The tiny Police Department faces new allegations of lying, conspiracy and false arrest — all stemming from a social media fight over a woman’s photos from her OnlyFans account.
A federal lawsuit alleges that longtime Golden Meadow Mayor Joey Bouziga leaned on the town’s , Michelle Lafont, to arrest Lafourche Parish resident Dawn Pierce over her social media posts. It’s the latest flare up over the police department that has for controversy in recent years.
Before her arrest, Pierce quarreled online with the 22-year-old fiancee of a former co-worker of Bouziga. The mayor then ordered Pierce’s arrest despite Lafont’s initial objections, the lawsuit alleges.
Pierce’s lone offense: uploading some of the woman’s OnlyFans photos to Facebook, behavior the lawsuit alleges that Lafont knew wasn’t a crime. OnlyFans is a website where users can sell photos or videos, which are often sexually explicit, to paid subscribers.
Nonetheless, Golden Meadow Police Officer Tristin Gaspard and a Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office deputy arrested Pierce — a 52-year-old customer service agent — at her home July 8, the lawsuit alleges. Pierce posted a $10,000 bond later that night.
The Lafourche Parish District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges against Pierce about a month later, the suit said. A spokesperson for the district attorney didn’t return a message seeking comment.
The suit, which was filed last month, accuses Lafont of submitting a false statement under oath when she sought a warrant from the district court for Pierce’s arrest. Bouziga is also accused of orchestrating a false arrest after Lafont initially said she “didn’t know if there was anything I could charge (Pierce) with,” according to the lawsuit.
Attorney Keith Detweiler, representing Gaspard, Lafont and Bouziga, said his clients declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
Chief troubles
The lawsuit continues a pattern of misconduct allegations in the Golden Meadow Police Department, and the town is still reeling from the record tampering arrest in August of its last
After he lost an election to Lafont last year, Dufrene began systematically deleting computer records about the department’s cases and administration, according to the h Attorney General’s Office. He later apologized, explaining that he “felt the data belonged to him,” an investigator wrote.
Dufrene had been appointed by the town council in 2021 to replace a former chief who resigned after Golden Meadow settled a federal lawsuit that accused that chief of excessive force.
By the time of last year’s election, Dufrene’s relationship with Bouziga had also soured, and the mayor’s backing of Lafont — a 53-year-old middle school teacher with no recent experience in law enforcement — helped turn the tide of that race in her favor. Lafont won by nine votes.
‘Extreme, outrageous, and unlawful’
Now, in Pierce’s 28-page lawsuit, Bouziga is accused of exerting his influence over the 1,600-person town’s five-person police department again, this time in a manner more nefarious.
Pierce’s social media fight grew out of her “rocky relationship” with her 26-year-old nephew, who also knows Bouziga after working with him at a Cut Off shipbuilding company, the suit said.
After a round of name-calling on Facebook, Pierce uploaded “lingerie” photos from the OnlyFans account of her nephew’s fiancée.
Pierce’s attorney, Hope Phelps, with New Orleans-based Most & Associates, argues in the suit that Pierce’s actions didn’t conflict with state law because the photos don’t show genitalia or sexual conduct.
The photos were also already publicly available, Phelps wrote, on the user’s OnlyFans homepage, with text inviting people to subscribe, “indicating that what is visible is not behind a paywall.”
Lafont, at least initially, seemed to agree, according to the lawsuit. The court filings cite her texting Gaspard that she “didn’t know if there was anything I could charge (Pierce) with.”
“This is ridiculous!!!!” Lafont wrote later in a text.
Pierce’s nephew continued pressing the issue, however. The lawsuit includes a text from the nephew saying, “I’ve been talking to Joey,” which the court filings cite as a reference to Bouziga, adding that “we got something cooking.”
“They could have simply refused (the nephew’s) request to arrest Mrs. Pierce, as Chief Lafont did initially,” Phelps wrote. “They could have acknowledged that Mrs. Pierce did not violate the law, but offered to have themselves or Officer Gaspard meet and mediate with her privately as part of their duty to keep the peace. Instead, (Lafont and Bouziga) chose the most extreme, outrageous, and unlawful action — to falsely arrest and imprison Mrs. Pierce.”
Detweiler, the Golden Meadow attorney, has yet to file a response in the case.