Board appointment provides new link between Jack Montoucet and vendor in bribery case

In 2016, when Gov. John Bel Edwards first took office, he named Joseph Prejean to a statewide council that makes recommendations on how to best handle prisoners’ reentry into society. 

Prejean, of Church Point, was recommended by then-state Rep. Jack Montoucet, a fellow Democrat and a longtime close friend of the governor, according to a document and interviews. 

The little-noticed appointment raises new questions about the scope and timeline of the growing bribery scandal that has enveloped pretrial diversion programs at the Lafayette-based 15th Judicial District Attorney’s Office and at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. 

Prejean and Montoucet – until recently the LDWF’s secretary – are both key figures in the scandal, but they hadn’t previously been directly linked to one another. The link shows they had a relationship five years before any of the alleged crimes laid out in court documents took place. Court documents also show each with close ties to Dusty Guidry, who helped run the diversion programs for the district attorneys in Lafayette and in Baton Rouge.

Guidry has admitted in court documents that he took more than $800,000 in kickbacks from four vendors. Information provided by the DA’s Office in Lafayette shows that one of them is Prejean, who owns a firm that got clients from the DA’s diversion program.

A summary of the case against Guidry quotes from a wiretapped phone call in 2021 where “Vendor #3,” believed to be Prejean, assured Guidry he had the “$25 cash” – $25,000 – that Guidry would split with the vendor and another co-conspirator. In all, Guidry acknowledged taking $76,000 from Vendor #3.

Guidry was also an Edwards appointee, to a board that oversees Montoucet’s agency. In his recent guilty plea, Guidry admitted concocting a separate scheme with Montoucet that would allow them both to take kickbacks from a vendor chosen by Montoucet to provide services for hunters and boaters, as well as courses for a pretrial diversion program for people who violated wildlife laws. 

Montoucet, whom Edwards chose to lead the wildlife agency around the same time he named Prejean to the state reentry board, is squarely in the crosshairs of the federal probe. He stepped down last month, a day after The Advocate | The Times-Picayune reported he was the unnamed LDWF official alleged to have agreed to take kickbacks. 

Montoucet’s exact relationship to Prejean is unclear, but the new link – which dates to 2016 – provides another clue in a case that has raised new questions about the integrity of pretrial diversion programs in Louisiana. 

Court documents suggest Montoucet’s alleged bribery scheme took shape in 2021, as he set up a diversion program at the LDWF that would allow people cited for wildlife violations to pay a fine or take courses to clear their name. He hired Lafayette businessman Leonard Franques to provide the online courses, and agreed on a deal with Franques and Guidry to take kickbacks from the proceeds, court documents indicate. 

Attorneys for Montoucet declined to comment. An attorney for Franques didn’t return messages. 

Edwards spokesperson Eric Holl noted that federal prosecutors have not publicly identified Prejean as Vendor #3. The governor’s only clue that Prejean may have paid kickbacks to Guidry has come from media reports making the connection. Prejean hasn’t been removed from the council. 

Those reports were enough to cause Hillar Moore and Don Landry – the district attorneys in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, respectively – to stop doing business with Prejean’s firm. 

Edwards, asked about the scandal at a press conference Thursday, continued to say he has “tremendous difficulty believing” Montoucet did anything wrong. He also said he doesn’t see the need to direct a probe of his own because the feds are investigating already. 

The agency itself has canceled one contract tainted by the scandal – a deal with Franques to provide online courses – and is reviewing others.

Prejean has not responded to multiple messages seeking comment. The website for his firm was taken down after a reporter called the business and his wife answered. She declined to comment. 

Prejean published a book that charts a remarkable life story, in which he rose from ex-offender to motivational speaker, gym owner and owner of C&A, which provided education for offenders in pretrial diversion. He has claimed he’s the only one of his 16 brothers and sisters who is still alive, and that he and his brother were found in a dumpster after his mother dumped them there as a young child.