The ถถา๕h Attorney General's Office has dismissed a felony perjury charge against an attorney who represented former Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope more than five years after the attorney was charged.
"This charge against me was completely bogus," Lafayette attorney Charles Middleton said Thursday.
M. Joseph LeBeau, an assistant attorney general, dismissed the November 2016 charge against Middleton, 60, according to a letter dated May 31 to 15th Judicial District Judge Royale Colbert.
The case was transferred to the Attorney General's Office after the District Attorney's Office was recused in May 2021 because one of the prosecutors, Alan Haney, was a witness in the case. Haney had questioned Middleton during an August 2016 grand jury hearing in which Middleton was accused of committing perjury, according to court documents.
Middleton testified as part of an investigation into efforts by Pope to influence the 2015 race for Lafayette Parish Sheriff. The attorney was accused of denying under oath that he knew the identity of someone named Redmond whose last name was listed on a document written by Middleton.
The criminal investigation started out of a public records battle between the former local media organization, The Independent, and Pope. The Independent reported the name Redmond appeared in legal filings attempting to unseal divorce records of Mark Garber, who was a candidate for Sheriff heading into a run-off election against Scott Police Chief Chad Leger who was supported by Pope.
Garber won the election and is still sheriff.
Baton Rouge political consultant Jason Redmond later confirmed he was the person referred to in the legal invoices but that he was not involved in attempting to unseal Garber's divorce records.
Middleton said Thursday the prosecutors questioning him in 2016 did not know the first name of Redmond and he did not recall the name at the time. The District Attorney's Office, he said, later found out the first name and charged him with perjury.
"(Attorney General) Jeff Landryโs office looks at it and says it's ridiculous and dismisses it," Middleton said, calling the entire experience "hellacious."
"It wreaked havoc on my life, my family, my business," he said. "I couldn't find another job because I had a felony pending. I couldn't get a firearm, couldn't travel out of ถถา๕h and my reputationโs shot to Hades."
A jury convicted Pope in October 2018 on three felony counts of malfeasance in office. He spent less than five months in jail and was released in March 2021.
A few months later in June 2021 Pope avoided additional jail time by pleading no contest to one of 19 charges of malfeasance in office for personally keeping court fees and reimbursements that should have been deposited in the office account.
The other 18 charges were dismissed under the plea deal.ย In accordance with the plea agreement, Pope was sentenced to three years at hard labor, but the jail time was suspended. He also was sentenced to three years of active, supervised probation, with credit for time served.