Nearly two years after police concluded they found evidence demonstrating that fired East Baton Rouge Parish Attorneyย Mary Roper hacked into city-parish emails, the investigation has finally been released publicly, alleging that Roper used her ability to access the system to embarrass the woman who replaced her.
The 2015 report, conducted by the ถถา๕h State Police's Cyber Fusion Unit, was released to the East Baton Rouge parish attorney's office on July 19. Despite findings that she violated state laws, no charges were filed against Roper.
An attorney representing the city-parish, meanwhile, said the report indicates Roper could have accessed privileged emails related to their ongoing litigation โย although the report does not specify that she did so.ย
Murphy Foster III, the Baton Rouge lawyer representing East Baton Rouge Parish in its ongoing litigation against Roper, said it was baffling that charges were not filed against her in light of the findings laid out in the report.ย
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"I can reach no logical conclusion as to why charges were not filed," Foster said, adding incredulously: "Did you read it?"
Lea Anne Batson, who succeeded Roper as East Baton Rouge Parish's parish attorney, said her office asked for the report several months ago. But it didn't arrive until after the two-year statute of limitations for Roper's alleged misdeeds had expired.ย
"I don't have any comment but am obviously disappointed," Batson said. State Police spokesman Maj. Doug Cain said the delay in releasing the report must have been related to a "miscommunication."ย
Roper did not respond to messages seeking comment.
A few months after Roper was fired in 2014 โย following an ugly, protracted feud with members of the East Baton Rouge Metro Council โย law enforcement executed a search warrant, raiding her home for computers and cell phones on the suspicion that she or someone at that address had hacked city-parish emails. In September 2015, she was issued a misdemeanor summons by State Policeย on charges of online impersonation, computer tampering and offenses against intellectual tampering.ย
According to the newly released report, Roper's alleged online meddling was detected in October 2014, a month after she had been fired, after an embarrassing email was unknowingly sent from one of the city-parish attorney's accounts to an unintended recipient.
The email started innocently enough. Batson, newly named acting parish attorney in the wake of Roper's exit, sent an email to a planning department staffer asking for information on a zoning issue for a council member. Planning Director Frank Duke, who was later added to the email chain, expressed frustration that he was left off the initial communication.ย
"As the Planning Director, I would appreciate it if you would show me the respect and common courtesy of copying me on messages such as this rather than electing to bypass me," he wrote.ย
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Batson responded apologetically, saying she was trying to avoid bothering him with a mundane task. Then, she separately forwarded Duke's stinging response to her colleague Dawn Guillot with an added comment: "Can you believe this guy?"ย
Ten days later, at 1:09 a.m., that email was forwarded from Guillot's account to Duke.ย
Seven hours later, Duke replied "thanks," which alerted Guillot of the unauthorized activity.ย
Batson immediately suspected Roper as the culprit, according to an email she sent alerting others in the mayor's administration of the breach.ย
"I am certain Dawn didn't do it at 1:09 a.m. as she is not a night owl. I am concerned that a former employee of this office, or her husband, has somehow accessed our email accounts. Please tell me that isn't possible," Batson wrote.
Roper's husband, an information technology employee for the city-parish, had also parted ways with the city-parish amid mounting tensions.ย
Eventually, investigators concluded that the IP address of the computer that had been illegally "intruding" into the city-parish email system matched Roper's personal laptop. The report indicated that Roper had access to a list of all of her former employees' user names and passwords. Investigators identified at least 43 times when Roper's computer was used to log into to the email accounts of three attorneys who work for the city-parish.ย
An investigator also found that someone using Roper's computer took a screenshot of Batson's email to Guillot while logged into Batson's email โย at exactly the time detectives determined there was an unauthorized intrusion into the system, the report said. Phone records also showed Roper's cell phone was at or near or her residence during all of the log-in events.ย
"By accessing email accounts without authority or permission, Mary Roper has violated" state statutes, State Trooper Daryl Davis, a cyber analyst, wrote in his sworn affidavit seeking an arrest warrant.ย
East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III and former ถถา๕h Attorney General Buddy Caldwell both recused themselves from the case. The case was assigned to a special prosecutor in the St. Landry Parish District Attorney's office.ย
Asked why that office opted against prosecuting, First Assistant District Attorney Frank Trosclair, said "our determination was the evidence was not sufficient." Trosclair declined additional comment, saying the office wouldn't "engage in a public discussion of criminal allegations."
Foster said he's concerned that Roper could have been reading emails that Foster was sending to parish attorneys to discuss Roper's barrage of lawsuits against the city-parish and the Metro Council, some of which are still being litigated.ย
He said he was in regular communication with Guillot to discuss litigation during the time frame the breaches occurred.ย
"So if she was to read those emails between Dawn and I, that would be incredibly inappropriate," he said. "It's reading the other side's playbook."ย
Foster was hired by the Metro Council after Roper filed a series of lawsuits against the city-parish, amid the tensions that resulted in her termination. She has sued to contest the Metro Council's ability to fire her. She's also filed suits claiming defamation and alleging that the city-parish has failed to respond to public-records requests she's filed in search of council member communications.ย
Only Roper's public-records lawsuit remains. She lost the other two suits. Her husband, who is of Middle Eastern descent, also filed a separate lawsuit against the city-parish in federal court, alleging the city racially discriminated against him and defamed him.ย