Jurors heard more recordings Monday as the bribery trial of longtime prosecutor Gary Haynes resumed.
Haynes was indicted last fall, accused of conspiracy, bribery and obstruction charges. He's accused of using his position over the 15th Judicial District Attorney's Pretrial Diversion program to solicit bribes from companies that provided required programs to people who participated in the program.
Jurors heard two men who have pleaded guilty in the case, Leonard Franques and Dusty Guidry, talking with Haynes on the telephone and in person, conversations the FBI recorded.
They talked about Haynes writing checks to Guidry to "invest" in Franques' companies, about those companies buying Haynes a truck, about pushing defendants to Franques' programs, and about Guidry's arrest in December 2021 on drug charges.
Last week, jurors learned that arrest was orchestrated by the FBI with St. Martin Parish officials after the feds learned Guidry was making a big drug buy; today they heard Franques and Haynes worrying about the arrest.
In their first conversation after the arrest, Haynes says he learned the FBI had a big investigation going on with the drug dealer, but he was apprehensive about how far their investigation had gone.
"We've got a lot invested in this," Haynes is heard saying. "He's going to be OK in the long run. But it's got to run its course."
Haynes told Franques the feds were watching Guidry's dealer, but wiretaps might expand beyond the drug business and so everyone should be careful and "don't talk on the phone."
"We don't know how long the feds have been doing that investigation on that guy," Haynes said. "I"ve been telling him to stay off the phones."
That's the same conversation in which Haynes learned that some money he had contributed to invest in Franques' businesses went straight to Guidry; Franques told him that Guidry had taken the money saying he needed to borrow it.
"It's just unbelievable how much money I gave him," Haynes said. "Maybe his math's not quite right."
"Maybe it's time to square up," Franques said.
Franques asked what Haynes was going to tell Guidry, and Haynes said nothing.
"He's just going to have to sweat for a while," Haynes said.
Although the attorneys aren't permitted to talk about it in front of the jury, the allegations Haynes faces are very close to those that sent his wife to federal prison a decade ago. In that case, the defendants admitted in guilty pleas that they conspired with Lafayette private investigator Robert Williamson, 64, who is not licensed to practice law, to move cases through the legal system. From March 2008 to February 2012, Williamson solicited thousands of dollars from individuals with pending criminal charges in the Lafayette DA's office and promised them favorable resolutions to pending felony and misdemeanor cases, the majority of which were OWI cases.
Haynes' wife, who was then-District Attorney Mike Harson's longtime secretary, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
On Monday, jurors heard part of a conversation Haynes had with Leonard Franques, who cooperated with the FBI and wore a wire while talking with Haynes.
In these transcripts, GH refers to Gary Haynes and CHS refers to Franques, who recorded the conversation for the FBI.
The part the jury heard was:
GH: "...they went after him, they did a long investigation, they tapped people’s phones, and they found where Barna was typing those expungements, and getting paid, but they couldn’t find anything on Mike, they couldn’t find where he was takin any money, he’s smarter than that, he ain’t stupid… ya know, but, ya know, people walk in his office and just put it on the desk, they don’t talk about it, ya know what I mean?
CHS: Correct
GH: Um, I’ve see-I’ve-I know, I’ve seen it… I’ve done it! [Chuckles]
CHS: Right
GH: I’ve had, I’ve ha-I’ve ca-carried money, $10,000, for one, for one supporter, ya know what I mean? I trust you because, we-we’re in this together, ya know? But I’m, I’m, I don’t tell people [OV] that, ya know?
CHS: [OV] No, no, absolutely
GH: But I’m trusting you, cause I, I know I can trust you, ya know, because you have some secrets to share, but, but, I’m serious, I-I’ve carried, for a, for a, um… for a, for a, um, constituent, $10,000 cash, and sh-, supposed to be a campaign contribution, right?
But according to court documents, the conversation was even more extensive. Here's the full transcript of that part of the conversation:
GH: Yeah… so, so, um, [OV] so, so, so, it’d be like this… Barna, anybody under a .20, first offense, you put em in pretrial diversion, she was his secretary, she was the office manager… she would, tell the prosecutor, these cases go to pretrial diversion… another category, okay, over .2… uh, they had to, talk to him, get approved by him, so he would approve those cases, then they could go to pretrial, but it was over a .25… uh, and they wanted that quick, program, Mike had to approve ‘em himself.
CHS: Okay
GH: And that’s what they did… okay? But Mike wasn’t there, so sometimes she’d call him on the phone, sometime, ya know that kinda stuff… sometimes he’d sign off, whatever, so… the private investigator goes to her and he says, look, when these people finish, they want to expunge their record, would you type the expungement, I’ll pay you, $250, or sometimes $500, I’ll pay you to do it. Lawyer, lawyer charges, $2,000, $3,000, some of em $5,000, and my wife is really smart, and she’s very good at doin all that kinda stuff, she’s really good, ya know?
CHS: Ya for 38 years doing it. (Expletive) yeah.
GH: [OV] Yes, yeah, she didn’t need a-a computer, everything was in her head, she could type all that stuff ya know? But she’s a smart, smart person, ya know what I mean? She knew all the rules, all the everything, so she was, she could do it real fast. So he started payin her to do expunge-when they finished their programs, he’d go and he’d say well this person paid me, enough, I’mma pay ya $250, couple of em, two or three of em that paid $500. Well, they didn’t want, an-and I know, I, they di-they didn’t want it to be public that she was doin it, it woulda looked bad, ya know?
CHS: Right
GH: But she works in there, and she’s makin, really it’s an ethical issue, it’s not, it wasn’t criminal, okay
CHS: Correct
GH: So, Barry Sallinger and them… saw that the private investigator… they didn’t need to hire a lawyer, a private investigator would go to Mike and say, would you put ‘em in this program, Mike would do it… private investigator was making more money, see, so they went to the FBI and they said Mike’s takin money… So they went, they-they got the commission, to go after Mike Harson, they went after him, they did a long investigation, they tapped people’s phones, and they found where Barna was typing those expungements, and getting paid, but they couldn’t find anything on Mike, they couldn’t find where he was takin any money, he’s smarter than that, he ain’t stupid… ya know, but, ya know, people walk in his office and just put it on the desk, they don’t talk about it, ya know what I mean?
CHS: Correct
GH: Um, I’ve see-I’ve-I know, I’ve seen it… I’ve done it! [Chuckles]
CHS: Right
GH: I’ve had, I’ve ha-I’ve ca-carried money, $10,000, for one, for one supporter, ya know what I mean? I trust you because, we-we’re in this together, ya know? But I’m, I’m, I don’t tell people [OV] that, ya know?
CHS: [OV] No, no, absolutely
GH: But I’m trusting you, cause I, I know I can trust you, ya know, because you have some secrets to share, but, but, I’m serious, I-I’ve carried, for a, for a, um… for a, for a, um, constituent, $10,000 cash, and sh-, supposed to be a campaign contribution, right?
CHS: Right… [OV] right
GH: [OV] It ain’t a campaign contribution, right? Anyway, so, so, um… I mean a lotta people pay em, lotta people paid him, people that have shit, and are…
CHS: Correct
GH: … like, arrested and, ya know? So, um, so anyway… um, what happened w-, what happened um, was um, when they couldn’t get anything on Mike, then they, they-the, they knew she was typin it, they, they had spent all this money on these investigations for, for months, they went to Washington, DC to get the budget... but they can’t, they can’t, they ca-, they-they spent a million dollars, they can’t say I didn’t get anything, they gotta get somebody… that’s in every case, they gon-they gon, some, some scape-they gon have a scapegoat, say…
CHS: Right
GH: And say we, we, we corrected the problem, ya know? So, they went to her and they said, okay, ya know, you-you’re under arrest, um… uh, we know what you were doin… you weren’t just typing expungements, he was paying you to put em in the program, and that’s not true. The FBI lied. They twisted it to make it fit where they could get her, she had no defense… cause she had received money for-for-for the expungements.
CHS: Correct
GH: You see, so she couldn’t say no, she tried. She kept tellin them no, I was getting paid for the expungements, here’s my bank account, look, look what I put in my bank account, this what – they said no, no, Robert Williamson had, 200 files at his office. My wife’s name wasn’t on em… he had 200 files, but he, he worked for lawyers, they had lawyers that would call him and say, I have a client… go get, go-go take, go do your magic. The lawyer would say charge $5,000 or $10,000…
CHS: Mhm
GH: Pay him, he would handle it, that-that kinda, that’s how they were doing it, see
[OV] they [UI]
CHS: [OV] So did Robert go to jail?
GH: Yeah…
CHS: He did?
GH: He went for five years… yep… and they almost got two, two lawyers… and uh, one of them went on disability, and the other one, they pros-they didn’t pros, the feds didn’t prosecute him, but Jeff Landry picked it up, and in the very end, Jeff Landry reduced it to a pre-trial aversion… and Ken Franques was also in there too…
CHS: Ohhhh what was Ken doin?
GH: Ken and my wife were like this, Ken, Ken brought a few, over there…
CHS: Okay
GH: …himself, he did the same thing, he’s a private investigator.
CHS: And I know Ken did a lot of fundraising for him.
GH: I-I saved Ken, and that lawyer, because, just between you and I, when, when, when, Barna, Barna had to go to jail for twelve months… ya, had to go to uh, a medical prison in, a medical facility for the, in the, for the Feds… I mean lucky it was a medical facility, but, so it wasn’t that bad for her, but, um, but still she was away [OV] for twelve months from her kids ya know?
Testimony resumes this afternoon.
