U.S. Attorney Stephanie Finley’s office, after months of keeping hush on the identity of co-conspirator No. 1, Thursday pegged Lafayette private eye Robert Williamson as the mastermind behind the bribery scheme that took place for four years under the nose of 15th Judicial District Attorney Mike Harson. The indictment was announced in a press conference this afternoon.
The 64-year-old Williamson (aka Secret Cajun Man) now faces a slew of charges following a federal grand jury indictment Thursday, including six counts of bribery “for operating a pay-for-plea scheme that garnered favorable treatment for defendants charged with state violations of operating while intoxicated,” one count of conspiracy, one count of Social Security fraud and one count of making false statements to federal agents.
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| Photo by Robin May |
Williamson, who is not a lawyer, would offer individuals facing misdemeanor and felony charges (mostly OWIs) an opportunity to erase their records in exchange for “thousands of dollars,” according to the indictment. Using a process called "immediate 894," which Harson created based Article 894 of the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure, Williamson secured those favorable outcomes by bribing officials within District Attorney Mike Harson’s office, including his secretary Barna Haynes, Assistant District Attorney Greg Williams and Williams’ secretary Denease Curry. All three of the former DA employees have pleaded guilty in the scheme; Williams will likely be disbarred for his participation. Curry, according to her guilty plea, overheard defendants say they were paying Williamson $5,000 to handle their cases.
Williamson was able to exploit a flawed program, but it remains unclear just how much Harson knew about what was going between his office and the local private eye. According to Finley, who says the scheme was able to play out for so long due to a “lack of oversight and safeguards” in the DA's office, all of the defendants have so far stated that Harson was unaware of the bribery scheme. Harson last week told The Advertiser the immediate 894 program has since been shut down because district judges have refused to hear the cases; District Judge Ed Rubin handled all of the cases at the heart of the bribery scheme. Finley says there is no evidence anyone in the judicial branch was paid bribes in the scheme.
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| Robert Williamson |
The conspiracy also included Acadiana Outreach Center, where Williamson bribed case workers Elaine Crump and Sandra Degeyter in exchange for their falsifying community service documents for his clients. They, too, pleaded guilty.
The feds say Williamson’s bribes stretched even beyond AOC and the DA’s office. Williamson, according to the indictment, also obtained falsified driver safety training certificates for his clients, which were filed by his co-conspirators in the DA’s office.
Last year, on Feb. 27, Williamson, the indictment reads, lied to federal agents when asked if he’d ever paid anyone working in the 15th JDC. That same day, federal agents seized $20,700 from Williamson, as well as 17 money orders totaling $2,155.
Williamson, if convicted, faces a maximum penalty of 75 years in prison: five for conspiracy, 10 years for each of the six counts of bribery, five for the Social Security fraud count and five for lying to a federal agent.
Finley says Williamson will be given the opportunity to turn himself in.
Read more about Williamson here.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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I would like the names of the people that paid Mr. Williams to get him to take care of them. They are as guilty as anyone. How many of them went on to drive drunk again. They should have their convictions re-instated and should be held accountable. Where is MAD? They should be outraged.