łÒ°ż±·ŽÜŽĄłą·Ął§Ìęâ A state district judge refused to recuse her colleague from presiding over the attempted bribery case of a Gonzales businessman and co-defendant of Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa.
Judge Jason Verdigets of the 23rd Judicial District Court had voluntarily recused himself from Matassa's case in December to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Both men serve on a committee working on plans for a new parish courthouse. Â
But Judge Jessie LeBlanc found this week that Verdigets, in his recusal order, did not acknowledge any actual bias over his relationship with Matassa, and Olin Berthelot, the co-defendant, does not have the same relationship with Verdigets as Matassa does. Berthelot, who runs several consumer loan companies in ¶¶Òőh, does not serve on the courthouse committee.
LeBlanc added that even though Matassa and Berthelot are accused in the same case, their connection as co-defendants isn't enough to warrant a conflict for Verdigets in Berthelot's case.
"The fact that Mr. Matassa and Mr. Berthelot have jointly argued matters in the past and the likelihood that the state will rely on the same facts in the presentation of both cases does not rise to the level to warrant recusal,"Â LeBlanc added in a ruling Tuesday.
Berthelot and Matassa face attempted election bribery charges over allegations they tried to get Gonzales City Council candidate A. Wayne Lawson in July 2016 shortly after qualifying to drop out of the election later that fall. In exchange, they were accused of offering to get him a parish job and cash to repair his food trailer. The two were also secretly recorded by Lawson in cooperation with critics of Matassa's administration discussing giving him the job and cash.
LeBlanc's ruling comes as both sides in Matassa's case await a ruling from a third state judge about whether to throw out the parish president's charge.
Lawson stood for election in November 2016, garnered votes and lost to incumbent Councilman Neal Bourque.
But Matassa's defense attorney, Lewis Unglesby, has argued that Lawson did not meet the legal definition of a "candidate" and so, by definition, Lawson could not have been bribed under the charge. The ruling on whether to quash Matassa's indictment could also have an effect on Berthelot's case.Â
The motion to recuse Verdigets from Berthelot's case was brought by defense attorney Steven Moore but prosecutors didn't oppose it. Assistant Attorney General Jeff Traylor said Thursday LeBlanc's ruling was well-grounded in the law.Â
âWe were in favor of her granting the motion out of an abundance of caution of potentially anything down the road, however, we respect her decision," he said Thursday.
Moore could not be reached Thursday.
In a hearing last month in Matassa's case, his defense attorney, Unglesby, attempted to poke holes in Lawson's qualifications as a candidate to argue that Lawson was not, in fact, a qualified candidate, though his qualifications were never challenged during the election.Â
After the hearing, Judge Thomas Kliebert Jr., who replaced Verdigets after he stepped down from the case, told Traylor to address in court papers the language Unglebsy was pointing to before a ruling would be issued. The statute, in part, says that "a candidate shall possess the qualifications for the office he seeks at the time he qualifies for the office."
In Traylor's answer to Kliebert last week, the prosecutor wrote that candidates subject to disqualification may be elected "until their candidacies are declared null" in the same way that judges subject to recusal can issue valid rulings until they are recused.
"Common sense requires this reading of these statutes. Had no one challenged Mr. Lawson's candidacy, and had no one given Mr. Lawson a thing of value to withdraw from the election, would Mr. Lawson have been on the ballot? Could have he been elected to the office he sought," Traylor wrote. "The answer to those questions is yes. To say then, that he was (retroactively) never a candidate does not comport with reality and has no support in ¶¶Òőh jurisprudence."
Traylor added that the defense's reading of the law would give "bad actors every incentive to break" the law and then, if they are caught, try to attack the candidacy of the bribed individual.
Unglesby countered in a response that the election law does not condone fraudulent candidacy forms and a "catch me if you can" policy on qualifications. The candidate must swear the qualifications are true but no agency verifies them.
Calling Lawson's "attitude to the truth problematic," Unglesby added that the claims in Lawson's candidacy form regarding his domicile, income tax status and campaign finance fines â all qualification requirements â were contradicted in court last month.
"The essence of the process is the requirements on the form are met by the potential candidate, but swearing to a set of falsehoods does not equate to a valid 'Notice of Candidacy,'" Unglesby wrote. "No valid qualification form equals no candidate, no matter how the Attorney General argues."