An EPA agent accused of heading a years-long malicious and meritless investigation into a former Church Point oil refinery manager to help facilitate the agent’s extramarital affair has been fired and indicted on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury.
The Advocate reports that Agent Keith Phillips, who joined New Orleans FBI agent Ekko Barnhill in a three-year investigation of then Canal Refinery manager Hubert Vidrine, reportedly lied under oath in a 2008 deposition when he denied having a sexual relationship with his joint investigator Barnhill.
Vidrine, an Opelousas resident who was managing Canal Refinery in September 1996 when armed federal agents raided the Church Point business, was indicted on federal environmental charges in 1999. Vidrine’s criminal charges of storing “hazardous waste” stemmed from grand jury testimony by Phillips, Barnhill and another key witness, but the charges against Vidrine were eventually dismissed in 2003 when that key witness was found to be a drug addict who had provided uncorroborated information.
Throughout the entire investigation Agents Phillips and Barnhill were reportedly having an extramarital affair that gave Phillips, who worked out of Dallas, a reason to travel to South Louisiana as often as he did, according to court documents:
During the Nov. 25, 2008, deposition, Phillips allegedly told the attorney he and the FBI special agent were “close friends,” according to the indictment.
“Did you have an affair with her?” the attorney asked.
“No. No. I take offense to you even putting that in the record,” Phillips responded. “I’ve been married 31 years and you don’t stay married 31 years by having extramarital affairs.”
The indictment alleges that between Nov. 25, 2008, and March 2011, Phillips called the special agent on more than one occasion in an attempt to influence her not to disclose the existence of their past extramarital affair, explaining to her that he had testified that their relationship was only professional and a friendship.
If convicted, Phillips faces a possible maximum 10-year prison sentence and $250,000 fine on the obstruction of justice count and a possible maximum 5-year prison sentence and $250,000 fine on the perjury count.
As The Independent reported on July 20, Vidrine sued the federal government in 2007 for wrongful and malicious prosecution. He’s seeking more than $5 million in lost income, lost earning capacity, legal costs to defend prosecution, damage to he and his wife’s reputations, emotional distress, humiliation and loss of consortium.
Vidrine’s civil case went to trial before U.S. District Judge Rebecca Doherty in June. According to The Advocate, Phillips’ 20 years of employment with the EPA ended on July 26, a month after Vidrine’s civil suit was heard. Doherty has not yet ruled on the civil lawsuit.
Read more on Vidrine here and here.
For more on the federal government’s role and how it impacts lives in Acadiana, read The Independent’s July 20 cover story, “CONVICTed.”
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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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