DA race takes hardball turns

The most powerful single individual in Terrebonne Parish is its district attorney, granted by state law the discretion to determine “whom, when and how he shall prosecute.”

Voters will decide Nov. 4 who shall wield that power for the next six years. They will choose between the man who has done so since 1996 and the man who held the position prior to that and now wants it back.

The incumbent, Joe Waitz Jr., stands on his record, citing a history of cooperation between his staff and local law enforcement agencies, a focus on diverting defendants away from the justice system when possible, and a strong reputation for personal and professional community service.

The challenger is Doug Greenburg, who nurtured the District Attorney’s Office out from under corruption’s shadow when he served from 1985 through 1996, and instituted many programs that are still a success under Waitz’s administration. Greenburg also built bridges between the justice system and minority communities. 

PUTTING OUT FACTS

As challenger to a sitting district attorney, Greenburg has had the unenviable task of piercing through the incumbency’s armor. To do so, he has raised uncomfortable questions, running advertisements he says scratch at unspoken truths, but which his detractors say border on the audacious.

Waitz has thus far chosen to stay above the fray, answering questions about points Greenburg has raised when asked, but eschewing any type of offensive pose.

“I have not said one negative thing about him,” Waitz maintains.  

The public has not seen any direct interchanges between the two men, and no debates at this point are known to be scheduled. 

Greenburg says that his current course is not negative; he is just putting out for public consumption facts that voters need to know.

The disparity in style should not come as a shock to anyone with knowledge of each candidate’s personal and professional history. Greenburg is not known for shying away from a fight and when in office appeared to relish the role of being an official gadfly. Waitz is known for more circumspect approaches, seeing himself as willing to mediate when possible, but willing to put the gloves on when circumstances demand.

RABID DOG

Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter, who clashed with Greenburg several times during his tenure, makes no secret of having a good working relationship with Waitz and his staff. 

“I do my job and Joe Waitz does his job. We all work together in harmony,” said Larpenter, who is open about his distaste for Greenburg. “I don’t mind a watchdog, I just don’t like a watchdog with rabies, because he will attack or bite anything.”

If allegations by Greenburg are chafing the parish power structure, his supporters say that’s just the point. His allegations that Waitz has favored some business people in his dealings, expanded the office to a size too big to justify and that probation offers are in some cases too generous, they suggest, should be cause for voter alarm.

Waitz says he is an open book.

“The first thing I would ask is for people to judge Joe Waitz by what they know about Joe Waitz and if they have any concerns to ask me what’s going on,” the sitting district attorney said. “I will have a very valid and good answer to any of these unsubstantiated allegations by Mr. Greenburg.”

IN THE BLACK?

A recent claim by Greenburg that the District Attorney’s office is mismanaging money, resulting in an alleged $600,000-plus deficit is, according to Waitz and his opponents, false.

A routine state audit identified a $600,000-plus “unfavorable” status for the office at the end of 2013.

Waitz and his administrator, Kevin Guidry, say ebbs and flows from year to year are commonplace, due to the volatile nature of depending on fines and costs on varying collection schedules.

The most recent internal audit, closing at the end of August, shows $2,854,482.02 in revenue and $2,325,028.84 in expenses, leaving the office with a $529,453.18 balance.

“With four months left in 2014, we’re well on our way to a positive year in 2014, where revenue exceeds expenditures,” Guidry said, noting that the numbers for 2013, a bad one for DA revenues not only in Terrebonne but also surrounding parishes, was intensified due to voluntary payments made into Terrebonne’s criminal Court Fund, administered by the Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government.

The payment totaled $450,163. 

“If we had not made that payment, the loss from operations in 2013 would have been $115,554,” Guidry said.

COMPLEX PLANNED

Waitz’s decision to rent the old Kirschman’s furniture building on West Park Avenue for $20,000 per month, Greenburg said, was fiscally unsound, especially when combined with downtown purchases beside the current courthouse annex in downtown Houma.

The property purchases, Waitz said, are linked to a long-standing attempt by the Judicial Enforcement District, a legislatively-created entity headed by himself and the parish’s judges, to create criminal justice complex that would include prosecutorial offices.

The Kirschman’s lease, Waitz said, allows fully functionality of programs at an accessible location pending the eventual completion of the concept he and the judges have discussed.

“We are looking at the big picture,” Waitz said, denying Greenburg’s allegation that he had purchased property from a company represented by a business partner.

That attorney, Timothy Thompson, was involved in a partnership with Waitz and another partner, Mark Zeringue. Created in 2008 and technically still active as a corporation, the firm, Energy Solutions LLC, made no money, according to Waitz.

“It was a financial disaster,” he said, noting that he included it in his candidate filings despite its zero income to him “out of an abundance of caution.”

CASES CITED

A major criticism of Waitz from Greenburg and his supporters involves granting of probation or other consideration to some drug offenders. 

Sources have cautioned that some of the cases Greenburg publicly cited included those of people who cut deals because they were informing on others.

One case in particular, which has since been expunged, involved a businessman who pleaded guilty to drug charges in return for entry into treatment.

Assistant District Attorney Mark Rhodes, who handled one such case, said Waitz told him to seek whatever disposition he thought was appropriate.

There was no pressure from Waitz, Rhodes said, to seek leniency for the defendant.

That case was complicated because of alleged pressure by an attorney to seek a favorable outcome for a client from Waitz. The defendant’s name is being withheld by The Times because his case was expunged by court order.

The defendant claimed evidence, correspondence indicates, that Waitz improperly solicited cases through his office for his private practice, that he had falsified a bond filed with the state in connection with oil wells he was involved with, and that he had planted narcotics on the defendant in order to gain access to his business computers, thus being able to destroy evidence of his own wrongdoing.

Many of those allegations are included in the litany of alleged wrongs Greenburg cites in his campaign.

But Waitz himself sought an investigation of those allegations from the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board in 2010. A copy of the letter was supplied to The Times.

CLEAN RECORD

Charles Plattsmier, chief disciplinary counsel, said in an interview last week that while he is not allowed to comment on a specific case, he described what would happen in a like scenario.

“If any lawyer was self-reporting allegations of misconduct of the nature described, if the Office of Disciplinary Counsel found any evidence that would have demonstrated that those allegations were true, we would have filed formal charges and it would have been a very public disciplinary procedure,” Plattsmier said. 

Asked if there was any disciplinary action or history of any kind against Waitz, Plattsmier said there is not, that his record is totally clean.

The record shows a different history for the mercurial Greenburg, held in contempt three times by a judge in 1985, when he was District Attorney, for refusing to stop talking when ordered to.

In 2006, while in private practice, Greenburg was appearing opposite attorney Anthony Lewis in a succession matter and called his opponent a “jackass” and a scuffle ensured. Both were held in contempt.  

Greenburg suffered a 30-day suspension.

CHURCH RETRIBUTION?

Suggestions that Greenburg does not play well with others are part of the appeal for his supporters.

Dr. Mike Robichaux, a former state senator, lives in Lafourche Parish but is among the local voices that praise the former district attorney. He is among those who remember Greenburg’s tenure, and his 1996 defeat.

Robichaux and others say that resentment of Greenburg’s prosecution of Robert Melancon, a priest who subjected a former altar boy to years of abuse, cost him votes.

“A lot of people did not like the idea of the guy with a Jewish name going after a priest,” Robichaux said.

Both candidates say they are ready for a public debate, although for Greenburg it would come with conditions. Citing his distrust of HTV owner Martin Folse, an acknowledged Waitz supporter, Greenburg said he might not be comfortable with that venue.

“Any debate would have to be somewhere that was independent,” Greenburg said.

 – john@rushing-media.com

DA candidates