Update: 1 p.m.:
ณาฐฟฑทดดกณขทกณงฬโฬProsecutors with the ถถา๕h State Attorney General's Office are expected to return to the Ascension Parish Courthouse to await the deliberations of a grand jury investigating attempted bribery allegations leveled against the parish president and a Gonzales businessman.
โThe proceedings are still ongoing," Brandon Fremin, Attorney General's criminal division director, told reporters shortly before 11:30 a.m. "We are in a position where we anticipate coming back this afternoon, and thatโs about all I can say. Itโs an ongoing grand jury hearing, and Iโm not at liberty to give you anymore information than that.โ
Fremin would not provide a time for their return but said it would be in the early afternoon. Though Fremin also would not say whether prosecutors had finished calling witness, all four witnesses subpoenaed to appear Friday,ฬGonzales City Councilman Neal Bourque,ฬTammy Kundler, Donna Michael and Christy Burnett,ฬwere finished by about 10:30 a.m.
Burnett is the parish health director and a notary public, while Kundler and Michael work for Olin Berthelot, the businessman and ally of Matassa who is also implicated in the bribery allegations.
None of the witnesses, who left the courthouse one by one after each offered testimony, would provide comment. Their testimony took about an hour and 10 minutes from start to finish.
Original:
ณาฐฟฑทดดกณขทกณงฬโ City Councilman Neal Bourque and three other witnesses were subpoenaed to appear Friday morning before the Ascension Parish grand jury in an investigation into attempted bribery allegations against Parish President Kenny Matassa and businessman Olin Berthelot, subpoenas say.
Matassa and Berthelot, a finance company owner who is the parish president's longtime friend, have been accused by a local news site publisher and a former City Council candidate of trying to bribe the candidate so he would drop out of the Nov. 8 election against Bourque.
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Not seeing the video below? .
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Tammy Kundler and Donna Michael, two woman who work in Berthelot's finance companies, and Christy Burnett, the parish health director, also have been subpoenaed to testify 9 a.m. Friday before the grand jury, the subpoenas say.
The alleged bribery attempt occurred through a series of meetings and phone calls in late July after the former candidate, A. Wayne Lawson, qualified for the Division E race against Bourque, the incumbent, according to the recordings and Lawson's allegations.
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Brandon Fremin, director of AG's Office criminal division, on grand jury proceedings (not seeing the video? ):ฬ
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Lawson and Wade Petite, publisher of the Pelican Post, say Lawson was actually part of an investigative news sting and secretly recorded what they say were attempts to bribe him with $1,200 to fix a food truck trailer and the offer of parish job if he left the race.
Lawson says he never took the attempted bribe and never left the election. Bourque easily won re-election.
Matassa has disputed he was making a bribe but was offering Lawson a $1,200 loan and a parish job. He said that neither offer was connected to his political advice for Lawson to drop out of the race. Matassa was a longtime Gonzales councilman before he was elected parish president in fall 2015.
Since Lawson and the website leveled their allegations, Bourque has said he had no idea of Matassa's and Berthelot's alleged plans last July.
Burnett, who was Matassa's longtime second in command at the parish Health Unit when Matassa led the office, is a notary public. According to Lawson's recordings, she was present at Berthelot's Gonzales finance office, Bayou Financial Services, on July 29.
It was there and then that Lawson was supposed to accept the promised cash, fill out a parish job application and a candidacy withdrawal form late that morning as the state deadline to drop out approached, according to the secret recordings. The withdrawal form needed to be notarized.
Matassa's attorney, Lance Unglesby, has said that he had to assume Burnett was present at Matassa's urging to notarize Lawson's withdrawal form but she was not on the clock for the parish at the time.
According to state mortgage license records, Kundler is an assistant manager of Bayou Financial Services. Donna Michael is a manager of two Berthelot companies, including Ascension Credit LLC, state business records say.ฬ
Lawson and an investigator with the ถถา๕h State Attorney General's Office testified Feb. 13 before the grand jury.
Lawson hasฬsaid he turned over the recordings to law enforcement shortly after Pelican Post published its story Aug. 1. ฬ
In addition to the denials, Matassa also has charged that Petite, a fierce critic of him and his administration, has been trying to smear him with the recordings. Petite was also a candidate in a separate City Council race that fall but was not elected.
The ถถา๕h State Attorney General's Office is leading the investigation after District Attorney Ricky Babin recused his office last fall.