Staff Editorial | July 17, 2021
When the attorney general of Louisiana is on your company payroll, why not whistle up his investigators to help you with a family dispute?
That is what businessman Shane Guidry of Jefferson Parish did, seeking help from his friend Attorney General Jeff Landry.
Investigators from Landry’s office went well beyond the bounds of ordinary practices when called upon by Guidry in the matter, involving unwanted contacts from the birth mother of an adopted child.
Family disputes are, of course, often difficult and highly emotional. But when you’re pulling strings like Guidry’s over Landry’s office, the whole thing reeks of political favoritism.
That’s the conclusion of Rafael Goyeneche, president of the watchdog Metropolitan Crime Commission. That conclusion is backed up by the AG office records, showing that agents made an unusual out-of-state trip to Mississippi in the matter.
The dispute, by the way, seems to have no attached criminal element to justify the AG’s involvement. Guidry had also complained to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, but deputies found no indication of an actual crime in the dispute.
Landry is on Guidry’s payroll as a director of the latter’s family company. And clearly the attorney general does not understand the concept of impartial administration of justice.
“An average person could not call on the investigative division to go spend two days tracking down the biological mother and tell her to stop calling and contacting the child,” Goyeneche said. “It’s another example of a quid-pro-quo, good-old-boy network.”
That’s how Jeff Landy rolls. And it is not a good sign that his office is ready to take up a big donor’s side, to the point of intimidation of another party by AG investigators.