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August 26, 2014
Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph has been granted a victory in her appeal to the Louisiana Court of Appeal 1st Circuit, overturning a ruling by the Louisiana Ethics Adjudicatory Board earlier this year.
The reversal vacates a requirement for Randolph to pay $55,000 in penalties and requires the Louisiana Board of Ethics to pay all appeal costs – totaling $411.95.
“I am very pleased with the outcome,” Randolph told Tri-Parish Times in a text message.
In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, Randolph and her husband George Randolph collected $50,000 from June through October 2010 from BP for the rental of their Grand Isle camp. In May of that year, BP provided Lafourche Parish Government $1 million to offset oil-spill related costs to the public.
State ethics code prohibits public servants from receiving anything of economic value from a person if the person has or is seeking to obtain contractual or other business or financial relationships with the public servant’s agency.
Because Lafourche Parish received $1 million from BP, the Louisiana Ethics Adjudicatory Board ruled earlier this year that she was in violation of receiving money from an entity the parish was in a financial relationship with. The Board ruled that Randolph must forfeit the $50,000 she received in rent in addition to levying her a $5,000 fine.
Upon appeal, the Louisiana Court of Appeal 1st Circuit ruled Thursday that because it was explicitly stated in BP’s financial provision to Lafourche parish that the $1 million payment was irrevocable and nonrefundable and Lafourche Parish had full discretion as to how the money would be spent, the payment “comprised a one-time gratuitous donation that did not create a contractual, business, or financial relationship between BP and the Parish,” the judges wrote in their ruling.
The Court of Appeal judges added that “even though the Parish had not yet disbursed all the funds, the donation itself was fully completed at the time the Randolphs leased their camp to BP in June 2010.”
The Louisiana Board of Ethics can appeal the decision to the Louisiana Supreme Court.
The Louisiana Board of Ethics declined a Tri-Parish Times request for comment.
