Thibodeaux sentenced to 30 months in jail

Published 6:00 am Wednesday, July 31, 2019

A 16th Judicial District Court judge sentenced former Iberia Parish Clerk of Court Michael Thibodeaux to 30 months in jail Tuesday on seven counts of malfeasance in office, but suspended any additional jail time on racketeering, theft, perjury and filing false public records counts.

As Judge Lewis Pitman read through the list of 14 charges and his sentence for each, Thibodeaux was calm. Behind him, his wife Liz’s lips moved as she silently prayed, flanked by the couple’s children and family.

Thibodeaux was convicted in May on one count of racketeering, two counts of theft over $25,000, one count of theft between $5,000 and $25,000, two counts of filing or maintaining false public records, seven counts of malfeasance in office and one count of perjury.

On the racketeering and theft counts, Pitman sentenced Thibodeaux to five years on each count, suspended. He also sentenced Thibodeaux to three years, suspended, on each of the two counts of filing false public records and perjury. Each of those counts also carried three years of supervised probation, to be served consecutively with the 30-month sentence on the malfeasance counts.

If granted parole after serving a quarter of his sentence on the malfeasance counts, Thibodeaux could be finished with his jail time in seven and a half months. He will then have to serve three years of supervised probation on the other counts.

A meeting between the judge and attorneys for both sides pushed back the start of the hearing until 1:45 p.m. Pitman began the session by entering letters in support of Thibodeaux into the court record before calling on the prosecution.

In her presentation, prosecutor Alister Charrier laid out each charge and the prosecution’s requested sentence for each, all to run concurrently.

The 14 charges were grouped roughly into three categories. One set of charges related to the process of “sweeping” funds paid in advance for court fees and costs from the office’s fiduciary account to its operations account after those lawsuits had been dormant for several years. State law requires that those dormant funds be sent to the state’s unclaimed property office, although very few clerks of court in the state had followed the practice until after a state legislative audit of Thibodeaux’s office.

Another group of charges involved a series of 344 uncashed refund checks the Clerk of Court’s Office sent out to attorneys and litigants for reimbursements. After those checks had been uncashed for years, Thibodeaux created new checks with the same account numbers but with the Clerk of Court’s Office as the payee, so the money could be moved from the fiduciary account to the office’s operating fund, instead of to the state unclaimed property account as required.

A third set of charges involved the keeping of a “box of cash” which was made up of cash register overages from the clerk’s office. Under state law, those monies should have been transferred to the office’s operating account.

Charrier cited the large amount of funds moved — in the case of the sweeping operation, more than $979,000 over Thibodeaux’s 21 years in office — and Thibodeaux’s position as an elected official as factors requiring a harsher sentence for each count.

At the end of the presentation, she said prosecutors were asking for a total sentence of 15 years, with all but seven years suspended. The prosecution also sought a fine of $200,000, for Thibodeaux to pay for a forensic accountant to review all of the Clerk of Court’s Office’s books to determine the amount of restitution that could be sought, and for Thibodeaux to make that restitution with no cap on what that amount might be.

“There is a need for a harsher sentence to set an example and insure accountability,” Charrier said.

Prosecutors also asked for an injunction preventing Thibodeaux from either encumbering or alienating any of his assets to prevent them from being available if restitution costs were higher.

In his response, Thibodeaux’s attorney John McLindon argued that the prosecution had charged his client on several counts for the same action, creating the appearance of large-scale criminal activity out of a smaller number of chargeable acts.

“He is charged with malfeasance, theft and maintaining false records for the exact same conduct,” McLindon said. “The indictment had 14 counts, but is probably really closer to four.”

He also said Charrier’s argument that large amounts of money were taken was a false narrative.

“The economic impact is zero,” McLindon said. “No one is out any money. The funds were transferred from one public account to another public account.”

McLindon also resurrected the defense from his closing argument at Thibodeaux’s trial that the prosecution against Thibodeaux was political payback for the firing of former deputy clerk Ryan Huval. He said Huval had withheld information about hundreds of attorneys and litigants who had not cashed the reimbursement checks that Thibodeaux later recreated.

“Now we know Ryan Huval had the names of those individuals,” McLindon said. “He had the answer to the problem, and he kept it in his pocket. The district attorney in this parish will never prosecute Ryan Huval. The deputy clerk was not even charged. He’s running for clerk.”

Huval provided that list and other documents to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2013 while still employed with the Clerk of Court’s Office. He later provided the same information to the state Legislative Auditor.

In addition to the 30 month sentence, to be served under supervision of the state Department of Corrections and Parole, Pitman fined Thibodeaux $5,000 and the cost of an accounting firm to analyze his former office’s books, with the cost of that accountant and restitution to be capped at $50,000.

“Judge, did you hear our request for the injunction preventing Mr. Thibodeaux from encumbering his assets?” prosecutor Craig Colwart asked after the sentence was read.

“Yes, I heard it,” Pitman replied.

“Well,” Colwart began before Pitman cut him off.

“I’m not granting it,” Pitman said.

Colwart said he was disappointed in the sentence and Pitman’s reduction of the fine.

“The 16th Judicial District Court District Attorney’s Office is analyzing the sentence,” Colwart said after the hearing. “We may or may not file a motion asking for a reconsideration of the sentence.”

McLindon said after the sentencing that he is planning to file an appeal of the convictions with the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal, but that he felt Pitman had ruled fairly in sentencing.

As he left the courthouse, Thibodeaux said he also felt Pitman had been fair.

“This has been politically motivated, since day one,” Thibodeaux said. “I think the judge did a good job.”