Monday, April 20, 2009

Is there something rotten in Red Stick?

Eye spy

Drake worked at the firm from August 2002 to August 2004, according to a seven-page affidavit from the lawsuit. Early in Drake’s employment with NetMethods, which lasted from August 2004 to mid-2006, his paychecks came from Imagine. MacDonald says by the time he realized Drake’s role, he wasn’t being paid in a timely manner, and Imagine began representing itself as the company associated with the project. A disgusted MacDonald left the project, and St. Pierre’s company—operating under a new name, Veracent—took over MacDonald’s work.
After NetMethods was awarded Baton Rouge’s anti-terrorist camera job in 2006, MacDonald also abandoned wireless efforts in downtown. MacDonald and Southern Electronics contend NetMethods muscled them out of the Baton Rouge and New Orleans jobs.

A bait and switch.

One of the reasons for the switch from Imagine to Netmethods was to try and hide Meffert's connections and any potential conflict of interest. Problem being, Nethmethods was St. Pierre's company and this lead to a pissing contest between Muppet and St. Pierre...which eventually lead to an all out rift. From that sprung Logistix...Meffert's new company. Veracent was simply a shell company to run invoices through.

Redux: i forgot to credit this anon with alerting me to this

http://www.businessreport.com/news/2009/apr/20/eye-spy-tchn1/The Baton Rouge media has officially broken the silence that the feds are now investigating the City of Baton Rouge. This story will get only bigger and many think that one of Kip Holden's own staff is working with the Feds.

So that rumor is very interesting. Christ on a crutch, if this thing is as big as the rumors flying around Meffert may be the lynchpin to the biggest federal knock down in the history of the state.




6 comments:

Alford said...

"Holden says Evans and Baton Rouge Police Chief Jeff LeDuff met with vendors and made technology recommendations, which included crime cameras, ShotSpotter gunshot audio sensors, wi-fi routers and antennas, and they purchased the equipment through a state contract."

"[NetMethods] went through the bidding process, and there’s nothing we can do to change that process as long as they adhere to the city’s standards. We really don’t have a problem with the company itself.”"


WOW WOW WOW If Kip Holden told the reporter that a RFP was issued through a state contract on this then Mayor Holden has some serious explaining to do. A couple of investigators who are looking into confirmed to me today that there was in fact NO RFT issued or bidding procedure initiated in the awarding of this contract. Mr. Evans & Jeff LeDuff completely lied to this reporter that a RFP was issued.

Someone pass me the popcorn because something smells in Baton Rouge and its not the Exxon Plant.

Shadoe said...

Baton Rouge Business Report doesn't have a large amount of cred.
Evidence must be overwhelming and disclosure imminent for this pub to mention something about it. Note they didn't do much digging into this report.


We'll see what comes of this.

Anonymous said...

Anyone hearing rumors about another company who possibly might file suit against the city in the crime camera fiasco? This could get really interesting if we have two civil cases going on at the same time involving several aspects of the crime camera corruption. Anyone have any ideas who the company(s) might be or whether this is a b.s. rumor floating around.

Redstick Rambler said...

Looks to me like the Baton Rouge Business Report just laid down the groundwork for a serious of articles to be written on this subject. These types of stories are always followed up with more dirt. You never want to digest the public with too much at one time especially when you have the inside track on good information.

I would be willing to bet that the Business Report is now embarking on a WWL-TV type campaign as that has done wonders for its ratings in this downturn of a advertising market. Don't be shocked to see the Advocate appoint reporters to this story as they don't want to be trumped on what is starting to appear to be a very big story for both Baton Rouge & New Orleans.

One question that I have though is what is Lafayette's connection to all of this. Didn't they award some contracts to Logistix/NetMethods/et al as well? Not saying that Lafayette did anything wrong but I thought I read something on this site that mentioned Lafayette a couple of times.

Jason Brad Berry said...

Yes they did have a contract in Lafayette, but I don't have the details on that.

Anonymous said...

I've got contacts in Lafayette, let me dig...