Louisiana State Police Commission Member Jared Caruso-Riecke
At the meeting of the Louisiana State Police Commission (LSPC) of Thursday, January 10, 2019, retired LSP Trooper Leon “Bucky” Millet called for the “immediate resignations” of three LSPC members over what Millet contends are “illegal political activities” entailing campaign contributions. Here’s a condensed (less than two minutes) video of the allegations and member Jared Caruso-Riecke’s initial response:
Millet lodges his complaint and Riecke provides his initial verbal response at the 1/10/19 LSPC meeting.
Riecke has vigorously denied Millet’s allegations as “erroneous.” We’ll now break down developments since that January 10, 2019 LSPC meeting:
1. We made the following public records request of the LSPC on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 9:25 p.m.:
2. The next day, Wednesday, January 16, 2019 at 12:13 p.m., LSPC Executive Director, Jason Hannaman, solicited from Riecke documentation which would be responsive to our request; furthermore, eight minutes later, 1/16/19 @ 12:21 p.m., Riecke indicated, “My response to these erroneous allegations against me will be sent to you digitally via email with hard copy to follow via Federal Express, no later than Friday, January 18, 2019.” That email exchange follows:
3. Riecke provided documentation to Hannaman as follows:
A. A letter response dated one day after his email (i.e. January 17, 2019). That letter follows:
B. A letter from Rep. Mark Wright to Riecke begging forgiveness of Riecke dated January 10, 2019, which follows:
C. The original campaign finance report page stated to be “incorrect,” which follows:
D. The “corrected” campaign finance report page, which shows changes to include #1) the contributor (changed from “Riecke and Associates” to “Denis Riecke”), #2) the date (from July 1, 2017 to July 11, 2017), and #3) the address (from 301 North Columbia St. Covington, Louisiana 70483 to 68 Spruce Street, Covington, Louisiana 70433). That document follows:
E. A copy of the invitation for the event, which follows:
F. An invoice from the restaurant with a hand-written notation that “Denis Riecke” paid “$500 CASH” to Meribo for refreshments for approximately 30 people who attended the event. That invoice (which Riecke references as a “receipt” in his letter) follows:
G. A notarized affidavit executed by Denis Riecke on January 11, 2019 indicating that he and he alone was responsible for the cash payment to the restaurant for the fundraiser. That document follows:
In the conclusion of Riecke’s letter, he states: “I hope my vindication of these charges will be as vigorously and aggressively made public as (the) original allegation.”
We certainly can’t speak for The Advocate or WWL-TV, both of which followed our original feature on this matter, but certainly we at Sound Off Louisiana have laid Commissioner Riecke’s response out about as bare and public as we know how to do. We’ll leave it to our readers to assess his response.
We now conclude with a final recommendation to Rep. Wright, particularly in light of him having lambasted us for having, “let this go public with no investigation of the facts.”
Giving every benefit of the doubt about all these “changed particulars,” and given the readily admitted to submission of a campaign finance report containing: #1) a wrong date, #2) a wrong contributor, and #3) a wrong address of that contributor, we suggest Rep. Wright be a little more diligent on future campaign finance reports. After all, plenty of folk will be more than happy to scrutinize them upon filing and point out (again, giving every benefit of the doubt) what can only be described as rank sloppiness. Hence, it just may be a good idea to “tighten the ship a bit” for future filings and not seek a scapegoat (Sound Off Louisiana in this instance) because, being blunt, we have absolutely no intention of being anyone’s scapegoat!
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Not one person that signed the documents he submitted has not been paid by Jared Riecke either directly or indirectly (witnesses to notarized docs). Julian Rodrigue was his business partner and shepherd of the family trust at the time of signing of the affidavit. Talk about circling the wagons.