łÒ°ż±·ŽÜŽĄłą·Ął§Ìęâ Defense attorneys for indicted Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa on Tuesday attacked the veracity of a former Gonzales City Council candidate accusing the parish president of election bribery.
Defense attorney Lewis Unglesby, in a bid to throw out the parish leaderâs criminal case before trial, tried to dissect the residency, income and campaign finance assertions that A. Wayne Lawson had sworn were true when he filed his election qualification papers on July 21, 2016.
At the court hearing, Lawson acknowledged he never stayed long at the Gonzales address listed on his candidacy form and he had income that was not reported on key tax and candidate disclosure forms.
The residency question is important, Unglesby says, because Lawson must have had his domicile in the council district a year before qualifying. In addition to residency, candidates must swear in qualifying papers that their last five years of income tax reporting are current and that they have no unpaid campaign finance fines. Â
Unglesby declared after the hearing that it is time for state Attorney General Jeff Landry to bring the case to an end.
âWell, I think if I were the Attorney General, Iâd really look hard at this because youâre going to make some terrible law if youâre endorsing the idea of people being dishonest when they file to be a candidate,â Unglesby said. âAnd I hope that having seen the witnesses and heard what they said, they realized that this is a ship they probably donât want to be on.â
Prosecutors in the ¶¶Òőh Attorney Generalâs Office have accused Matassa and Gonzales businessman Olin Berthelot of trying to bribe Lawson to drop out of the November 2016 race for City Council Division E in exchange for $1,200 and a parish job.
Unglesby was trying to throw out the one-count indictment Tuesday, claiming Lawson was never a qualified candidate despite what his candidacy papers say and, thus, could not be bribed.
Prosecutors had countered in court papers that Lawsonâs election qualifications are immaterial to whether Matassa and Berthelot believed Lawson was a candidate at the time of the alleged bribe. Lawson stood for election, with his qualifications unchallenged, garnered votes and lost in Nov. 8, 2016, race to incumbent Councilman Neal Bourque.
Assistant Attorney General Jeff Traylor said after the hearing that prosecutors believe a crime was committed and hope Judge Thomas Kliebert Jr. "sees it that way."Â
Matassa is set for trial July 10 and 11.
Lawsonâs mother and brother testified that Lawson had not lived in their Gonzales home in years. Lawson said later his motherâs two-bedroom house was home, where he still had two outbuildings and a food preparation trailer and stayed periodically, including on the day he filed his qualification papers.
Lawson also acknowledged, however, that he has lived a nomadic lifestyle, bouncing around from his wife's, family's and friendsâ homes in and out of Gonzales.
Lawsonâs wife, Angela Lawson, testified that her husband kept his extensive wardrobe in a guest bedroom at her home but he was not living with her in late 2015 and early 2016 when he was arrested on burglary and theft charges at her then Baton Rouge apartment. Â Â
A former Spring Brook Apartments maintenance man testified that at that time he saw Wayne Lawson at the complex almost every day and had once seen him enter a bottom-floor apartment.Â
Angela Lawson said her husband, who did not regularly have a key to her apartment at the time, said she would occasionally invite him over and noted that he also had friends at the gated complex off George OâNeal Road. She testified she didn't know where her husband lived when he wasn't with her.
Under questioning from Unglesby about his expensive wardrobe and a golf cart he had given his wife, Wayne Lawson admitted to apparently unreported income.
Lawson said he received $1,000 a month from Social Security and up to $10,800 per year in profits as a culinary chef. He said he didn't report the cash from the culinary business, for which he charged $30 per plate, because that was how he "made extra money on the side."
Perhaps one of the sharpest exchanges happened as Unglesby went through a 2015 candidate disclosure form. Lawson resisted acknowledging that the form didn't fully indicate all his income.
"You don't get to do that, buddy," Unglesby told Lawson.
"I'm not your buddy, cuz," Lawson responded, at which point Kliebert broke in.
Unglesby also presented Lawson with several letters from the ¶¶Òőh Board of Ethics through 2016 about unpaid campaign finance fines from his past elections. Lawson contended he had never received or didn't recall receiving them.
Some of those letters, Unglesby noted, were sent to the same address Lawson had claimed was his home on his qualifying papers, as little as month earlier. Other letters were sent certified mail and signed for by family members or a friend.
Under questioning from prosecutor Traylor, Lawson for the first time testified that he believed Matassa and Berthelot tried to bribe him in July 2016. But Lawson also told Unglesby that he did not accept those alleged bribery attempts and did accept $1,200 from a news website publisher who helped him record his discussions with Matassa and Berthelot.Â
Kliebert, of the 23rd Judicial District Court, gave Traylor 15 days to explain how a state election code section that says, in part, âa candidate shall possess the qualifications for the office he seeks at the time he qualifies for that officeâ fits with prosecutors' theory of the case.
When asked later if his testimony might have put him in personal legal trouble, Lawson said, "Of course not," but added he would let the attorneys decide that.