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| NEWS > 15 July 2006 |
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Ex-chief who helped officers c
PROVIDENCE — Former Police Chief Urbano Prignano Jr. helped four police officers cheat on their written promotional examinations and manipulated promotional interviews in order to help six officers, according to disputed evidence contained in previously secret grand jury transcripts and other records made public yesterday.
Prignano directly or indirectly helped four officers to cheat on their written exams in the late 1990s and win promotion, according to the disputed evidence: Lieutenants John J. Ryan and John F. Glancy, who were promoted to captain, and Detective Nicholas A. Carda... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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2TheAdvocate - Baton Rouge,LA,
15 July 2006
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Ethics Board fines ex-officer
LAFAYETTE — A former high-ranking Opelousas police officer has been fined $1,500 and his wife’s company fined $2,500 on ethics violations for the company’s contract to provide printing services to the police department.
The ethics charges against Ronnie Trahan Sr. and his wife’s company, Especially For You Printing, arose last year out of wide-ranging investigation that also resulted in criminal charges against Trahan and former Opelousas Police Chief Larry Caillier.
Government employees are generally barred from approving payments of public funds to a family member or being involved in contractual dealings in which they have an economic interest.
Ethics Board staff attorney Peggy Sabadie said Friday that Especially for You Printing received about $29,000 from the police department from 1999 to 2003 for printing work, including thank you cards, department yearbooks for officers and other office printing jobs.
Trahan personally signed off on about $6,000 in checks to his wife’s company, she said.
Trahan, whose case came before the Ethics Board this week, also faces state criminal charges of money laundering, forgery and payroll fraud in a probe into the misuse of public money.
Caillier pleaded guilty in May to federal charges of submitting falsified paperwork to secure unearned government grant money.
The federal investigation focused on a $225,000 U.S. Housing and Urban Development grant for bicycle patrols at public housing projects in Opelousas from 2000 to 2003.
Federal prosecutors said that Caillier altered or told others to alter records to receive grant money for patrols that were never done.
Trahan told investigators that Caillier directed him to falsify timesheets to ensure the Police Department billed $3,000 every two weeks, regardless of whether the money was earned by patrolling officers.
Timesheets submitted for payment indicate that Caillier’s name was used to bill $38,520 for work related to the bicycle patrol, though prosecutors have said they are uncertain how much Caillier actually received.
Caillier also faces state criminal charges of malfeasance in office, money laundering, forgery, public payroll fraud and obstruction of justice as well as a state ethics charge in connection with an investigation into the bicycle patrol grant, undocumented spending and cash payments from police department accounts.
No date has been set for Caillier’s criminal trial or for hearing on the ethics charge.
In an unrelated case, the Ethics Board this week suspended activity on a complaint that a University of Louisiana at Lafayette primate lab supervisor allegedly retaliated against an employee who reported alleged animal abuse.
An attorney for ULL’s New Iberia Research Center had asked the board to dismiss the complaint.
The attorney cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that limits protections for “whistle-blowers” and a new state law that halts Ethics Board action on complaints of improper reprisal against a whistle-blower when a lawsuit is pending.
Ethics board staff attorney Alesia Ardoin said the board voted to stay the case rather than dismiss it.
Under a recent change to state law, the Ethics Board will take no further action on the complaint if the lawsuit moves forward but could take up the case if the lawsuit is dismissed.
The board had been investigating allegations that Johnny Hardcastle, head of animal resources at the center, violated the state ethics code by subjecting former employee Narriman Fakier “to acts of reprisal,” according to Ethics Board documents.
Fakier also filed a lawsuit against the university last year, alleging that she was forced to resign in early 2004 after complaining of mistreatment of animals at the center.
Fakier worked for two years as a coordinator and animal facility manager at New Iberia Research Center, which conducts pharmaceutical and medical testing on primates.
She alleged in the lawsuit that her supervisors ignored repeated complaints of alleged violations of animal-care standards.
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