Sound Off Louisiana

Union Parish District Attorney John Belton.

We hope everyone has a happy Labor Day extended weekend.

This will be a very brief post.  When we posted this feature on LSP Trooper Kory York’s Kastigar hearing, we stressed that York’s attorney, J. Michael Small, openly expressed his opinion that use-of-force expert Seth Stoughton, whom the State retained to assist with its prosecution of York, actually listened to an internal affairs interview York voluntarily agreed to with the understanding that nothing he said in that interview could be, “used in any way, shape, or form” entailing a criminal prosecution.

From that feature:

Small attacked the affidavit as, “not having an eighth point which would have revealed whether Stoughton listened to the interview  between Trooper York and Sergeant Mike Talley,” who conducted the interview with York and ultimately authored the Internal Affairs report.  Small stated that he personally believes that Stoughton did listen to an audio of the interview.

Both sides indicated that a supplemental affidavit would be entered into the record indicating whether Stoughton did or did not listen to the interview.  That was done on Monday, August 28, 2023 when Assistant DA Hugo Holland filed this affidavit into the public record wherein Stoughton admits that he did in fact listen to the interview.  From the affidavit:

5. In the course of his retention, he was provided with and listened to an audio-recorded statement of an administrative interview of Kory York (200915-1002 Koy (sic) York.mp3).

Make sure the words “provided with” aren’t glossed over!  We’ll explain why momentarily!

We also published in the preceding feature that Small asked the rhetorical question of whether the State’s action was “intentional.”  Again, from that feature:

Small even went so far as to rhetorically ask, “Was it intentional?”   Belton, notwithstanding his prior umbrage taken to Harpin defense attorney Eugene Cicardo at a prior court hearing wherein Cicardo indicated that Belton just needed to, “be a man” and provide the particulars on the nature of the specific acts that formed the predicates for Harpin’s indictment counts, curiously had no reaction at all to what, to us at least, would seem a far more inflammatory inquiry from Small.

Here’s a question we have for Belton, who presumably listened to the interview as well:

What part of, “will not be used against you in any way, shape, or form in a criminal prosecution” is not clear?  That fact is clearly stated during the interview, and yet the tape is handed over to a use-of-force expert (whom Small has referred in open  court to as, “the State’s hired gun,”) whose job it is to assist the prosecution in evaluating whether excess force was used in the matter as part of its criminal prosecution.  That tape is simply handed over (with that statement made very early on in the recorded interview) to that use-of-force expert (Seth Stoughton)!  Geez!!!!!!!!!!!

We also believe that it was incumbent upon Stoughton to have, upon hearing that segment of the audio file which he now admits he listened to (i.e. the part of no statement being able to be used in a criminal proceeding), shown a high level of ethics and have gone to Belton and indicated that he was not sure why he obtained either the interview recording or the IA report but, given that he had, he felt obligated to withdraw from the engagement and afford Belton the opportunity to hire another use-of-force expert with Belton refraining from providing that expert with the two items.

Instead, Stoughton apparently simply opted to accept the money and felt he was under no such obligation.  He apparently was content to let whatever fallout may transpire to simply come crashing down on Belton’s head.  Perhaps Belton and/or Stoughton may have thought Small may not be studious enough to catch the very obvious improper action of Stoughton even having access to that material given its contents regarding York and statements he made.  If so, we could have informed them otherwise and that there is a reason we rank Small among the top four criminal defense attorneys in this state (with the other three being Lewis Unglesby, Mike Fawer, and John McLindon).

Speaking of Small, he filed a Supplement to his Motion to Quash; however, that filing is under seal.

At any rate, our take is that the admission by Stoughton to having listened to the taped interview makes it game, set, match on York’s indictments.  We firmly expect that Judge Thomas Rogers will grant the Motion to Quash all ten (10) of the remaining indictment counts against York in coming days.

As Small indicated in court on August 22, 2023, he is resolute in his belief that his arguments for quashing the indictment counts are strong irrespective of what came back in the affidavit.  With this development, his already-strong arguments seem almost insurmountable to us.

The only question Small must have is, “could it really be this easy?”  Or, perhaps, as he rhetorically inquired as evidenced above, maybe it actually was “intentional.”

Intentional or pure rank complete and total incompetence, it appears to us that York is now totally off the hook entailing any prosecutorial actions arising from Greene’s arrest on May 10, 2019, and Belton need only look in the mirror for why that’s the case!

Louisiana Attorney General (and candidate for Governor) Jeff Landry.

Today, Monday, August 28, 2023, we are continuing our series on C. J. Matthews’ quest to become the next Sheriff of Ascension Parish in the October 14, 2023 election.

As folk are aware, we published this “sidebar” on Thursday, August 24, 2023 as a result of much ado being made (at least by blogger Wade Petite) about Matthews’ off-the-cuff comment that incumbent Sheriff Bobby Webre is not a high school graduate.  As will be very briefly stated in the video to follow momentarily, we firmly believe that Webre indeed is not a high school graduate (as irrelevant as that is), and our contention is based on the following three facts:

1.  The Webre campaign has declined to respond to our open invitation to email a photo of the high school graduation certificate.

2.  Of the tens of thousands of hits our Matthews features have obtained, surely one or more of them is from the East Ascension High School Class of 1982 and, if so, it would seem we would obtain correspondence letting us know that Webre did graduate along with those sending us the correspondence.  We have received no such correspondence.

3.  Petite has made no effort whatsoever to substantiate his claim that Webre did graduate as he published that he did.

Now, time to get eyes back focused on the real issue at hand and, for that, here’s Episode five (5) of our series with C. J. Matthews and what he alleges (and to which we wholeheartedly concur) is a complete cover-up of the salacious texting and [(Matthews-asserted) intentionally] botched  sting operation at which Corder actively tried to meet with the juvenile victim ostensibly to subsequently perform oral sex on him, which she asserted he “continuously” asked of her:

August 28, 2023:  Matthews outlines the contents of this February 12, 2019 Attorney General Investigation Memo and also this November 4, 2019 Attorney General “Closeout Memo.”

Entailing the two documents linked above, we also want to add them to our cumulative table of all Corder documents.  Here’s the updated table:

Now, entailing Matthews’ contention that AG Jeff Landry’s Office only reopened the investigation because Advocate reporter David Mitchell was calling the AG’s Office about the matter prior to Mitchell publishing this January 20, 2019 feature about the whole matter, Burns indicated that he’d had a very similar experience wherein Attorney General Jeff Landry went to great lengths to announce his office was opening an investigation entailing this matter, which attracted the strong attention of KLFY (Channel 10 in Lafayette – see their video production on the preceding link).

About 90 days later, Burns received a call from a reliable and very well-trusted source within Landry’s Office who said, “Mr. Burns, I feel someone owes it to you to let you know that we never began any investigation at all of that matter.”  Burns expressed appreciation to his source and told the source that, “You’re not telling me anything I didn’t strongly suspect to be the case, and I merely assumed Landry closed the investigation 10 minutes after the KLFY camera crew left.”

Now, let’s provide some of the material from the AG Investigation Memo at this time:

Corder responded by asking if she was into older men….. Corder told her he had a wife but she wasn’t doing the things he wanted done sexually. Corder then asked <redacted> if she would perform oral sex on him.

<redacted> advised over the next few days Corder would text her and continuously asked for oral sex…

Corder texted her and asked for a picture of her buttocks or vagina. <redacted> told Corder that she didn’t want to do that and he responded with if you send me a picture of yours, I will send one of myself.

<redacted> stated that she sent Corder a picture of her breast and waited for Corder to respond with a picture. When he didn’t <redacted> asked Corder why did he respond (sic) with the picture of his penis like she asked and Corder responded by stating that he’s a police officer and he would get into trouble.

<redacted> advised she knew something was strange because she has had many contacts with police officers and no police officer has ever asked her for her number much less sexual activity.  <redacted> advised after a few days of chatting with Corder she decided to stop the conversations between them because she did not want the kind of relationship that Corder wanted with Corder.

As Burns indicated on the above video near its end, it’s up to Ascension Parish voters, but the facts have been laid pretty bare by Matthews entailing State Representative candidate (and former Ascension Parish Sheriff) Jeff Wiley.

The same can be said for incumbent Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre, who is running for re-election, and last but not least about Gubernatorial candidate (and current AG) Jeff Landry.

While we hate to admit this, barring some huge unforeseen development, Landry will prevail in his quest for Governor, and that will be his third straight statewide election in which he prevails without having to engage in the first debate.  Yes, we are predicting that he will decline to participate in this Statewide debate of next Thursday, September 7, 2023.

In all fairness, we should note that, in his 2015 campaign for AG, Landry was more than willing to debate incumbent James D. “Buddy” Caldwell; however, Caldwell, believing Landry could not beat him in the race for AG, told the Landry camp there would be no debate.  In the 2019 race for AG, Landry had no meaningful competition, so no debate took place in that race either.

We further predict that Landry will decline any future debate invitations (to include a debate in a Landry-Wilson runoff — if there even is a runoff with the latest poll showing Landry with a staggering 20 percent of the black vote) because he’s been the “ordained candidate” for Governor by the Louisiana GOP “big wigs” for a long time.  Further, his top advisor (whom Burns knows well) is extremely shrewd.  Actually, Burns would much prefer the advisor as Governor and, one day, that may be a distinct possibility in our minds.  Knowing he will hold a key position in the near-certain upcoming Landry administration is at least some measure of comfort and solace in what otherwise is an upcoming development (a Landry landslide)  that certainly gives us pause for concern.

He himself (the advisor) is a champion debater, but he knows full well that  Landry is anything but, and we have no doubt he’s advised Landry that, unless and until another candidate appears to be nipping at Landry’s heels (which now appears about as likely as us purchasing a winning Powerball ticket in Wednesday’s drawing), Landry won’t be participating in any debates.

While that’s a sad development, we have to admit that it’s a near-sure-fire way for Landry to become Louisiana’s next Governor and there’s nothing but downside for him in appearing on any debate stage.

As stated in the above video, hang tight for Episode six (6) of the Matthews series.  It will focus on our good friends over at Louisiana State Police and how they reacted to Matthews’ extensive findings and presentations to them!  Normally, it would be a huge feature, but when anyone considers the abject disastrous  train wreck that is LSP, as we said on the video above, it’s about par for the course at LSP!

Ascension Parish Sheriff candidate C. J. Matthews.

On today, Thursday, August 24, 2023, it was our intent to film segment five (5) of the C. J. Matthews series entailing the allegedly-illegal salacious texting between former Ascension Parish Sheriff Deputy Fred Corder and a 16-year-old Donaldsonville High School student.

Matthews is a candidate for Sheriff of Ascension Parish in the October 14, 2023 election, and he has provided us with overwhelming evidence that former Sheriff Jeff Wiley, who is running in that same election for State Representative, along with incumbent Sheriff Bobby Webre, who is running for re-election, actively participated in a cover-up of any investigation of Corder; furthermore, he alleges that a sting operation to catch Corder attempting to actually meet with the 16-year-old was intentionally botched in order to enable Corder to avoid prosecution.

Instead, Matthews felt compelled to respond to this feature published yesterday (Wednesday, August 23, 2023) by Pelican Point blogger Wade Petite.  Matthews contends the feature is nothing short of a hit piece and fires nothing but blanks because Webre and Petite want to create a distraction from the massive number of hits this blog has obtained entailing the Corder matter.  Let’s see what Matthews had to say on the matter:

Matthews addresses Petite’s “dual hit-piece feature” which Matthews asserts is a means to “bury heads in sand” on the Corder matter.

As is obvious from the video above, Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns, after first indicating that he can’t believe we’re seriously talking about a squabble over whether Bobby Webre graduated high school or not, also made it clear he’s providing the “proof in advertising” that he asserts entailing his own educational background.  Burns also made it clear that, were he a voter in Ascension Parish (he is a registered voter in East Baton Rouge Parish), he could care less whether Bobby Webre has a high school diploma or not but would be extremely concerned about the damning documents Matthews has provided entailing both Webre and Wiley.

Though Burns has lost his high school diploma, he did provide his LSU diploma as well as the LSU Medal he received in December of 1985.  Burns also indicated he has a policy of not criticizing other bloggers but goes to great lengths to focus on the fact that Sound Off Louisiana accepts no advertising, accepts no donations, and is, “a money-losing operation.”  Since Matthews chose to directly attack Petite’s credibility, we did publish his attack, but we wanted to launch a pre-emptive strike against any ensuing attack which Petite or Webre may opt to make entailing Burns’ credibility or that of this blog.

Now, as Matthews indicated that he would, here is a photo of his own diploma from East Ascension High School, Class of 1987:

C. J. Matthews’ East Ascension Parish High School Diploma.

As indicated in the video above, it’s our contention that, irrespective of whether Webre graduated high school or not, he should know the difference between a resignation letter, which should be a voluntary letter drafted by the employee, and this de facto termination letter which Webre himself wrote yet chose to label a “resignation letter” from Matthews.  In fact, if Webre did graduate high school, it only makes his labeling of the preceding letter all the more baffling!  We’ll also point out the fact that the “resignation letter,” which is unquestionably a de facto termination letter, was not even drafted on Ascension Parish Sheriff letterhead!

At any rate, as indicated on the video above, we stand ready to receive a photo (or other pertinent proof) of Webre’s high school graduation diploma, and we’ve told the Webre camp to email such documented proof, and we will be more than happy to publish it and to also have Matthews respond to its production.  That proof may be emailed to [email protected].

Now, here’s the final aspect of today’s post, which are the words which Matthews said which prompted the second component of what Matthews labels as a “dual hit piece” by Petite:

Matthews’  Facebook post, which prompted this terse “Letter to the Editor” written about Matthews from former colleague Lt. Col. Mike Toney and published in the Pelican Post on Wednesday, August 23, 2023.

As we indicated, this feature constituted basically an, “interruption in our regularly-schedule programming,” which will be segment five (5) of the Corder scandal.  That feature will now be published sometime next week.  In the meantime, here are links for Segments 1 – 4 for the benefit of new subscribers and those who may have missed what has smashed all of Sound Off Louisiana click records:

Segment One:  Ascension Parish Sheriff candidate C. J. Matthews attacks former boss (incumbent Sheriff Bobby Webre) in alleging Malfeasance in Office, cover-up of sexting and receiving pornographic images by former Deputy Fred Corder.

Segment Two:  Ascension Parish Sheriff candidate C. J. Matthews openly asks, “What if this was your daughter?” entailing former Deputy Corder’s texts and whether parents would be content for it to be, “just swept under the rug.”

Segment Three:  Ascension Parish Sheriff candidate C. J. Matthews says former Sheriff Jeff Wiley “extorted” him to “shut my mouth” about salacious texts between Deputy Corder and a 16-year-old Donaldsonville High School female student.

Segment Four:  Ascension Parish Sheriff Webre tells Capt. Matthews he’s resigning, then rehires him after attorneys make clear litigation is forthcoming, then tells him 90 days later that Matthews can retire, “only if I’ll allow it.”