiped” of such material, notwithstanding Felps’ sworn testimony that no such “wiping” transpired!
We are FAR, FAR from done entailing the damning emails now in our possession, but as almost all subscribers know by now, this is a video blog, and we always provide a video.
Well, the video we will provide today is a grand total of one (1) minute. At the meeting of the LSPRB yesterday, April 24, 2019, the members, led by Felps, lamented the $16,000 in legal fees they’ve incurred entailing Sebastian’s litigation. Our observation is, “the party is just getting started,” Felps and crew, so here’s our video tribute to the entirety of the LSPRB to close out this feature:
One minute video of LSPRB’s lamenting of $16,000 in legal fees thus far for the Sebastian litigation.
Based on the foregoing material (and we have merely given a very small sampling of the damning emails), the LSPRB appears to unquestionably be “behind the eight ball” regarding its standing for the Sebastian civil service appeal. As our good friend Rev. Freddie Lee Phillips is fond of saying, “It don’t look good for the home team.”
We’ll have the next installment of this series out soon and, take it to the bank, our video camera will be there to record every second of the appeal hearing of Shelley Sebastian!
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