For a political commentator in Louisiana, Livingston Parish politics are the gift that keeps on giving. It seems that they are once again doing it as only the Free State of Livingston can.

The latest dust-up East of the Amite involves the District Attorney race in the 21st Judicial District, which covers Livingston, Tangipahoa and St. Helena Parishes. Over the past week, this race has taken a turn towards insanity.

Scott Perilloux has been the district attorney in the 21st JDC for the last hundred years or so, and he has finally decided to retire. But as Louisiana politicians often do, he has anointed his chosen successor. In this case, the mantle has fallen to Assistant District Attorney Brad Cascio (it should also be noted that as of the last round of campaign finance reports that have been submitted, Perrilloux has contributed $10,000 to Cascio’s campaign thus far).

Cascio’s opponent is former state representative Sherman Mack. Mack has been endorsed by the Louisiana Republican Party, the Livingston Parish Republican Party, and Livingston Parish President Randy Delatte among others.

Until last week, the race was progressing in a rather pedestrian manner. That all changed with a mailer sent out by Sherman Mack’s campaign calling attention to the fact that the private law firm where Cascio is employed has billed Livingston Parish hundreds of thousands of dollars. This mailer apparently touched a nerve, as it immediately set off a huge firestorm.

The gist of the story is that as district attorney, Perilloux gets to appoint the attorney(s) that represent Livingston Parish. This is required by the parish’s home rule charter. In this case, Perilloux appointed the Moody Law Firm which is staffed by a grand total of two attorneys. Both are assistant district attorneys, and one of them is Cascio (shown on their website: https://cmoodylaw.com/legal-team). But here is the kicker: Livingston Parish apparently pays the District Attorney for the services of the Moody Law Firm / assistant D.A.’s. for their service in council meetings, board meetings, etc., but if they must go to court, the parish then has to pay the Moody Law Firm directly. So the private law firm where the assistant D.A. is employed on the side invoices the parish directly. That was the subject of the mailer that set off the fireworks.

Cascio’s response to the billing issue? “Over a five-year period going back to 2021, I have only personally billed Livingston Parish, I think it was $12,375…” (as reported by Unfiltered with Kiran). This is a very careful and lawyer-like response. Qualifying the amount he has personally billed conveniently ignores the billings of the private firm where he is one of two attorneys. The mailer did not claim that he had personally billed the parish that amount, so

the mailer would seem to be completely accurate. After all, it is hard to dispute the image of the actual checks made out to the Moody Law Firm.

In effect, the district attorney gets to hand out contracts to the private law firm(s) of his choice. The parish gets no say in this matter. The parish has no choice but to accept whomever the district attorney tells them he is assigning as their attorney. And the parish is required to pay the bills with no voice in the matter. These contracts are reportedly worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Sadly, this seems to be completely legal.

Whether or not it is ethical is a completely different question. Most people who do not have access to that kind of influence would likely say that it is not in the least bit ethical. And it is certainly political cronyism at its highest level.

The Livingston Parish Home Rule Charter states, “The district attorney of the judicial district serving Livingston Parish shall serve as legal adviser to the council, president and all departments, offices and agencies, and represent the parish government in legal proceedings.” It is crystal clear that the intent of the Home Rule Charter was for the district attorney’s office to represent the parish in its official capacity.

Instead, the current district attorney has interpreted that requirement as allowing him to pass out six figure contracts to private law firms like candy at Halloween, as long as that law firm is staffed with his assistant D.A.’s. Again, while apparently legal, this is pure political cronyism, the Good Ole Boy network doing its finest work. Steering public tax dollars to private businesses owned and staffed by allies with no bids and no accountability.

The Livingston Parish council tried to change the home rule charter in 2024 to allow them to select their own attorney. Perilloux fought that effort tooth and nail, and it failed at the ballot box when the opposition convinced the public that it would result in hiring more attorneys and cost more money. In reality, the parish council just wanted the ability to select their own attorney and replace the ones being forced on them.

When the mailer about hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to his law firm from the parish hit local mailboxes, Cascio’s campaign apparently hit the panic button. So, they seemingly decided that the best response would be to attack the messenger. In this case, that would be District 5 councilwoman Erin Sandefur, who reportedly was the source of the “double dipping” information. According to the news and her statement on social media, she requested the information about payments to Cascio’s law firm from the parish president’s office. The information was provided to her, and she passed it along to someone and it eventually ended up on a political mailer. A copy of one of the checks was

displayed on the mailer with the account information visible. And at that point, things really got interesting.

Never mind that Delatte has intimated in several reports that the parish pays most, if not all, of their bills with paper checks. With a parish the size of Livingston, one would expect hundreds of checks complete with account information to be mailed out to everyone under the sun. But that does not make political hay. Acting like the world has come to an end and focusing on the whistleblower instead of the “double-dipping” parish attorney / assistant district attorney seemingly gets a lot more press.

Interestingly, it seems that the hue and cry was all started by the parish’s chief of finance, Mickey McMorris. Unfiltered with Kiran reported that McMorris has endorsed Cascio in the race. One can now begin to see how the dots connect. Delatte later announced that his office had investigated how the information was passed from party to party and determined that no one had done anything wrong (https://www.wbrz.com/news/livingston-parish-president-speaks-on-release-of-unredacted-parish-checks).

That conclusion apparently did not work for the Cascio campaign. After all, a simple statement that no one had done anything wrong might allow the conversation to return to the six figures per year of public funds being routed to the Moody Law Firm. That would not do. So Perilloux, the sitting district attorney (as well as Cascio’s boss and five figure donor to his campaign) announced that he would launch his own investigation into Sandefur for “possible malfeasance”. You can find that story here: https://www.wbrz.com/news/i-committed-no-crime-council-member-accused-of-leaking-parish-s-bank-info-under-investigation.

That’s right. A District Attorney chose to open an investigation into an elected official because she provided information that ended up on a mailer that makes his assistant DA and chosen successor look bad. This came after the parish president had advised that they believed no one had done anything wrong. Nothing to be seen here. No politics to be found in the Livingston Parish district attorney’s office.

This looks and smells like a sitting district attorney using his office to intimidate the opposition to his chosen successor.

If the district attorney in the 21st Judicial District wants to find malfeasance, he may be better served looking at his own office rather than at other elected officials.