The Law Office of Jim Davis, primarily a criminal practice, had a substantial client base of individuals with criminal backgrounds who worked offshore on rigs and commercial fishing vessels. Other clients included local residents who worked in seafood processing plants, hospitality and food service, and tourists cited for DUl and other charges while visiting this area. All of these industries and businesses sustained a devastating economic impact by the BP oil spill, and drastically reduced his clients’ ability to pay for legal services, resulting in greatly diminished profits and the lay-offs of one attorney and one secretary.

Now folks lest we gain too much of a reputation for being a plaintiff friendly blog….

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Leary’s 10 page copy and paste of Slabbed, circa February to April 2011, omitted one key element that would have cast the pleading in an entirely new light as I was not anonymous at all dating to May of 2010 when I appeared on Fox 8 in a Val Bracy story about TheRiot’s Jackassery suing the blogosphere.  Leary and Perret had been following Slabbed closely since we busted them on the Billy’s Hill Trail Society way back on January 12, 2010.  But of course of all the posts we had in April the one that failed to make Leary’s pleading was this one from April 14, 2011, where I announced Slabbed New Media and posted a link to my Mississippi Secretary of State filing.  And since Canadian judges evidently make decisions based on what are effectively ex parte motions, the result is an invasion of privacy of gargantuan proportions.

Judge Muise is evidently too dumb to see the blatant inconsistencies in his own court record, but like a pre schooler he colored all over Leary’s motion whittling the time away while acting as if he were actually doing something productive for his community.  Muise appears to be a good fit with your typical Mississippi Justice Court Judge.

There is a reason we have the SPEECH Act here in the US.  In fact I see the need for additional protections.

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Roy D'Aquilla

And I verily bet poor ol’ Roy crapped his pants when he saw the other media reports on the Broussard curatorships considering he was telling Charlie and Vaughn, on Broussard’s behalf, to put Riverbend on the Lodge’s main insurance policy. Of course you say that and they will sue.

And this fixation they have with Anne Marie Vandenweghe is unhealthy IMHO.  In fact it appears to be the same fixation TheRiot had for AMV considering the Fox 8 case has really been all about trying to get information on blog commenters, whether with the T-P or Slabbed.  In the case of Fox 8 the girls want a log of every IP address that visited the story and video on Broussard. I’ll be rolling that out in due course. Click the pic to get the 4 page pdf of Charles Leary being Charles Leary. If you want to see the exhibits, where the best dirt is I need your help.~ sop

You meet the most unlikely of people when you become an investigative blogger.  And while dealing there is certainly less than appealing to an otherwise mild-mannered CPA it has given me a perspective on the people who routinely slip through the cracks of our social net that few of my fellow peeps see. Here is hoping Mike can stay on his meds.

File this one under Nude and Tased.

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That is all.

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It takes moolah to bring home the docs and if you want to see more of the doings in Nova Scotia then I need you help.  You can find me by clicking on this post. Please contact me.

As always I thank you for your support.

Doug aka Sop

• Telemachus
• Unslabbed
• Whitmergate

While they have described their relationship with disgraced Parish President Aaron Broussard to the Times Picayune in terms of Broussard being a casual acquaintance, according to Nova Scotia court records the girls describe him as a close friend. IMHO the entire court exercise in Nova Scotia has been to help Aaron Broussard identify those that were speaking out on his corrupt activities and silence them via fear and intimidation.

I am now able to roll outs parts 3 and 4 of my series on Aaron Broussard’s business activities in Nova Scotia including Broussard’s use of his straw men at Trout Point Lodge to obtain personal data on those who posted about his dirty deeds here on Slabbed. At this point, it is unclear if Fox 8 has given away data on those that may have commented to Val Bracy’s stories on the Fox 8 website, but clearly they were content to serve up commenters on other sites without flinching.

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Forgot to mention I visited the the Yenni Building earlier today. http://tweetphoto.com/27853539—
SLABBED (@SLABBEDblog) June 18, 2010

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@Wilson_Stone @StateFarm We knoweth your pain Wilson. Puts that @aaronrodgers12 discount double check in a whole new light huh. #badfaith—
SLABBED (@SLABBEDblog) January 25, 2012

@StephGraceTP @editilla Is there an Edwin Edwrads connection to land near the Trout Point Development? Oh hell yeah!!

youtube.com/watch?v=cX5VcI…—
SLABBED (@SLABBEDblog) January 24, 2012

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Trout Point Lodge Owners Vaughn Perret, Danny Abel and Charles Leary

In part 1 of this series I covered the genesis of Trout Point development and the associated fleecing of the ACOA by our three amigos Danny Abel, Vaughn Perret and Charles Leary. The fallout was slow in developing though as certain employees at the ACOA that were involved with the La Farme D’Acadie disaster actually died in the interim and the ACOA was not especially diligent in pursuing repayment of the tax money given to the 3 American partners. When the ACOA filed suit Trout Point did not contest it and a default judgment was entered.  Later the default was set aside and the litigation began a tortuous path in the Canadian court system. It came to a head in 2008.

I highlighted the entire ACOA disaster in several posts but this one has received the most attention and for good reason as the lawsuits involving Leary, Abel and Perret and the  ACOA heated back up and one of the major issues turned on exactly who owned La Ferme D’Acadie.  Let”s review shall we:

In June 1998 the plaintiff, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, made a “repayable contribution” to a partnership involving the defendants, in order to assist in the startup of a cheesemaking and tourism business. The partnership was subsequently dissolved and incorporated by the former partners, and part of the business was moved to another location. In September 2001, the plaintiff declared that the partnership was in default of the repayable contribution agreement. The plaintiff launched an action in June 2002, the defendants being Mr. Leary, his former partners and the partnership itself.

Like I said one of the sticking points was the disclosure of the owners of La Ferme D’Acadie, which Leary claims is the Dairy Farm portion of the Nova Scotia operations and despite the fact Abel’s name evidently appeared on the paperwork to get the loan Leary was insistent Abel was not involved and the gyrations are simply stunning as we continue from the court opinion:

The applicant claims that broken pipes caused a flood in his home during the winter of 2002, resulting in the destruction of documents. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina wiped out the office of Daniel G. Abel, who was Mr. Leary’s Louisiana attorney and business associate. The applicant maintains that he kept records of the partnership’s dealings with the plaintiff, as well as other business records, at this location. In the spring of 2006 a break-in at Trout Point Lodge in East Kemptville, NS, resulted in the theft of a safe containing certain documents related to the transactions which are the subject of this proceeding.

Of course I called bullshit on Abel losing his office to Hurricane Katrina since he practiced out of the Super 8 Motel on Clearview with Aaron Broussard. In fact a long time business associate of Abel’s, long before that April post was published gratuitously and out of the blue told me Abel “never had an office”.  That tidbit also lined up with a tip on Abel I received in early 2010 regarding his representation of Dumpster Dived Jimmy Lawson so the data points obtained from various sources that were not connected lined up perfectly, enabling me to call bullshit on Leary for lying to the Nova Scotia courts regarding the ownership of La Ferme D’Acadie.  What I haven’t shared yet is the owners of La Ferme D’Acadie were not limited to Abel, Leary and Perret.

Two individuals that claim ownership in Trout Point Lodge have told Slabbed that the investment they were sold was not called Trout Point Lodge back when they purchased it. In fact those sources indicate their paperwork says they were buying into a company called La Ferme D’Acadie. Slabbed commenter Jr. was invaluable posting a July 2001 travel piece that ran in the Times Picayune:

Wendell Gauthier is an investor, though he’s never been here. New Orleans attorney Peter J. Butler Jr. said on the phone he invested as a 2 percent partner, and plans to visit for the first time next October. “We hope to make money, but if we don’t, I hear it’s a nice place to visit.”

So here we are in July 2001 and there is mention of connected New Orleanians that were investors in Trout Point but the question remains, exactly what did they invest in?  Luckily for us Finisterre gave everyone a big clue in October 2011 when he linked the resume of a local attorney David C Loeb and sure as shootin’ there it is listed on his resume under directorships:

La Ferme D’Acadie

And of course, based on that extensive article about the ACOA disaster I excerpted we know the girls bought the 200 acres that would become the Trout Point Development. According to that July 2001 travel piece for the Times Picayune they already owned it in 1998:

Abel is the steadying glue — – and a good evangelist. The guys won’t name names, but the 200 acres have become a haven for some prominent New Orleans and Jefferson residents.

And the public record is littered with references to the owners of Trout Point Lodge and the amount of land it is situated on.  For instance in this Globe and Mail story dating to March 15, 2000 we find the amount of land for the Lodge itself had shrunk to 81 acres, ostensibly because some of it had been sold we find Abel again mentioned as an owner:

Opening this summer is Trout Point Lodge, a luxurious 10-room retreat at the edge of the Tobeatic Wilderness Preserve, near East Kemptville in southwestern Nova Scotia. The log-and-stone lodge is on the shore of the Tusket River on 81 hectares of land.

Eight guest rooms and two suites feature water views, log or granite walls, and log-beam ceilings. The suites and two rooms have sandstone fireplaces, while two other rooms have wood stoves. Accommodations include three meals a day.

Food will be a highlight at the lodge. Owners Daniel Abel, Vaughn Perret and Charles Leary have been partners for more than a decade in various ventures related to food and hospitality in the New Orleans area. In the U.S., from 1990 to 1998, they operated Chicory Farm, which grew organic vegetables and specialty mushrooms, and produced goat- and cow’s-milk cheeses. Their cheese and produce was used in numerous New Orleans restaurants. In 1998, they moved to Nova Scotia and formed La Ferme d’Acadie, a new creamery producing European-style goat’s-milk cheeses. La Ferme’s cheeses now appear on restaurant menus across Canada, and are exported to the U.S.

Not surprisingly, they will be offering two- and three-day food-oriented vacations that will include such things as field trips to learn about edible wild plants and mushrooms, and cooking lessons on such themes as French new world cuisine. The lodge will be available for booking in its entirety by small corporate groups.

Costs will range from $500, double, for suites and $425 for rooms.

Those rooms sure were pricey back then considering they now go for well under $200/night excluding meals and other hidden charges. I also noticed how the Globe and Mail had Abel owning La Ferme D’Acadie. That was then but in 2008 this is what Leary was telling a Nova Scotia court:

At the hearing of this application, Dr. Leary said that, if he were to comply with the disclosure order under appeal, he would repeat the information in these paragraphs – i.e. the only partners were Dr. Leary and Mr. Perret, not Mr. Abel. ACOA already has this information in Dr. Leary’s memorandum of December 19, 2008.

So there you have it folks, people like Peter Butler Jr, who owned 2% of La Ferme D’Acadie were cut out when the rubber met the road in the Canadian court system. Worth noting is that La Ferme D’Acadie had a very short existence in Nova Scotia as it was formed and dissolved within the same year. Simply put La Ferme D’Acadie does not exist except on some pieces of paper that are worthless from a legal standpoint. Poor Baby Butler owns 100% of 2% of nothing.

The PR at Trout Point never stops though and like our own Magnum, the gang simply makes it up as they go along as this snippet from Open to the World Illustrates:

It might not be paradise, but it’s close— thanks to the vision and hard work of the owners, who are proud of their hands-on involvement. “We designed the building and the furniture and we do all the cooking,” says Leary. “We try to do everything.” Says Perret, who used to practice law at a Park Avenue firm in Manhattan….

And this snippet illustrates they also had other business interest in New Orleans:

Besides Trout Point Lodge, the trio operates the Inn at Coyote Mountain in Costa Rica and the Granada Cooking School in Spain. They also owned the Chicory Farm Cafe in New Orleans’s Uptown district until just two weeks before Hurricane Katrina struck and devastated the Gulf Coast of the United States in August. Since then, Perret’s mother and brother have sought refuge at the lodge, and other relatives are expected to arrive in the coming weeks and months.

And speaking of Hurricane Katrina I hope everyone remembers the suit against State Farm that Eric Paulsen filed regarding Hurricane damage to his house in Slidell? I hope so folks because I have caught a wee bit of flack in certain circles for terming Paulsen “The Toolman”. In that case, there were questions raised about the true ownership of the property.  I’ll see that State Farm lawyer’s gambit and raise the ante for in 2006 Abel claimed to own the house in Slidell:

“Everyone has been wonderful. Everywhere I go in this province, somebody is doing something to help our friends and neighbours in Louisiana,” says Abel, whose house in Slidell, La., had its first floor wiped out by the hurricane and the ensuing tidal surge. “People who know me have come by and called and asked what they can do. Every time I go to a public place, there’s always someone collecting something for someone. Just the other day, we were in the parking lot at Yarmouth Mall, and some guys with the Lions Club were literally stopping every car [to raise money for hurricane relief]. You couldn’t get out of the parking lot until you dropped something into their buckets. I was so touched by the generosity. I know we’ve settled in a good place.”

And of course how do I know it is the same house? There are several reason but author Peter Brown was kind enough to fill in a few gaps for us:

…..the fact that danny and shane are great people. you would have to be closer to it to understand that danny, shane and christine plus the grandchildren make a cohesive and close family. a lot of people may want that not to be true but it is. they have closer bonds than most born and bred families i know.

Throw in Paulsen and I bet it gets real kinky folks.

We’ve made it all the way to 2008 in the history of Aaron Broussard’s Nova Scotia adventure. Stay tuned for part 3 as we fast forward to late 2009 when it all began to unravel.

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Post revised as Sop did not account for the metric system. (Hat Tip a reader in Nova Scotia)

1. This is supposed to be a confidential personnel matter.
2. It was leaked to Channel 6 in order to make John Young look bad.

Naturally this made me think about who in their right minds in the chain of command would leak a confidential investigation to Channel 6 and the community (I got my tip from people outside Parish Government)? I think we can narrow down the list of suspects but first let’s get the skinny from WDSU:

The Jefferson Parish Council has called a special executive session for Wednesday in hopes of learning details about an internal investigation involving a top-level member of the administrative staff, the WDSU I-Team has learned.

The move comes shortly after the parish contracted with a local law firm for an independent review of the matter.

I’ll be honest and say I thought originally Hilliard had to be the source of the leak. Now I am convinced she is not and in fact I think I smell a Mini-me in the woodpile. Let’s continue with the I-Team for the reason behind my change of opinion:

The complaint was filed in 2011, but the investigation was handed to the outside firm earlier this month, following the conclusion of a probe by parish Human Resources officials.

So who talked to Channel 6? The unnamed law firm conducting the review? JP Human resources? Or Mini-me after getting a tip from JP Human resources? Let the grandstanding and backstabbing begin!

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Seriously folks, for those that have not been to Impastato’s it is well worth the visit.  I personally miss Bertucci’s in Gretna. Of course there is also the Beef Connection for those wanting steak. And for those wanting to know the names of all the top dogs in NOLA organized crime through 1996 should click here.

(Hat Tip an observant reader)

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I mention this because of an excellent column written last week by the T-P’s Stephanie Grace about all the Parish venders/contractors whose names have popped up in the ongoing federal investigation into Aaron Broussard’s shithouse business dealings. Slabbed of course has been on the cutting edge mentioning names such as Ralph Fontcuberta Jr. that are connected to Broussard’s land and business dealings at the Trout Point Development near East Kempt Nova Scotia. Grace made some very insightful points including this one:

Among the facts that the document claims “the Government would have proven” beyond a reasonable doubt, are these: That throughout his nearly two terms as parish president, Broussard pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from contractors and vendors, under the guise of “retainers,” “consulting fees” or “finder’s fees.” And that Broussard was majority owner in a holding company that owned income-generating property in Canada, which was partially funded by people who did business with the parish.

So what does Broussard’s appetite for other people’s money have to do with Parker’s confession?

Not a lot, in a legal sense, anyway. Parker admitted only to knowing about the felony in which she’s the central figure, not any alleged misdeeds that stem from a much broader and deeper pattern of corruption on her then-husband’s watch. You could argue that the additional allegations don’t belong in this document at all, since Broussard has not been formally accused, let alone convicted, of the other offenses.

Yet U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and his prosecutors included it for a reason. More likely, many reasons.

The passage serves as a warning to Broussard and Wilkinson on two fronts: They now know that Parker, who has agreed to cooperate in exchange for a vastly reduced charge that shortens her potential prison time from nearly 600 years to three, is telling the feds everything she knows about Broussard’s relationships with all those parish businesspeople. And Broussard in particular knows that he’s got to worry about a lot more than the payroll fraud charges if he doesn’t cut his own deal.

It also amounts to a veiled invitation, a strong suggestion that those unnamed contractors and vendors who supported the Broussards’ lifestyle should come on in and chat.

Indeed it is folks and those people that were on the fence in one day had their decision on whether or not to cooperate boiled down to sinking fast on Aaron Broussard’s Goodship Lollypop or catching a ride on that train we’ll call the City of New Orleans that I mentioned a few days ago.  Something tells me the train has just picked up a bunch of passengers. Welcome aboard boys.