Expose Dat case settled for good

Settlement near in ExposeDat case
September 7, 2017
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September 12, 2017
Settlement near in ExposeDat case
September 7, 2017
Outspoken priest ousted by bishop
September 12, 2017

The “Expose Dat” lawsuit is now in past tense, settled for $150,000, attorneys for Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter confirmed Monday evening.

The suit was brought by Houma blogger Jennifer Anderson alleging that Terrebonne Parish officials violated her civil rights by seizing her family’s computers and cellular phones.

U.S. District Judge Lance Africk dismissed the case Thursday, stating in court papers that both sides had reached a compromise. Larpenter was the last defendant standing in an action originally brought against him along with Terrebonne Parish President Gordon Dove, Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District President Tony Alford, the levee district itself and the Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government. Dove and the parish settled out for $50,000; the other defendants were released by the plaintiffs.


Anderson published on a web site and on a Facebook page under the fictitious name John Turner allegations of improper collusion between the various entities and others, particularly in regard to how insurance contracts were chosen by the Sheriff and the Parish Government through an agency with ties to Alford. Alford complained that the fictitious blogger committed criminal defamation. Larpenter’s deputies investigated, obtained search warrants that led them to Anderson and her husband Wayne, and the electronic equipment was seized. State District Judge Randall Bethancourt refused to vacate his warrant, which attorneys for the Andersons said was unlawful. But the 1st Circuit Louisiana Court of Appeal reversed him, and the equipment was returned.

Larpenter’s attorney, William F. Dodd, and Anderson’s attorney, Jerri Smitko, have been working on coming to an agreement for weeks, with aid from other lawyers.

“We think we did the right thing,” Dodd said. “This resolves a case and saves money in the long run I don’t call it a bad settlement, and ultimately the Sheriff realized it.”


Louisiana’s criminal defamation statute has long been declared unconstitutional when applied to public officials. As president of the levee board Alford is a public official, and so a criminal complaint against Anderson’s blog should not have been acted on, decisions relating to the case indicate.

To be successful at trial Anderson’s lawyers would have been required to prove that Larpenter knew this, and took steps to seize the electronics nonetheless. His attorneys have argued that if anyone should have known that there was a problem it would have been Bethancourt. But the judge stated in open court during the hearing at which he refused to overturn the warrant that he did not know Alford was a public official.

Dodd said that at trial he would have had an opportunity to raise questions as to how these areas of law relate to bloggers, who often have no training such as that received by traditional, mainstream journalists, and who don’t necessarily set out to be fair when writing about a given issue or person, especially a public official.


“It is a settled area of the law but also unsettled,” Dodd said. “Bu the time had come. The sheriff was dealing with two hurricanes in the Atlantic last week, an epidemic of opiate problems in this community and this became a distraction from these daily things.”

Final touches on the agreement between sides was accomplished with a mediator. The cost of motions if the case continued coupled with lawyer’s fees and other considerations, Dodd said, made settlement a more agreeable alternative.

The settlement, Dodd said, will not affect Larpenter’s budget – already in austerity mode due to the local economic slowdown – because the payment will be made by insurance.


The company, Dodd said, was on board with the settlement.

“We had an adjuster who is also a lawyer who stayed with us throughout the mediation,” Dodd said.

One of the more troublesome aspects of the case was Larpenter’s widely quoted statement made in a telephone conversation to a television reporter that if someone were to try to harm him or a family “I would come after you.” The statement, Larpenter has maintained, was lifted out of the context of the conversation. It may have influenced a decision by Judge Africk, however, when attorneys attempted to have Larpenter declared immune from the suit for technical reasons.


Africk denied the request. Dodd sought to appeal that decision but with the case settled that point is now moot.

Jerry Larpenter