Randolph’s state ethics rehearing request denied; fine lessened

The Ethics Adjudicatory Board has denied Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph a rehearing relative to its ruling that she violated the state’s ethics code when she leased her Grand Isle camp to BP.

Randolph had argued that $1 million the oil giant gave Lafourche Parish Government after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill was a unilateral contract, akin to a donation, and that she had no leverage to influence the amount positively or negatively because the funds were “irrevocable and nonrefundable.” Her attorneys argued that any relationship between BP and parish government ended once the parish council accepted the funds.

The EAB denied the request, but did lessen Randolph’s fine.

“Ms. Randolph received a thing of economic value for services rendered to an entity with a contractual and financial relationship with her agency,” the three-judge EAB panel wrote in its response signed April 23.

Via the $1 million contract, LPG kept records of the expenditures and agreed to report them to BP on an annual basis. The oil company also provided Lafourche Parish with six Honda Mules, electronic equipment, construction of five breach closures along Fourchon Beach, three meals a day seven days a week, phones, note pads, helicopter rides and a personal assistant for Randolph throughout 2010, according to the EAB.

The board did, however, reduce her fine from $10,000 to $5,000. This in addition to a $50,000 penalty the board levied in its initial decision.

The board said it places more value than it did originally on the fact that Randolph self-reported the violation to the state Board of Ethics. She approached the ethics board after the parish district attorney issued an opinion that said public servants are barred from conducting private business with an entity that has a contractual or financial relationship with the servants’ agencies.

“We did not fully consider this conduct in our original decision,” the order reads.

But the three-judge panel that heard the case and issued the amended order held firm on the penalty.

“Although a $75,000 penalty could have been imposed, the EAB determined that a penalty equal to the amount of economic advantage she obtained was appropriate because there was no evidence that Ms. Randolph’s dealings with BP or others was affected by her receipt of $50,000 from BP,” the order reads. “A less severe penalty would circumvent the prohibitions of the Code by offering a public servant the opportunity to profit by engaging in a prohibited transaction.”

Randolph declined to comment on the EAB decision.