Sound Off Louisiana

A check for $4,500 drawn on the Louisiana Treasury Department (i.e. taxpayers) signed by former LSP Col. Robert Hodges to the law firm of Sternberg, Naccari & White, LLC after the firm (via attorney Scott Sternberg) succeeded in forcing LSP and Hodges to turn over a surveillance video sought by WAFB (Channel 9 in Baton Rouge) depicting the full-force, open-handed slap to a handcuffed inmate at the Avoyelles Parish Correctional Facility delivered by LSP Trooper Matthew Clair.  Hodges fought the release of the video for well over a year in asserting that Clair’s “right to privacy” exceeded the public’s right to view the slap.

Former LSP Col. Robert Hodges is running television ads touting that he will be a transparent Sheriff of St. Tammany Parish who will serve with “trust and integrity.”:

Television ad wherein former LSP Col. Hodges touts making the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office “transparent” and him serving with “trust and integrity.”

LSP, under Col. Robert Hodges, entered into a contract with the WilmerHale firm providing for $1,000 per hour legal services. The contract had a $2 million annual cap and options for two renewals.

The Lens NOLA submitted a public records request for the contract. LSP, again under Col. Robert Hodges, refused to produce it, asserting various exemptions (including deliberative process, a privilege no longer available under Louisiana law). The Lens filed a Writ of Mandamus lawsuit in the 19th Judicial District Court on April 29, 2024.

The Lens sought the record (i.e. the contract) and roughly $32,278 in attorney fees, expenses, and costs (more than 102 hours of work billed primarily at $250/hour and $400/hour, plus about $1,053 in travel and $1,020 in court costs).  Through litigation, Lens obtained the contract, and the parties settled the lawsuit with taxpayers having to remit $12,500 to Lens.  From the document just linked:

Attorneys’ Fees and Costs

3.1. In consideration for Petitioners signing this Agreement, Defendant agrees to pay attorneys’ fees and costs in the total amount of $12,500, full and final with both Parties dismissing any and all claims in the Lawsuit, including any appeal rights related thereto.

So there we have $12,500 in direct taxpayer expenditures wherein a media outlet had to spend extensive time and effort and incur legal fees to obtain a simple contract calling for a law firm to receive $1,000/hour that LSP and Col. Hodges felt neither the media nor the public needed to see.  We would also note that the $12,500 figure does not include payments made to the law firm Breazeale Sachse for its defense of LSP.  That amount likely exceeded the $12,500 obtained for Lens’ own legal fees and costs.

Next up, we have the Gray Media (WAFB) v. LSP public-records lawsuit. In that matter, 19th JDC Judge William Jorden ordered LSP to turn over the surveillance video of Trooper Mathew Clair (involving alleged excessive force during a 2022 booking at the Avoyelles Parish Detention Center). We will also note the judge’s comments openly questioning the rationale for Col. Hodges’ earlier reduction of Clair’s discipline to a non-disciplinary letter of counseling.

Former LSP Col. Lamar Davis had imposed a 40-hour unpaid suspension for alleged use of excessive force; however, Hodges, as noted by Judge Jorden, rescinded that suspension and expunged the matter from Clair’s file.

Here’s a very brief (29-second) video of the incident:

29-second video clip highlighting the full-on slap delivered by LSP Trooper Matthew Clair as featured on the WAFB feature on the matter.

While we believe WAFB and attorney Sternberg were gracious in accepting only $4,500 after a year-long battle, taxpayers still had to pay that amount because of Hodges’ refusal to release the video (as depicted in the lead photo of this feature).  Though it is Hodges’ signature on the above check, the money came from the general treasury which is to say taxpayers’ pockets.

Recall from installment two of this series that, on November 7, 2025, LSP flat-out lied to us regarding the existence of the weapons application denial Hodges himself executed on September 9, 2025.  We believe common sense dictates that, especially given the nature of what we sought, Hodges is the likely culprit for the well-documented falsehood that the record did not exist when it clearly did.

One reason we didn’t follow WAFB’s lead and sue is because, while Louisiana’s statute does provide for a $100/day penalty for failing to turn over a public record, there is no guarantee at all that a judge will award it.

Hence, despite Hodges’ stonewalling us on the weapons denial by LSP’s intentional deceit about the denied application, had we sued, we would have likely gotten:  #1) the record, and #2) attorneys’ fees.  We were able to obtain the record through other much more efficient means (likely to the great chagrin of Hodges).  Hence, a lawsuit would have only been a long, arduous affair that we felt would unnecessarily burden taxpayers with yet more legal fees over Hodges’ obvious proclivity to block any public record he can.

This is the third of our installments regarding the candidacy of former LSP Col. Robert Hodges to become St. Tammany Parish’s next Sheriff.  We’ll have the fourth installment out in coming days.

Here’s our ongoing list of all features as we progress through this series:

Installment One:  Hodges touts St. Tammany as “home for nearly 25 years,” but former LSP Capt. Guillotte states he falsified database with Lafayette address for Major promotion.

Installment Two:  Hodges touts “transparency” in sheriff election, so why block document denying Capt. Guillotte’s weapon purchase request with LSP falsely denying the record even exists?

As we reminded everyone in prior installments, early voting commenced yesterday and runs through Tuesday, October 27 (except Sunday, October 25).

In the end, let’s hope the best man wins the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff race either on election day, November 3, 2026, or in a runoff on Saturday, December 12, 2026!

Louisiana State Police (LSP) Col. Robert Hodges formally denies former LSP Capt. Heath Guillotte’ s application to purchase his service weapon, which would be the only such denial transpiring during Hodges’ entire tenure as LSP Colonel.  Meanwhile, Hodges approved weapon purchases by troopers retiring under extremely unfavorable conditions (e.g., being drunk and crashing an LSP vehicle on I-10).  Further, LSP (perhaps upon Hodges’ order?) actually denied that Hodges’ denial even existed, stating the above document did not exist.

As we begin this feature, let us first emphasize our firm commitment to permitting anyone to respond to our features, and we will publish those responses.  Regarding our October 12, 2026 feature regarding former LSP Capt. Heath Guillotte’s claim that Hodges falsified an address in the LSP database to qualify for a Major position at LSP, Hodges did issue a formal response, and here is that response in its entirety:

10/14/26:  Hodges responds to the first installment of this series.

Now, on to today’s feature, which is installment two of a five-part series.

Hodges is running television ads touting the fact that he will be a Sheriff of St. Tammany Parish who will be transparent and be one serving with “trust and integrity.”:

Television ad wherein former LSP Col. Hodges touts making the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office “transparent” and him serving with “trust and integrity.”

Well, On November 2, 2025, we published this feature in which, on October 28, 2025, former LSP Capt. Heath Guillotte outlined numerous issues concerning Hodges.

In that feature, we explained the fact that, on April 19, 2025, Guillotte inadvertently sent this email to Sound Off Louisiana’s Robert Burns (along with all of the LSP Command Staff), when it should have gone to current LSP Chief of Staff Robert Burns.

The error happened when Guillotte typed the first few letters of the name.  Thereafter, his address book populated with the wrong Burns.  He then hit return, and we got the email rather than LSP’s Burns.

That simple erroneous act resulted in this intense grilling by LSP Internal Affairs lasting over two hours as evidenced here.

Guillotte stated to us during that October 28, 2025 interview first linked above that he felt Hodges was determined to fire him over having communications with Sound Off’s Burns and, based on our experiences with Hodges, we concur.  Accordingly, soon after that June 26, 2025 second IA interview, Guillotte, after consulting with his wife, opted to retire.

Soon thereafter, he made a routine request to purchase his service weapon.

Numerous retired and active LSP troopers have told us this is standard practice and that a denial is completely “unheard of.”

Nevertheless, here’s Guillotte briefly stating precisely how his request was handled by Col. Hodges:

10/28/25:  Guillotte explains what happened with him when he made what every trooper (retired and active) with whom we’ve spoken entailing such weapons purchase requests have characterized as a, “routine request for which a denial is unheard of.”

As evidenced by our lead photo for this feature, Hodges denied Guillotte’s request on September 9, 2025.  We at Sound Off Louisiana experienced the following under Hodges’ “transparent” leadership at LSP in trying to obtain the denied application:

== 11/4/25:  Formal public records request submitted for all denials of weapons purchase applications from 1/8/24 through 11/4/25.

==  11/4/25:  Standard automated response of “45 days.”

== 11/5/25:  We receive this asinine inquiry:  “Please clarify the term ‘application.’  Are you referring to the Civil Service application or the weapons application?  Please provide the dates for the applications you are requesting.”  [Apparently, the fine folks at LSP cannot read the dates of 1/8/24 – 11/4/25 supplied with the request!].

== 11/6/25:  We indicate weapons applications and provide a fully-redacted copy of Guillotte’s application to use as a “go-by.”

== 11/7/25:  We receive the following communication from LSP:  “The Louisiana Department of Public Safety, Public Safety Services has reviewed its files and has determined there are no responsive record(s) to your request. This request is now closed.”

Clearly, the record does exist, and LSP point-blank lied to us regarding its existence!  Was this at Hodges’ urging?  We can’t answer that; however, we strongly suspect that it was.

Only the voters of St. Tammany Parish can decide whether Hodges’ TV ads promoting his “transparency” and his “trust and integrity” are themselves truthful, but we’ll only state that it’s a darn good thing that we don’t get to be the judge of that claim!

Furthermore, the voters of St. Tammany Parish may wish to consider the penalty for arbitrarily withholding a public record is $100/day and, in the above cited example, the record was clearly and unequivocally withheld from us! 

If Hodges is elected and a similar withholding transpires by someone making a public records request of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, the requester may not be as accommodating as Sound Off Louisiana’s Burns and may file a lawsuit that would almost certainly succeed.

This feature was the second of our installments regarding former LSP Col. Robert Hodges and his candidacy to become St. Tammany Parish’s next Sheriff.  We’ll have the third installment out in coming days.

We’re going to also provide a running list of all features as we progress through this series:

Installment One:  Hodges touts St. Tammany as “home for nearly 25 years,” but former LSP Capt. Guillotte states he falsified database with Lafayette address for Major promotion.

As we reminded everyone in installment one, early voting begins in three days on Tuesday, October 20 and runs through Tuesday, October 27 (except Sunday, October 25).

In the end, let’s hope the best man wins the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff race either on election day, November 3, 2026, or in a runoff on Saturday, December 12, 2026!

Screenshot from the Louisiana State Police (LSP) database of employees indicating that former LSP Col. Robert Hodges had his address changed from St. Tammany Parish to Lafayette Parish in order to ‘live’ within 75 miles of Region 2, thus ‘qualifying’ himself for the Major position for which he applied and was selected in 2022.

We published this recent feature where, near the end of the video, we indicated that we’d be supplying material on one candidate for St. Tammany Parish Sheriff for whom, “we view his name as not even being on the ballot if we could vote in the election.”

Sound Off Louisiana’s Robert Burns also indicated there is only one candidate in that race with whom he is familiar, and that would be former LSP Col. Robert Hodges.

Today is Installment One of a five-installment series of very brief features wherein we lay the foundation for why we would most definitely not vote for Hodges if we resided in St. Tammany Parish.

Let’s begin by taking 20 seconds to see Hodges, in his introductory video announcing his campaign, tout the fact that he has called St. Tammany “home for nearly 25 years:”

Hodges touts St. Tammany as “home for nearly 25 years.”

Now let’s provide a very brief video segment from our November 2, 2025 feature of our extensive October 28, 2025 interview with former LSP Captain Heath Guillotte about his final months under Hodges at LSP.

Guillotte cites numerous examples of Hodges’ “hypocritical leadership.”

Here’s the segment for today’s feature concerning Hodges’ alleged lack of truthfulness regarding where he lived, given that he needed an Acadiana-area address to qualify for Major over Region 2:

10/28/25:  Guillotte asserts Hodges falsified the LSP database with a false Lafayette address (supplied as lead photo of this feature but with the street address redacted by us) to qualify for the Major position he was awarded in 2022.

As referenced in the video above, Guillotte alleges that Hodges provided a “false address” for the purpose of obtaining the position of Major with LSP in 2022.  Guillotte did not wish to drag the owner of the home Hodges listed as his residence into the matter, and that is why we redacted the street address and provided only the city (Lafayette).  We will, however, reveal that the Zillow-estimated valuation of the home is $1.644 million.

That’s Installment One, folks.  We’ll have Installment Two out very soon, and all of the features will be short, succinct, and to-the-point just like this one.

Early voting begins on Tuesday, October 20 and runs through Tuesday, October 27 (except Sunday, October 25).  In the end, let’s hope the best man wins the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff race either on election day, November 3, 2026, or in a runoff on Saturday, December 12, 2026!