Shreveport Black contractors and inspectors acquitted

25th June 2012   ·   0 Comments

By J. Kojo Livingston
Contributing Writer

Four years ago it made state and even national news, but on Mon­day of last week the infamous “Shreveport Community Develop­ment Scandal” that began 2009 ended with a whimper. For most of the inspectors and contractors all charges directly related to the scandal have been dropped, and in some cases, replaced with unrelated charges.

Early on the morning of August, 31, heavily armed Sheriffs De­puties stormed the homes of four respected Black contractors James Lester, Alphonso Wil­liams, San­tana Brown, and James Alex III, aka Ninja. The contractors were taken to a facility and paraded in chains in front of local media who had been summoned by the Sheriff’s office. A press conference was called involving the Sheriff Steve Prater and the District Attorney Charles Scott, declaring that an extensive investigation had exposed a $1.5 million scam to defraud the city and federal government, leaving elderly persons in homes that lacked the promised repairs.

District Attorney Charles Scott blames the failure of the cases on the deaths of witnesses. However, the case against the contractors started losing steam soon after the arrest. First Mayor Cedric Glover came out declaring that the amount of money could not possibly be as high as stated. This brought a quick, public reprimand from the sheriff which seemed to alter the mayor’s position. Glover fired the contractors, overriding a decision of the city board that looks into such matters. Glover has also allegedly refused to pay the contractors for work, unrelated to the scandal that had been inspected and approved.

Another issue was how the Home Improvement Fraud law could be applied to the contractors that were arrested. The statute used to arrest the contractors is RS 14:202.1, a Katrina-related law that makes it a crime to knowingly fail to complete work after it has been paid for. Lester and others completed the work before being paid. The statute goes on to say that the law has not been broken if there is a written verification of job completion. The homeowner, the unit manager and the inspector signed the certificate of completion, of which the Sun has a copy. The inspector was arrested but the unit manager was not.

When James Lester’s attorney brought this out, even court officials had to locate the statute to see if this was correct. Then, when he moved to dismiss based on the law not applying, Judge Mike Pitman declined to rule on the motion, which would have impacted the other cases.

Finding a pattern of fraud could have been a challenge because of the amount of work that all the contractors had done for the city. An intensive, six-month investigation could only produce one questionable job out of 40 that Ninja Construction had completed and one job out of 40 or more that Williams had done. Santana was charged for having problems with three jobs out of about 40. Lester was the prize winner, with over 200 completed jobs, of which one had an irregu­larity…the replacement of a $200 furnace that was worked and needed installing.

Per contract, the city normally called contractors back if there was a concern about unfinished work. However this process was sidestepped in favor of criminal action.

According to city sources, the total cost of the work in question is less than $12,000. That figure, divided between four contractors, over a 20-month period represents a fairly small scam operation.

Possibly the most glaring sign that something had gone wrong with the prosecution was the lethargic movement of the cases. During the past four years all the defendants and their witnesses have been called to court about 14 times, then told to go home. Each of their cases was repeatedly continued for 90-day periods until well after the statute of limitations had expired in August of last year.

Last week’s actions mean that contractors Jackie Mandigo, Ray Jones and Daniel Lacour have been cleared along with Lester, Brown and Alex. Brown and Alex plead “no contest” to unrelated charges of failing to have a contractor’s license, which is usually handled as a civil matter. They both paid $500 in court costs.

Williams’ case is still pending and Lester has to go to court next week to face a charge related to giving a false answer on a license application. His charges of Home Im­provement Fraud were dropped on Valentine’s Day.

James “Ninja” Alex summed the entire ordeal up this way: “I know that I did nothing wrong to those elderly people. I always did more than what the job called for. That’s why they didn’t show pictures of any of my work. But God has brought me through this. I know he let this happen to me for a reason. I am a better man for it…but it’s still wrong.”

This article was originally published in the June 25, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper