EMBARRASSMENT INDEX
FOR THE LOUISIANA AUCTIONEER'S
LICENSING BOARD (LALB)
BY BOARD MEMBER
Convicted Felon Larry S. Bankston
(Attorney)
LAPA began audiotaping and videotaping LALB meetings on August 2, 2010. Accordingly, LAPA has no recorded evidence of embarrassments before that date.
LARRY S. BANKSTON began working for the LALB on March 9, 2012 (though his hiring was not formally approved by the Board until May 21, 2012).
January 13, 2015
LALB Attorney Larry S. Bankston, almost certainly at the
urging of Executive Assistant
Sandy Edmonds, who has previously been cited by
the Office of Inspector General
for
payroll fraud,
advises Board Members to resist LAPA Vice President
Robert Burns' project to
inspect ALL auctioneer files over a 3-4 year period.
Mr. Bankston's
performance prompted Burns to author
this Louisiana Voice article which
was distributed out to the
approximate 3,000 subscribers the next day. On 2/16/15, Louisiana
Voice
founder Tom Aswell drafted an extensive article which referenced
AG James "Buddy" Caldwell's
lack of aggression on pursuing such blatant
efforts as those of Mr. Bankston to block public transparency.
The following
material is an except from Mr.
Aswell's 2/16/15 post (bold and red emphasis is LAPA's):
From: “Martiny, Sen. (Chamber Laptop)” <dmartiny@legis.la.gov>
To: “C.B. Forgotston” Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2015 16:16:34 -0600 Subject:
Re: Where’s Buddy?
Take me off your list until u do something positive about anyone.
Martiny was responding to Forgotston’s “Where’s Buddy”
post in which he took Attorney
General Buddy
Caldwell to task for the AG’s reluctance to do his job
in telling the Caddo Parish
Commissioners they are in violation of the Louisiana
State Constitution by virtue of their
illegal participation in the
Caddo Parish retirement system. Forgotston noted that Legislative Auditor
Daryl
Purpera has done his job in saying commissioners’ participation in the
retirement system is illegal but
Caldwell, as
has been his M.O. since taking office, has been strangely quiet on public
corruption.
And while there is certainly nothing wrong in
going after free-lance pharmaceutical salesmen
(drug dealers), child
pornographers and the like, Caldwell has
displayed an obvious dislike
for making waves in the political waters and
has steadfastly run from public corruption cases.
And we
know that while the 1974 State Constitution took much of the prosecutorial
duties
from the attorney general, the AG is still the legal adviser for
all state agencies and if nothing else,
Caldwell should step forward and whisper in officials’ ears when they are seen
skirting
the
edge of the law. (Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols’
open violation of the state’s
public records law comes immediately to mind. So
does Auctioneer Board attorney Larry
Bankston’s advice to the board to actually
refuse to release public records.)
LAPA Vice President Robert Burns supplied Ms.
Emalie Boyce of AG Buddy Caldwell's office with the preceding excerpt by
Tom
Aswell, and the NEXT DAY he received notice from Bankston that his 2nd set of
10 auctioneer files were ready for
inspection. Should the LALB follow
through on Bankston's guidance, several attorneys are salivating at suing over
such
an action on the LALB's part. Mr. Bankston did make it clear that, despite previous
correspondence from his office
indicating Edmonds was custodian of records
(and thus subject to $100/day fine for public records delays), it is actually
Board Chairman Tessa Steinkamp who holds that designation and would be liable
for any unreasonable public records inspections delays.
November 5, 2014
Upon finding out that Brant Thompson,
son of Louisiana State Senator Francis
Thompson (D-Delhi), succeeded
in obtaining a bond payment for his alleged losses entailing
deceased
auctioneer Bruce Miller, Judy Fasola expresses her frustrations with the LALB.
Those frustrations entail
Ms. Fasola asserting that she was victimized by
notoriously-problematic auctioneer Ken Buhler and his father, Mac.
Specifically, Ms. Fasola was frustrated that LALB attorney Anna Dow, after having her jump through all of the
hoops to file
a bond claim, reversed course and refused to file a
claim for her. During her presentation, Ms. Fasola managed
to catch the
LALB members in one contradiction after another as evidenced by the
historical
LALB video excerpts merged into the above video clip.
During the clip, LALB attorney Larry S. Bankston
displays his usual abrasive, rude tactics
(beginning at the 1:05 mark) in refusing to
permit LAPA Vice President Robert Burns
to correct Vice Chairman James Sims'
inaccurate timeframe of when Ken Buhler's restrictions were lifted.
In so
doing, Mr. Bankston enabled Mr. Sims to make a fool up himself repeatedly!
February 20, 2014
Mr. Bankston is VERY, VERY emphatic that ONLY LAPA President Rev. Freddie Phillips will be permitted to examine Jean Vidos' auction file (no guests), only to, upon apparently having been dealt with by a higher authority, send an email immediately thereafter indicating he will readily accommodate guests for such a viewing.
February 6, 2014:
LAPA Vice President Robert Burns Readily Demonstrates How
Ill-Prepared Larry S. Bankston
Was for a Deposition in Readily Demonstrating Bankston Was Not Even
Familiar
With THE PLEADINGS THEMSELVES!!
August 28, 2013
Mr. Bankston suffers utterly humiliating courtroom defeat after pursuing ill-advised Writ of Attachment against LAPA Vice President Robert Burns
March 5, 2013:
Bankston, beginning at the
4:00 mark,
explains his rationale for recommending LAPA's website link NOT be
added to
the LALB's webpage of links.
May 21, 2012
From the
3:10 - 3:30 mark of the video above,
Board
Member Darlene
Jacobs-Levy strongly encourages the hiring of
attorney Larry S. Bankston,
even saying, "he's never been censured by any court
that I'm aware of and, as
I said, I've been practicing for 42 years, so if he had been,
I think I would
know about it." Reality: Bankston is a convicted felon
who served
33 months of a 41-month Federal prison sentence for
accepting a bribe while serving
as a State Senator. He was also fined
$20,000, and his license was
also revoked by the Louisiana
Supreme Court.
Bankston, who was present for Ms. Jacobs-Levy's widely
inaccurate
statements, chose not to say a word to correct her inaccurate portrayal of
him.
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