A Church Point man accused in an ongoing federal probe of bribery pleaded guilty Friday.
Joseph Prejean, 57, pleaded guilty to a federal Bill of Information accusing him of conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official in the Lafayette Parish District Attorney's Office.
His sentencing is set for March 14. He faces up to five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. If you want to read the factual basis for his guilty plea, scroll down.
During the hearing that is required for a guilty plea in federal court, Prejean told U.S. District Judge David C. Joseph that his business, C&A Consulting Services, was the only black-owned business that was a contractor for the Pretrial Diversion Program of the DA's office.
"I got myself caught up in a situation," Prejean told the judge.
Prejean said early on he met Dusty Guidry - who already has pleaded guilty to facilitating bribes in the DA's office and the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries - and that's when Guidry began "looking out for me and making money for him."
"My business is the only Black-owned business in the Pretrial Diversion Program, and you know they only give you crumbs, they don't give you the cake," Prejean said. "And if you don't pay them you don't get anything."
Prejean who also is known by the name "Big Poppa," said his business is aimed at helping people turn their lives around after they've made mistakes, and it supports his family. In order to do those things, he said, he had to pay the bribes to get the work.
"We still did the work. We just didn't make all the money," Prejean told the court.
Joseph asked Prejean if he paid money to Guidry.
Prejean said he did, and the way he did that was that the people who participated in the program - assigned to his business by Guidry and another person identified only as "Public Official #1" in court documents unsealed so far - paid inflated fees, with the extra going to Guidry and the public official.
"They paid more than normal because they shouldn't have been able to get in," Prejean said. "So they paid more and I paid the extra to Mr. Guidry."
Prejean said the people either had too many DWIs to legally qualify for the program, or other issues. But if they paid extra, they got in anyway, he said.
As part of the guilty plea process, the court must determine that the defendant understands everything that is happening, and that he actually committed the crime he's accused of. Since Prejean is accused of conspiracy, he asked if the agreement he had with Guidry was to pay Guidry kickbacks.
"It wasn't an agreement. It was a demand," Prejean said. "I was aware I had to give him the money."
Prejean is the second person to plead guilty, and one of three charged so far in the ongoing federal probe.
Earlier this week, Leonard Franques of Lafayette was accused of conspiracy in connection with bribes paid to Guidry and an as-yet unnamed public official in the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. No court date has been set for Franques, but attorneys in Lafayette and from the Washington D.C. office of Jenner & Block have enrolled on his behalf.
So far, the feds have not identified the public official who allegedly accepted bribes in the DA's office, nor the public official who allegedly accepted bribes in the LDWF.
But shortly after Guidry pleaded guilty this past spring, 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, 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.
More than a year ago, 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.
Here's the factual basis for Prejean's guilty plea:
