Friday, November 1, 2013

Judge stops DMR cover-up

A Harrison County Chancellor stopped the State Auditor's efforts to keep records of the Department of Marine Resources away from the Sun-Herald yesterday:

Mississippi Department of Marine Resources records belong to the public and must be provided to the Sun Herald for inspection, Chancery Judge Jennifer Schloegel ruled Thursday afternoon.

The State Auditor's Office has argued since January the records became exempt from the state Public Records Act after the agency seized them for an ongoing criminal investigation involving the DMR. The DMR said it was unable to give the newspaper the records because the auditor's office had them.

After a daylong hearing Wednesday, Schloegel reviewed federal and state public records laws, and cases based on those laws, to find relocating records to a law enforcement agency does not mean they become investigative reports exempt from public disclosure.

"I would find that they are public records and that they do not meet the exemption of an investigative report," she said, "… and therefore, they should be released to the public."

Records can be denied to the public under the criminal investigations exemption, she found, when they reveal a law enforcement agency's confidential informants, investigative techniques and procedures, or undercover operations. Investigative reports that law enforcement agencies compile about records they seize also can be exempt from public disclosure, she said.

"We do not have any reports prepared by the auditor's office," Schloegel said. "We have the Department of Marine Resources records that have been used in the regular course of business …. They certainly were not compiled by DMR for a law enforcement purpose."

he Sun Herald was reporting on questionable management at the DMR under then-Executive Director Bill Walker at the same time the auditor's office and FBI were investigating the agency. Walker was fired in January. He has denied any wrongdoing. So far, no indictments have resulted from the state and federal investigations.

Using language similar or almost identical to the wording in the newspaper's written records request, the State Auditor's Office in early January subpoenaed the records and took them. Schloegel said she considered the timing and similar language in the subpoena in making her ruling.

After the Sun Herald filed its records lawsuit, the DMR gave the newspaper 22,000 pages of records the agency had on computer, but said the auditor's office took the only copies of other records....

The Sun Herald's attorney, Henry Laird, said the auditor's office should have copied the records and left the originals with the DMR. The Sun Herald has always maintained the documents are public records because the DMR generated them in the course of doing business, not as part of an investigation.

Schloegel ordered the auditor's office to bring the records to court Thursday so she could inspect them, thinking they were in three boxes. Instead, 38 boxes of records arrived in a moving van. The records the Sun Herald requested would fill an estimated three boxes, DMR attorney Joe Runnels said, but they were actually spread throughout 38 boxes of records the auditor took.

Instead of looking through the records, Schloegel determined by questioning the state agencies' lawyers that the auditor's office had kept them in the same order they were in when seized.

After Schloegel's ruling, State Auditor Stacy Pickering said: "The court has spoken and we will move forward. We are committed to protecting the taxpayers of Mississippi and we will continue to do that as the investigation at the Department of Marine Resources is brought to a conclusion." rest of the article.

Score a win for the good guys. The good guys being the newspaper. The auditor's office is supposed to be the good guys but the Jim Hood lawyer representing the OSA at times acts in ways to protect targets that would do a defense lawyer proud. Copying the records request than issuing subpoenas for the records? What the hell is going on over there?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

KF:

The auditor spoke to the Ocean Springs Rotary Club about the auditor’s office and also fielded a question from the crowd about the ongoing state and federal investigations of the embattled agency. Pickering said he was glad the audience member introduced the topic.

He said the investigation could yield some court appearances in the coming months.

“I’m hoping we’ll start seeing things wrap up this fall,” Pickering told the crowd. “It has been very complex and very complicated and my only commentary on the DMR investigation is there are a lot of friends of yours and mine. Let’s be very clear. This is close to home for all of us.”The auditor said his take on the situation is the investigation will likely reveal a “culture of corruption.”


Now that portion of the article reads like this:

OCEAN SPRINGS -- State Auditor Stacey Pickering said Wednesday he believes the ongoing probes of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources could start to have some resolutions beginning this fall and investigators may reveal evidence of a "culture of corruption."

The auditor spoke to the Ocean Springs Rotary Club about the work of his office and also fielded a question from the crowd about the ongoing state and federal investigations of the embattled agency. The auditor said the investigation could yield some indictments and court appearances in the coming months. His take on the situation is the investigation will likely reveal a "culture of corruption."

"What I see happen a lot of times is a culture of complacency develops," Pickering said. "It's not one big thing. It is just everybody gets used to it. 'Oh he's a good guy, she's a good girl and that's the way we've always done things.' No one is checking, no one is verifying. Then little programs start happening and little people start taking money and taking this and doing this and it becomes a culture of corruption. It's a migration. I think that's ultimately what we are going to find out is that it kind of became a culture of corruption."
http://www.sunherald.com/2013/07/24/4819719/pickering-dmr-probe-may-reveal.html

Hit the link for Pickering's proffered explanation about how his office found out the (federal authorities) were investigating "friends of yours and mine. Let’s be very clear. This is close to home for all of us".

Anonymous said...

He IS a defense lawyer. Defending a sole client.

Anonymous said...

The whole DMR scandal is just bizarre from every angle. The AGs office has attorneys assigned to the DMR so there is no way prosecution will come from the AG's office. One of the attorneys named Runnels has a conflict because he and his wife executed a debris monitoring contract with the DMR on behalf of their sons who were minors. This contact has the sons paddling around in a canoe trying to determine where trash is and how it got there and being paid journeymen wages. Runnels is pictured in the court room this week helping make the case not to release the records. How is this even possible. This relationship must be investigated. The contract, as many others, should be part of the investigation because based on state law it is not legal due to the conflict. Everyone from state line to state line have been paying for this. It is not just a Gulf Coast issue. Thanks Kingfish for keeping people aware. We are talking big money misused by many.

Anonymous said...

Everyone in Mississippi should be thankful there are courageous enterprises like the Sun Herald and Jackson Jambalaya willing to fight the good fights over government transparency and open records.

Anonymous said...

here in Mississippi, the state overwhelmingly elects so called "conservative Republicans", actually, in reality they are "fake-conservative RINO'S", who campaign and speak about making government smaller, giving it less of our hard earned tax dollars to waste and squander and use to keep people dependent on the government instead of on their own, and then what do these statewide elected officials do for their term and career? They spend it all doing everything in their power to protect all of their buddies and the bureaucratic-government Kingdoms that they have control and power over and use the tax payers dollars to enrich themselves and their friends and family and crony-political party buddies and contributors. Haley Barbour and Stacey Pickering are perfect examples of this here in Mississippi. Bryant tries to play their game but is such an incompetent that he stumbles at it.

Anonymous said...

If you read all that has been reported about what has taken place at the Ms.DMR you could easily conclude that an "sweep it all under the rug" cover-up has taken place that involves a number of other state agencies inclusive of the State Auditor, the Attorney General's office, the Secretary of State's office, the DEQ and the Ms. Dev. Authority. You could even throw in the Governor's office. Each agency has played a part in allowing the plundering, misuse of taxpayer's money and blatant conflicts of interest. From not auditing this agency for over ten years to allowing Bill Walker to run a scam nonprofit named the Marine Resource Foundation. From having an AG attorney working at the DMR with a contact for his family to reappointing Bill Walker to the head job at the DMR by an incoming governor. From sending DEQ money to Bill Walkers nonprofit that was redistributed as campaign donations for Republican candidates to allowing the DMR to, in part, control Katrina and oil spill clean-up contracts. This is just a sampling of what has taken place. We should all hope that the USDOJ extracts all of the facts from the those involved so we can see who participated or allowed for this to go on for so long.

Anonymous said...

What about the ads Pickering is running in the Clarion Ledger - looks like a political ad to me - he says paid for "by money recovered from convicted government officials" - isn't that our taxpayers money? Look on page 9B in Sundays CL - also ran Thursday! a political ad if I ever saw one - Pickering is the criminal here on this one - who is advising him needs to be fired. Pickering won't get my vote again - I've voted for him every time his name has been on the ballot! This ad and the DMR scandal smells like bad fish!

Anonymous said...

This is the first mention of the Runnels clan I've heard of in the DMR scandal. Jeffrey Dwight Tomas Runnels, the Palazzo staffer, was praised by the congressman at a fundraiser last election cycle for his hard work on "both sides" of the Palazzo organization. The official side and campaign side. We knew Steven was dumb, but bragging about having his staff violate the Hatch Act? Damn...

Anonymous said...

National focus on MS Problems in Public Information System

http://watchdogwire.com/blog/2013/11/05/public-information-system-problems-in-mississippi/

Anonymous said...

DMR records spirited off to Jackson, remain secret

BILOXI -- Chancery Court Judge Jennifer Schloegel on Thursday ordered the state Auditor's Office to return Department of Marine Resources records to the agency's Biloxi office so they could be copied for public inspection, but that has not happened.

Instead, state auditor's attorney Melissa Patterson informed Schloegel after business hours Monday, that the U.S. Attorney's Office subpoenaed the same records to be in Jackson on Tuesday morning.

Anonymous said...

Well, I guess the US Attorny trumps a Ms. judge every time. Just another stall by someone at Stacey Pickering's request I bet. No copies to be had in this BS mess.

Anonymous said...

So, the state court judge ordered the records to be produced to her for copying before they went to the U.S. Attorney and the State Auditor's office failed to comply with that order? I would not want to be in Ms. Patterson's shoes.

I would also like to know when the subpoena was issued by the U.S. Attorney. It is improbable that the subpoena was issued on Monday demanding the documents be produced the very next day. I wonder if the subpoena was issued before the hearing last week, and the State Auditor failed to advise the court of that?

Anonymous said...

I would bet my retirement all of this was orchestrated by Stacey Pickering. Something in the records must be big enough for him to throw away his political career. He is not looking out for the people but is protecting somebody from something.



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