UPDATE: Former Assistant District Attorney Gary Haynes will be arraigned next month, records show.
Haynes will make his initial appearance and be arraigned on conspiracy, bribery and obstruction charges on October 3; he's hired Lake Charles attorney and federal prosecutor Todd Clemons as his attorney.
We reached out to Clemons, who sent us the following statement:
"Gary is relieved that he can finally commence the process of clearing his good name. Gary is a good and hardworking man. He served the citizens of Lafayette Parish with distinction for many years. He has lived under the cloud, and the enormous stress, of overtly being investigated by our federal government for well over two years.
"The prosecutors authored an Indictment that tells a false story. A falsehood created by weak and less than honorable men pressured into cooperating with the Department of Justice. Gary Joseph Haynes is an honorable man of integrity. He will stand tall and fight these false allegations until he is exonerated by twelve of his peers."
Haynes was named in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday accusing him 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.
We now have a copy of the indictment, and more details. You can read it for yourself by scrolling down.
The time that the scheme ran began "on a date unknown, but not before on or about January 11, 2021" - which is the day the current DA, Donald Landry, was sworn in. It continued through May 9, 2022, the indictment alleges.
Haynes and Dusty Guidry - a former "agent" for the DA's office who already has pleaded guilty - worked together by requiring people who participated in the pretrial diversion program to pay for services provided by companies owned by another alleged conspirator, Leonard Franques, who also has pleaded guilty.
In exchange, Franques provided money, property and things of value, the indictment alleges. Haynes and Guidry allegedly approved more participants to the program to increase the referrals to Franques' companies - and thus "generate more illicit proceeds," the indictment alleges.
Another business owner, Joseph Prejean also has pleaded guilty. Franques pleaded guilty on January 12, 2024, to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds. Guidry pleaded guilty on March 23, 2023, to two counts of conspiracy to commit bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds and one count of bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds. Prejean pleaded guilty in December 2023 to conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official in the Lafayette Parish District Attorney's Office. All three men are scheduled to be sentenced next month.
The indictment alleges that Haynes got a pick-up truck worth more than $80,000 from Franques as payment for assigning people in the program to take classes from Franques' companies.
The indictment also accuses Haynes of accepting people into the program that shouldn't have been accepted, because of previous charges. One person who was on their third DWI charge was accepted because Guidry told Haynes "there's some meat on the bone."
The Pretrial Intervention program is supposed to offer an alternative to criminal prosecution for certain criminal offenders.
The indictment alleges that Haynes told Franques not to tell Landry, the district attorney, that Franques was paying Guidry for referrals. During that same conversation, Franques told Haynes he had paid Guidry $40,000 in the last month, and Haynes said that Guidry was supposed to split that money with him.
In January 2022, Haynes, Guidry and Franques met to discuss "how to increase profits to Franques' companies and how to conceal Haynes' role in sending more participants in the PTI program to classes controlled by Franques," the indictment alleges. They also allegedly talked about how to conceal the kickbacks to Haynes by the purchase of a vehicle, or use of a corporation controlled by Haynes called M.D. at Law.
The indictment also accuses Haynes of trying to persuade someone else to destroy evidence so it couldn't be used; that allegedly happened in February 2022.
Most of the conversations referenced specifically in the indictment took place in the spring of 2022, in the months following Guidry's December 2021 arrest on drug charges.
Haynes is charged with conspiracy to commit bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, two counts of using his cell phone in aid of bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and obstruction of justice. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 65 years in prison.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and U.S. Attorney Brandon Bonaparte Brown for the Western District of Louisiana made the announcement.
The FBI New Orleans Field Office and IRS Criminal Investigation are investigating the case. Trial Attorneys Steven Loew and Trevor Wilmot of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Luke Walker and John Nickel for the Western District of Louisiana are prosecuting the case.
Here's a copy of the indictment against Haynes.
KATC Investigates has been covering this case for more than two years. Here's some background:
In the court documents filed along with the three guilty pleas, two public officials were identified - one who allegedly took bribes in the DA's office, and a public official with the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries who accepted bribes.
Shortly after Guidry pleaded guilty in 2023, LDWF Secretary Jack Montoucet resigned. To read our story about that, click here. Montoucet's resignation came the day after our media partners at The Advocate/Times Picayune identified him as the person of interest described in Guidry's guilty plea.
Documents filed in Prejean's case and the Franques case tell a similar story to the allegations in Haynes' case, alleging that Guidry facilitated bribes with the unnamed public officials in charge at each public office. In both cases, companies that wanted to do business with the agencies - in most cases offering classes that people accused of crimes were required to do in order to either complete their punishment or avoid more serious punishment like jail - had to pay bribes to Guidry, who in turn split the money with these unnamed public officials.
As part of his plea agreement, Guidry admitted to accepting more than $730,000 in bribes.
Back in 2022, the FBI searched the District Attorney's Office; DA Don Landry told KATC at the time that they were looking at the pre-trial diversion program. To read that story, click here.
The 10-page bill of information filed against Guidry lays out a conspiracy that began in 2021 and lasted until 2022 involving the pre-trial diversion program, two unnamed public officials and four "vendors." Prejean and Franques are identified in court documents as two of those four vendors.
Guidry used to work for the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's Office, but he was working as an "agent" of the Lafayette DA's pre-trial diversion program in January 2021 when the alleged conspiracy began.
Guidry was appointed to the Cajundome Commission by Lafayette Mayor-President Joel Robideaux, and to the state Wildlife and Fisheries Commission by Gov. John Bel Edwards. In December 2021, he was arrested on drug charges.
