An investigative report from the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel alleges that Alicia Butler, currently a candidate for the 16th Judicial District Court Division H judgeship, was involved in a scheme to stage automobile accidents in order to obtain personal injury clients.

Butler, according to the report, was involved in a staged accident ring in 2010. Louisiana State Police investigated the operation and eventually secured criminal sentences against several people, including Butler’s brother, Alaric Johnson, who was an employee of her law firm.

The report, filed in May 2019, has not yet been presented to a hearing committee of the LADB. A hearing committee meeting had been planned for earlier this month, but was continued to a later date.

According to the report, Butler was involved with another person, Oliver Lockett, in at least three traffic accidents “caused with the knowledge of Respondent (Butler) so Respondent could obtain personal injury clients.”

The report lays out the circumstances of all three incidents. Lockett, with other people in the vehicle — one collaborator as a witness and others as victims — would collide with a commercial vehicle. Butler would then be brought in to represent the victims in their negotiations with the commercial carrier’s insurance.

State Police, along with investigators from State Farm Insurance, performed an investigation into the crashes. That investigation eventually led to criminal charges and convictions against Lockett and Johnson as well as three others. Butler was not charged.

The third accident, according to the investigative report, was not only designed to gain clients for Butler but also to get her out of her car loan payments on her 2003 Mercedes Benz.

At the time the report was filed, Butler was already serving a two-year probation for a previous LADB disciplinary issue, which had her law license suspended for one year and a day. At that time, Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Jimmy Genovese dissented from the court’s ruling on her punishment, instead writing that she should be disbarred entirely.

Efforts to reach Butler for comment about the report were unsuccessful.