Nickey Picard will surely be shaking his head even harder today.
On Monday The Independent reported in the story “Pope & His Posse” that records obtained in late January from the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office revealed that Lafayette City Marshal Brian Pope had deputized 72 individuals since taking over the position in January 2015. The overwhelming majority of them are reserve deputies who are supposed to serve as a support staff for full-time deputies.
“That’s 10 times what I had,” Picard, Pope’s predecessor who served for three decades, told The IND for that story. Pope, however, provided The IND with the names of only 64 individuals for that same time period.
Picard, by contrast, swore in a total of seven deputies in his last two years in office, the LPSO’s records show.
When asked in an early March why his deputy numbers didn’t jibe with those from the LPSO, which as a courtesy printed the deputies’ commission cards for Pope (a courtesy Pope appears to no longer be taking advantage of), the marshal responded in a written statement that the Lafayette Parish Clerk of Court, which administers the oath to the deputies, and the Louisiana secretary of state “maintain the master listing of all commissioned deputies.” Pope also said in the statement that he was “not privy to any alleged commissioned deputy list generated by the [LPSO].” In fact, the marshal said he got the list he provided the paper from the clerk’s office.
In effect, if names were missing, it wasn’t his fault. And he didn’t seem to care, likely because he long ago lost track. Ironically, Pope’s own new website states that the office has “up to ten reserve deputies at one time.”
Records obtained Tuesday from the clerk’s office show just how short his numbers fall, revealing 20 more names than Pope submitted to the paper on Jan. 21. Perhaps more disturbing is that the record-breaking pace of commissioning deputies — nothing more than political patronage when it comes to the bulk of the reserves — has continued since The IND began inquiring about the commissions in January. Eleven of those missing 20 were commissioned after the paper submitted its original public records request in mid-January, leaving nine unaccounted for in Pope’s initial response.
According to the clerk’s records, Marshal Pope, who is under grand jury investigation for his actions related to a public records dispute with this paper, has now sworn in a whopping 84 deputies.
[Editor's Note: In fairness to the full-time deputy marshals, we have adjusted this list to reflect their status. Their names (the ones provided to this paper by the marshal in late January) now appear in bold face. The IND submitted a public records request to the marshal on Aug. 3 to determine if any of the more recently commissioned marshals are full-time employees. We will update the list once he responds.]
- Charles Clause
2. Steven L. Dunn
3. Floyd Antley
4. Jeffrey Mahler
5. Shane Duplechin
6. Allan Roger
7. Rodney Paul LeBlanc
8. Sallie Spears
9. Darlene Noel
10. Julie Albarado - Philip Conrad
12. Amber Vincent Hatley
13. Dean Harry Paul Morgan
14. Jean Paul Broussard
15. Nathan G. Broussard
16. Kevin R. Poirrier
17. William R. Delahoussaye
18. Ernest Roy Payne Jr.
19. Kimberly G. Guidry (resigned)
20. Armound J. Alwert
21. Emma Ray Hebert (Ret.)
22. Shaquille O’Neal
23. Michael McQuade
24. Bobby Rhyne
25. Myron Fonseca
26. Victor Rodriguez
27. Brandon Briscoe
28. Charles Burnell
29. Derrick D. Mallet
30. Michael D. Mallet
31. Ernest J. Guilbeau
32. Darville Jolivette (Ret.)
33. Joseph Milton Benoit (Ret.)
34. Taufiq M. Sekhani
35. Kyler Folse
36. Sanford Menard
37. Tim Breaux
38. Chris Wadlington (resigned)
39. Billy Barrett Jr.
40. Brian Doiron
41. Raney Redmond
42. Brannon Decou
43. Kevin Mire
44. Jacob Williamson
45. Kenneth Franques
46. Frank Michael DiBenedetto
47. Oren Haydel
48. Joseph Allgood
49. Chris Starling
50. Keith Talamo
51. Gregory Scott Carriere
52. Lane Cortez - Joseph R. Calliet Jr.
54. Ronald J. Mahtook
55. Madeline Domingue Breaux
56. Ricky Carmelo Williams
57. Thomas Gregory LeBlanc
58. Francis Fontenot
59. Arif Shad
60. Virginia Lee
61. Mark B. Chaisson
62. Daniel Viator
63. Nolvey Stelly Jr.
64. Michael E. McKinney
65. Karli Brooke Haydel
66. Robert Scott McElligott
67. William Howard McElligott
68. Gary P. Copes
69. Sean Paul Stelly
70. Troy M. Venable
71. Kevin Porrier - Leroy Calais
- Tyrell Fenroy
74. Knowles Leroy Jones
75. David Menard
76. Robert G. Cormier
77. Tommy Caillier
78. Rene Prejean
79. Glen Clay Higgins
80. Harold Wax
81. Clarence Glenn
82. Brennan Miller
83. April Lavergne
84. Paul Marion Toce III