Stories about police bribes and fraud backers in Louisiana cities | Crime/police

Oakdale – Ann Odom, 73, led her whole life in this small town on the ankle of Louisiana's boots. And in the past three decades she had a flea market and a gift shop that is about 10 minutes to the north in tiny Glenmora.

On Thursday, one day after police chiefs in Oakdale and Glenmora had been charged for fraud, together with Oakdale's City Marshal and the chief of police in an even tinier Hamlet near, Forest Hill, Odom was in her business and tried to understand this. One thought came to my mind.

“Money is the root of all evil,” she said.

After a long investigation by the federal government, the arrests of four elected local lawyers also stabbed in part of the Westlouisiana, who has experienced her share of pharmaceutical horses. The charges against 62 points that had not been sealed last week contains allegations of fake police reports, fraudulent visas for foreigners and tens of thousands of dollars of alleged bribes.

It portrays Rapides and all Parishes as an epicenter of immigration fraud to a large extent.

According to the public prosecutor, each of these four lawyers was transferred from the owner of a local Fast food franchise and two convenience stores with stacks of cash. Then hundreds of people were given visas that are based on false police reports who represented them as victims of crime or witnesses who helped the authorities.

All four laws were not guilty on Thursday on Thursday before a federal court in Alexandria.

The indictment led through this three-city route of the US route 165, where the residents were led in handcuffs with the sight of their current or former top urban legal officials.

One of the accused laws, the head of Forest Hill, Glynn Dixon, submitted his resignation to the state on Friday. The job status of the other three, Chad Doyle, the police chief of Oakdale, Marshal Michael Slaney and the former police chief of Glenmora, Tebo Onishea, was apparently unchanged.

The leading public prosecutor hoped that the news would travel from the alleged immigration fraud to his boss's desk, President Donald Trump.

“It certainly corresponds to its priorities,” said Alexander van Hook, reigning US lawyer of the western district of Louisiana.

The federal authorities have not published a lot of information about who received the fake visa. According to charging documents, the majority of the extraterrestrial non-Louisiana residents were. ” The prosecutors said most of them come from India, but it is not clear where they lived.

A spokesman for the office declined on Friday to go beyond the indictment.

Chandrakant “La La” Patel, who was accused of having orchestrated the alleged Visa fraud program, was mostly a mystery to many locals. Some said that he was mainly known for the U -Bahn on the Dr. To lead George B. Mowad Highway, who was named after a late Mayor of Oakdale.

A customer of the U -Bahn said in an interview that Patel often fed homeless people or donated cookies to the local high school or at sports games. The sheriff of all Parish, Douglas Hebert, said that Patel has no local criminal records.

The indictment claims that the system decreased years, but the fraud fees focus on alleged fake reports and applications for U -Visa from 2024.

A Doyle lawyer rejected a statement and a lawyer from Slaney did not give back a message that a comment was searched for. Lawyers from Dixon and Onishea have not returned messages to get a comment. A lawyer who represents Patel who was not charged in the federal case did not give back any messages to request a comment.

Additional fees

The U -visa program created in 2000 was developed to isolate victims without papers who may work with the law enforcement authorities, and enables them to stay in the United States while their cases take place. Patel acted as a medium man; Visa seekers paid him “thousands”, and Patel again paid the police chiefs, the indictment on July 2.

The public prosecutor claims that Patel and the men used the money to buy two pickup trucks, two campsites on Bundick Lake, a motorhome, a 2025 Land Rover, a Toyota Sport van and other vehicles.

According to state officials, the range of Patel extends. One day after the arrest of Doyle, the Louisiana State Police arrested his wife Alison Doyle, who worked in the mayor's office. It is accused of manipulating the tender procedure so that Patel can acquire two urban real estate.

Patel paid $ 56,200 for two real estate in Quit-Claim documents from the city, both on October 15, 2024, as the municipal houses prove that the prosecutors claim that the bribes have reached its height.

Criminal prosecution officers said that the program “several municipalities in the Central Louisiana” included, which indicates a broader range and that it could already be distinguished in 2015. It is unclear whether other civil servants were involved.

Attorney General Liz Murrill said that she expects her office to grant additional state charges against the accused.

Talk of the cities

The day after the arrests, they were a lightning rod among groups that gathered for lunch in Fuzzie's restaurant in Glenmora, or to drink a drink in Yum Yums Frozen Daiquiris in Oakdale, many of which were pressed when scrolling news feeds.

A reporter in the Daiquiri bar asked how such a large immigration system could happen in the Trumpland. A patron just tried to answer.

“This is only about this,” he said, rubbing two index fingers and his thumb together.

More than a local wondered loudly: Would it come even more? In Oakdale, some were not surprised at the idea that their local officials were recently from corruption scandals.

Oakdale is mainly known for its huge federal complex of two prisons and a prisoner camp from Whatley Road, if not the dominant high school girls' basketball team from the Lady Warriors.

It is located in the middle of the municipality of Allen, the most rural and most conservative areas of Louisiana, far away from urban centers or debates about protective cities.

Around 80% in the community voted for Trump in 2024. The area also helped to dial the US representative Mike Johnson, the spokesman for the House of Representatives.

Hebert, the municipality -Sheriff, has a federal contract for the accommodation of US immigration and customs containers in the rectory in the Parish prison in Oberlin. He said it “absolutely” bothered that his colleagues were accused of having illegal immigrants slipped. When asked whether he was surprised that the misconduct of Oakdale came, he said that he “had no comment on it”.

Other corruption

In recent years, the city has been exposed to other corruption scandals.

“It is wherever they go,” said Sarah West, who has a gift shop in South 10th Street in the city center of Oakdale. “But it's bad here. Really, very, very bad.”

West, 57, said she had become tired of the bad headlines.

A former police chief of Oakdale and one of his officers were charged with misconduct in 2019, including the allegations that the boss sprang from prison and that another inmate was used to mow lawn and work in a warehouse. The boss was later convicted of incorrect presentation during the booking, records of the district prosecutor's office.

An audit of 2022 found that Oakdale's long -time city clerk, who died in 2021, has overpaid almost 770,000 US dollars for over seven years.

Doyle seemed different for some, although he had his own story: When he was in the city of Ward Marshal in 2011, Doyle was arrested for charges that he was looking for an unknown public money and a wage building intended in the pockets, which was intended for creditors for creditors.

According to Hebert, the sheriff, he is guilty of an offense.

A former police officer from Oakdale and a friend from Doyles' day, who refused to name his name, said:

“But …”, he added, standing in the middle of the middle of the Sental when he was behind a shop counter.

Invisible crime

Doyle and Slaney competed against each other in 2017 for City Marshal. Slaney won, but Doyle soon became Oakdales police chief and won the election in 2020, as the election records from the states.

Now they are co-accused that everyone is accused of having accepted bribes from Patel in return for the development of false armed robberies, could then use the visa seekers to apply for U-VISA.

In Forest Hill, Mayor Elizabeth Jeter said in a statement on Wednesday that she was “deeply sad” about the indictment against police chief Dixon. “Forest Hill is a strong, close -meshed community and we understand how difficult this news is for our residents.”

The documents concluded on behalf of non-citizens have added an invisible wave of crime, claims the indictment for the federal government. In reality, Oakdale was practically not available in Oakdale, according to the data of the city crime, which were reported to the state in 2022 and 2023.

The local law enforcement authorities in Rapides Parish said they had never had real problems with non-State citizens.

District Prosecutor Phillip Terrell said that the areas monitored by the climbers are not weddings for crime. He said that he would make defense attorney aware of all cases that were treated by the accused police leaders.

“Apart from my head, I am not aware of any crime cases that we have from Forest Hill or Glenmora,” said Terrell.

“There is not much activity there as apparently the fraudulent activity.”

The author Ashley White contributed to this report.