Finalist: Editorial Staff of The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate

When a senior aide to Gov. John Bel Edwards was fired over sexual harassment allegations, Attorney Gen. Jeff Landry wasn’t shy about criticizing the governor.

The hard-charging Republican attorney general, who seldom passes up a chance to pick a fight with the Democratic governor, promised he would take a hard-line stance, including firing employees, if something similar ever happened in his office.

Well, it looks like something similar has happened in Landry’s office. The head of his criminal division, Pat Magee, allegedly “engaged in inappropriate verbal conversations" that included sexual slang and "unprofessional comments regarding the appearance of employees," Landry’s office now admits.

Landry fashions himself as the state’s top lawman, but apparently his gumshoe instincts deserted him when there were sexual harassment allegations right under his nose.

But the attorney general has faced the crisis with his customary combativeness.

Not against Magee, the man who is accused of harassing civil servants in the attorney general’s office. Magee quietly returned to work last month.

Landry is going after Andrea Gallo, the reporter for The Advocate and The Times-Picayune who has been probing the whole sordid matter.

Gallo filed a public records request for the complaint against Magee and other documents related to the attorney general’s investigation of his allegedly misbehaving subordinate.

The attorney general denied her request in January, saying the matter was still being probed. But when Gallo called the office and asked for Magee, she found that he was at work.

Why was he back at his desk if the matter was still being investigated? The attorney general then admitted that the probe had indeed been concluded and Magee had been docked 38 days pay, or about $20,000.

But Landry’s office never released all of the records Gallo requested, and Friday he tried a novel legal approach to keep the details of the scandal secret – probably forever.

He filed suit against Gallo, asking a judge to issue a declaratory judgment denying her request and to seal the lawsuit itself.

Louisiana’s public records laws give all citizens, not just journalists, the right to seek documents from the governments their tax dollars support. Lots of people take advantage of the law: Activists fighting pollution, bidders who feel they were cheated out of government contracts, victims of false prosecutions.

It’s not a violation to ask for public records. It’s a fundamental right found in Article 12, Section 3 of the Louisiana Constitution.

So we can’t sit by when an elected official uses taxpayer money to sue a private citizen for seeking records about a potentially embarrassing scandal in his office.

We will fight until the truth comes out.

That’s a promise to our readers, to all of Louisiana, and to Jeff Landry.

We’ve been heartened by the support we received since Friday, when Attorney General Jeff Landry filed suit against our reporter, Andrea Gallo, for submitting a public records request to his office.

Gallo is seeking to get to the bottom of a sexual harassment case that has roiled Landry’s office. And based on his reaction, the case seems to have roiled Landry too.

Louisiana citizens have a right to see public records, and it’s written into the state Constitution.

Journalists file lots of public records requests, but so do average citizens who have a grievance with their elected officials.

But taxpayers who file requests deserve better than to be sued by the public officials that serve them.

Landry’s suit against Gallo concludes with a six-item “prayer for relief.”

Chiefly, Landry asks the court to determine that Gallo is not entitled to see the original complaint filed in the matter against the head of the attorney general’s Criminal Division, Pat Magee. He also asks that the record be sealed.

The fifth of the six prayers is a request that the court “Cast the Defendant with all costs of these proceedings.”

In other words, Landry asks the court to make Gallo pay the legal costs of his lawsuit.

The suit is not just an attack on Gallo, it is a warning to any taxpayer who might challenge any elected official.

After the suit was filed, people asked us what they could do to help, and to support open government.

Monday, our Publisher, Judi Terzotis, our Editor, Peter Kovacs, and the Chairman of Georges Media, Dan Shea, filed the same public records request as Gallo.

You can join in too by filing your own public records request with Jeff Landry and showing him that he needs to tell the taxpayers the truth about what happened in his office.

Here’s how:

Go to this link, create an account and file a request: https://louisianaag.mycusthelp.com/WEBAPP/_rs/(S(holhfgldwdaoksslvcih5vnh))/supporthome.aspx

Go to the homepage for the AG’s office https://www.ag.state.la.us/ and click “public records” – on the far right side of the middle of the screen.

There is a dropdown box that asks you to choose the division from which you are requesting records. You can pick criminal (which is the division Magee heads) or executive, since he is a member of the executive staff.

You will also be asked to select a date range. You can ask for all documents since Jan. 1, 2020.

In the field which asks you to specify what records you seek, you can use the same language as Gallo’s request:

-Any and all complaints of sexual harassment related to Patrick Magee

-Any records showing how those complaints were handled, including any records of investigations, as well as any disciplinary memos, orders to seek counseling, suspensions, resignations or terminations.

-Records of any settlements paid in connection with any such complaints.

A Baton Rouge judge will hear arguments today about whether a powerful elected official can use the might of the state against a single Louisiana taxpayer whose sole offense was to ask for a public record.

Jeff Landry, the attorney general, filed suit against Advocate reporter Andrea Gallo last month, after she requested records related to an embarrassing sexual harassment inquiry against a senior aide. He asked a judge to seal the documents.

Gallo’s offense is that on Dec. 14, she filed a public records request for the complaint against Pat Magee, head of the criminal division in the attorney general’s office.

She was taking advantage of a right that belongs to everyone in Louisiana, enshrined in Article 12, Section 3 of the state constitution.

The attorney general denied Gallo’s request in January, saying the matter was still being probed. But when Gallo called the office and asked for Magee, she found that he was at work. Landry then admitted that the probe had indeed been concluded and Magee had been docked 38 days pay, or about $20,000.

Landry filed suit against Gallo last month and today he is asking 19th Judicial District Judge Tim Kelley to declare that he doesn't have to turn over the initial complaint made against Magee and that Gallo should pay the court costs.

Gallo is represented by Scott Sternberg, who is the attorney for The Advocate and The Times-Picayune. She is asking Kelley to turn over the record, redacting the name of the victim and any others who have a right to privacy in the matter.

She is also asking the judge to review a report by Vicki Crochet, the lawyer Landry hired to investigate Magee and turn over information that is not privileged.

Finally, she is seeking attorney's fees, costs and a penalty of $100 a day — dating back to the original date of the request, Dec. 14 — because the attorney general has acted in an arbitrary and capricious way in denying the records request and taking the extraordinary step of suing.

When Gov. John Bel Edwards fired a key aide over sexual harassment allegations, Landry was quick to jump on his Democratic rival.

So it must have been humbling to find a harassment case festering right under his nose.

A better approach might have been to be candid with the public and admit the problem.

Covering up the scandal and suing a reporter is not the best way to win public confidence.

What is Jeff Landry trying to hide?

Perhaps we’re fixing to find out.

The stakes were high Thursday in the courtroom of Judge Tim Kelley of Baton Rouge, where the powerful attorney general of Louisiana was trying to use the might of his office against a private citizen — for simply asking to see a public record.

Kelley rose to the occasion, throwing out a lawsuit by Jeff Landry against Andrea Gallo, a reporter for The Advocate and The Times-Picayune.

The courtroom showdown dates to Dec. 14, when Gallo requested records of the attorney general’s investigation into complaints about a key aide, Pat Magee, head of his criminal division.

Magee was placed on leave on Dec. 14, the same day Gallo filed her request. He returned to work in January and was docked about $20,000 in pay.

The attorney general’s office released a summary of its findings in the case, but Gallo pressed on, requesting the initial complaint and other documents created during the investigation. She made clear that the attorney general could remove names of the complainant and other witnesses, which is standard practice in media public records requests.

Landry responded in an unusual way, suing Gallo on Feb. 5 and asking a court to affirm his position that the initial complaint was not a public record. (Landry’s suit did not address Gallo’s other requests.)

The aggressiveness of his approach attracted the attention of The Washington Post and a critical statement from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The prestigious Public Affairs Research Council also weighed in on the dangers of having private citizens defend lawsuits when they seek public records, calling Landry’s suit an “unfortunate example that likely will encourage egregious behavior.”

Kelley handled that threat well Thursday in making Landry pay the legal fees for Gallo’s defense and ordering the initial complaint released, with appropriate redactions.

But ultimately legislators need to act to protect private citizens — everyone can request a public record, not just reporters — from the threat of being sued by powerful politicians seeking to avoid embarrassment.

State Rep. Ray Garafolo, R-Chalmette, introduced a bill to ban such lawsuits in 2018, but local officials objected.

In the end, the measure that passed allowed defendants to recover their legal fees if they prevailed, as Gallo did Thursday.

But private citizens who request public records — about a zoning change allowing a bar in their neighborhood, or an environmental permit in their parish — don’t have the resources to fight it out in court against their own government and its sprawling phalanx of agency lawyers.

Some legislators watched Thursday’s hearing by Zoom, including Rep. Barry Ivey, R-Central. Their scrutiny and attention to this issue is welcome.

They need to act. One of their constituents could be next.

Now we know what Attorney General Jeff Landry was trying to hide when his office lied about a sexual harassment complaint against a key aide, and then sued the reporter trying to get hold of it.

The complaint was released Monday by state District Judge Tim Kelley of Baton Rouge, who ruled correctly Friday in throwing out Landry’s legal assault against reporter Andrea Gallo of The Advocate and The Times-Picayune. Kelley also ordered Landry to pay Gallo’s legal fees.

The harassment complaint was made against Pat Magee, head of the criminal division in the attorney general’s office.

Gallo filed a public records request on Dec. 14, taking advantage of a right every Louisianan has under the state constitution. The appropriate response would have been for Landry to release the requested records and omit the names of the complainant and any victims identified in the document.

Landry’s office lied about what was in the complaint, saying that redacting the names and other identifying details would result in so many erasures that the document that would be meaningless.

He went to war against Gallo, filing suit against her and asking a judge to rule the complaint was secret, and make Gallo pay court costs.

Kelley was wise to all that, and he took it upon himself to make the appropriate redactions and turn the complaint over to Gallo. And he acted quickly.

The result was about three dozen small erasures from a complaint that stretches across four pages.

What Kelley left in the complaint explains why Landry fought so hard to keep it under wraps.

The complaint, filed Nov. 20, says that Magee wanted one woman attorney to be assigned to a trial because “male jurors would want to have sex with her.”

Another attorney, he said, was “not currently as pretty as she was in law school at age 20.”

The complainant also said Magee declined to promote a female attorney, and “he would later express concern to me privately that he would not be able to control himself sexually if she worked that closely with him.”

Landry’s office, in a statement, said it “concluded that his conduct did not rise to the level of sexual harassment.”

But the attorney general decided Magee must have done something wrong, because he was suspended for 38 days and docked $20,000 in pay.

Landry portrays himself as the state’s top lawman, and voters can decide for themselves what to make of the fact that all of this bad behavior occurred right under his nose, and of his conclusion that none of it amounts to sexual harassment.

For our part, we can promise that our quest to get to the bottom of the case isn’t over. Gallo has a pending request for documents that will show how the complaint was investigated.

If Landry wants to sue her for filing that request, bring it on.

When our reporter Andrea Gallo asked Jeff Landry for a copy of a sexual harassment complaint against a key Landry deputy, the attorney general responded with unexpected combativeness: He filed suit against Gallo.

Landry contended that releasing the explosive complaint would out the whistleblower who filed it, which would discourage future whistleblowers. Public officials typically address that issue by redacting portions of the text that might offer a clue, but in this case, Landry said he would have to redact so much that there wouldn’t be anything meaningful left to release.

It didn’t take long for 19th Judicial District Judge Tim Kelley to slice through Landry’s arguments. The Baton Rouge judge ruled in favor of Gallo, ordered Landry to pay her legal fees, and made a handful of redactions to the four-page complaint. The judge released it days later.

The whole affair was an embarrassment for the attorney general. The judge’s redactions left plenty for the public to see and it was not flattering to Landry or his deputy and longtime friend, Pat Magee, head of the criminal division. Magee allegedly called one woman attorney “old and ugly” and suggested that another lawyer handle a case because she was “f***able.”

But now it’s clear that the person Landry was trying to protect was not the whistleblower at all. It was Magee, or maybe Landry himself.

In fact, Landry is targeting the whistleblower who filed the complaint, and thanks to sloppy lawyering, his office has pretty much disclosed his identity.

Months after Landry reviewed the complaint, suspended Magee and allowed him to return to work, his deputy director of administrative services Sandra Schober wrote a memo saying that the whistleblower might have violated the office’s sexual harassment policy. “It is a violation of our Sexual Harassment policy for a supervisor not to report inappropriate behavior in a timely manner,” Schober wrote.

But in opting to suspend, rather than fire Magee, Landry contended that the criminal division chief’s behavior, while inappropriate, did not add up to sexual harassment.

So the whistleblower sits on the hot seat for not reporting behavior that Landry later decided did not constitute sexual harassment anyhow.

Pat Magee is gone now. He resigned after a second sexual harassment complaint was piled on.

The whistleblower is still employed, but according to Schober’s memo, he may lack “the requisite judgment, honesty, and integrity required of all LADOJ personnel.”

Voters may wonder whether Landry is the one who falls short of that standard.