Harry Lee’s Private War
By Allen Johnson Jr.


The Jefferson Parish sheriff searches for allies in his feud with the Metropolitan Crime Commission.

‘Where is the source of their power?’ Lee says of the Metropolitan Crime Commission. ‘They took it. That’s fine, just don’t f—k with me.’

He has a blown knee. But he doesn’t have to spend time worrying about the term limits debates that consume less powerful elected officials. So it goes that Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee has been using his time recuperating from knee surgery to raise the stakes in his war against the privately funded watchdog group Metropolitan Crime Commission (MCC).

“I’ve got my leg up in the air … but I’ll be OK in a couple of weeks,” Lee says. As for the MCC, however, his goals are a little more ambiguous.

“I don’t think I can put them out of business,” Lee now says, reversing a goal he expressed in a March 7 interview with WVUE-TV reporter Rob Masson, when the sheriff showed up at the MCC’s Canal Street headquarters demanding to inspect the group’s tax returns.

“But I think I can change the way they do business,” Lee now adds. “I can dry up their money.”

Other Louisiana politicians and heads of law enforcement may soon have trouble remaining above the fray. For the past seven months, the war has featured a court battle and a barrage of words in the media between Lee and MCC president Rafael Goyeneche. Now, Lee has notified top officials — from Gov. Mike Foster on down to local sheriffs — that he intends to call a meeting to discuss his new tactics and strategies against the MCC.

“Where is the source of their power?” Lee says of the MCC, rhetorically. “They took it. That’s fine, just don’t f—k with me. I’m watching the watchdog. … Every time they open their mouth I’m going to jump down their throat.”

Actually, the MCC’s activities and limits are spelled out in a state statute for “crimestopper” organizations. Goyeneche late last week extended the olive branch.

“Our organization bears no ill will to the sheriff or the sheriff’s office,” Goyeneche says. “We would be more than willing to sit down and talk. We’re ready and willing to begin to talk to him about this. We would hope cooler heads would prevail.”

At the same time, Anthony Radosti, vice-president of the MCC and a retired New Orleans police detective, adds: “Neither threats, bullying, force or intimidation will prevent us from doing the right thing. We have a right to investigate and to document what we learn and to turn it over to the appropriate law enforcement agency, and in some cases, the appropriate agency will be the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. If we have a complaint against a higher-up in the sheriff’s office or in some remote case, the sheriff himself, we may turn it over to another agency.”

Radosti stresses he is using hypothetical examples. However, Lee is clearly peeved at what he views as MCC meddling in cases both within his jurisdiction and the JPSO.

The sheriff affirms that his beef with the MCC differs little from celebrated feuds with columnist James Gill of The Times-Picayune; state Sen. Ken Hollis, R-Metairie; or Congressman David Vitter; to name but a few vintage foes of the sheriff.

In fact, Lee, who turns 69 this August and is currently in his sixth four-year term, demonstrates sufficient vigor and a willingness to widen his war to accommodate other enemies, especially Sen. Hollis.

“It’s payback time,” Lee says of an old political score with the senator. Hollis could not be reached for comment.

But it’s the MCC that is squarely in Lee’s crosshairs now. AsianWeek magazine once called the sheriff a “hybrid between John Wayne and Mao Tse-tung” — but to hear Lee tell it, John Wayne never saw a showdown like the one currently being planned for the MCC.

“I have already put the Crime Commission on notice that if they do any criminal investigations in Jefferson Parish they will be charged criminally,” Lee wrote in a letter dated March 28 to New Orleans Police Superintendent Richard Pennington.

Lee went on: “Hopefully, you and other area law enforcement executives will begin questioning the activities of the Metropolitan Crime Commission if you think they are in any way interfering with your agency or representing themselves to be something they are not.

“In the months ahead, I intend to question the authority of the Metropolitan Crime Commission in the media and in the courts. When I recover from my knee surgery, I intend to call a meeting with law enforcement officials in the metropolitan area to bring everyone up to date on what I am doing.”

Copies of the sheriff’s letter were sent to Gov. Mike Foster and a host of other politicians, law enforcement chiefs and media executives. The sheriff also enclosed copies of a March 21 Gambit Weekly article in which Goyeneche advocates parole for convicted murderer Billy Wayne Sinclair, a federal witness in the pardons-for-sale scandals of the 1980s and the only prisoner to receive the support of the MCC in its 49-year history.

Lee’s letter continues, “I just do not believe that someone who enjoys a tax-free status has a right to participate in this debate, and I intend to call the matter to the attention of the Internal Revenue Service.”

If Lee wants to “go down that road,” Goyeneche retorts, the MCC can raise questions about the sheriff’s benevolent statements about convicted murderer Wilbert Rideau, also published in Gambit Weekly (“The Last Emperor,” Feb. 23, 1999). “It was a heinous crime,” Lee said of the 1961 Lake Charles bank robbery, during which Rideau murdered a woman and wounded two other hostages. “He has totally rehabilitated himself in jail, won all kinds of awards [for prison journalism]. And in my opinion, he is not a threat to society if he gets out. In fact, he would be a contributor to society.”

Is the MCC violating its tax-exempt status as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, as Lee charges? Emma Moore, a spokesperson for the local IRS, told us a 501(c)3 organization “may be prohibited from doing various types of political activity or lobbying.” But Goyeneche says the Crime Commission is on firm ground. The MCC has sent letters recommending clemency for Sinclair since 1988 to both the state pardon and parole boards. “It’s not like we’re out there filing lawsuits on Sinclair’s behalf,” he says.

The same day that Lee mailed out his letter to Chief Pennington, the sheriff delivered another broadside at MCC during a luncheon address.

“He unloaded a tirade on them,” says one of the 25 private security experts who was at the meeting of the local chapter of the American Society for Industrial Security at Mike Anderson’s Seafood restaurant in Metairie.

The conferee, who requested that his name not be used in this article, says that Lee told the audience that he would urge the MCC’s financial contributors to switch to Crimestoppers, a confidential hotline that funnels crime tips to area law enforcement. (Lee has donated office space to Crimestoppers at the old JPSO office on Metairie Road.)

Lee also questioned the lack of minorities on the MCC board of directors, in the wake of MCC allegations last year of “institutional racism” against the Causeway Police Department following the firing of a top cop for racial slurs — whom Lee later hired then released.

The 54-member board of the MCC includes two African Americans. “We don’t ask people to fill out an ancestry tree,” says Goyeneche, who is of Cuban descent.

In response to an MCC report of criminal activity in his jurisdiction referred by Goyeneche to the JPSO for investigation, Lee replied on Jan. 8 that his office would not investigate information from the MCC “unless we can ascertain the reliability of your informant.”

He added, “I remind you that if the Metropolitan Crime Commission attempts to investigate any of these matters, you maybe [sic] interfering with police.” Copies of the letter were then designated for mailing to 51 other people, including heads of area law enforcement.

In happier times, the criminals were the common enemy.

Less than two years ago, Lee heaped praise on the MCC for sponsoring “Wanted by the Law,” a weekly newspaper ad program that features mug shots of fugitives sought by 26 area law enforcement agencies.

In a letter to Goyeneche, dated Sept. 14, 1999, Lee wrote: “Since the inception of your program Wanted by the Law seven years ago, my office has submitted 153 fugitives which have been displayed in The Times-Picayune. As a result of the publicity and the rewards offered, some 109 fugitives have been apprehended. … Only by working together can we ever hope to accomplish the goal of making our streets safer for our citizens.”

One year later, however, Lee severed all ties with the MCC. He now suggests his office can achieve the same results by boosting Crimestoppers, which helped solve 53 metro area murders in 1999.

Goyeneche calls the sheriff’s decision “unfortunate.” All of the fugitives caught by JPSO using the MCC ads were based on the sheriff’s now-banned anonymous tips. “That is a resource that he is turning his back on,” Goyeneche says. “These criminals aren’t being apprehended as quickly as they might have been. It’s a public safety issue. It’s unfair to the citizens and its really bad policy.”

Gone are the days when the JPSO and the MCC freely exchanged office visits and shared information. “We probably had the best relationship with the JPSO of any organization in the New Orleans area,” Goyeneche recalls, ruefully. “It was a very professional relationship and a very relaxed relationship. All of that has changed.”

Like most feuds, there is little agreement on when and how the rift began between the sheriff and the watchdog group. Goyeneche and Radosti say their relationship with the Sheriff soured in September, after Lee learned that a sheriff’s sergeant had called on the Crime Commission with allegations of possible corruption and civil rights violations at the upper-levels of the JPSO. The MCC says Lee felt he or his internal affairs division should have been advised of the serious allegations. The MCC officials say that their own policy dictates that complaints against high-ranking officials will be referred to other law enforcement agency, such as the FBI.

Lee says his public differences with the MCC date to 1997, when the Crime Commission opposed his decision to promote reserve deputy Shane Guidry, the son of political campaign contributor Robert Guidry, to a nighttime supervisor.

Goyeneche says there were other people with more experience who could supervise major crime scenes. Lee says Guidry was willing to work for free. The sheriff responded to the MCC objection with characteristic bluntness, telling the group his promotional decisions are “none of your goddamned business.”

Goyeneche and the sheriff also clashed last February over Lee’s decision to rehire former warden Al Payne Sr., who had been convicted 12 years ago in a bookmaking operation. Lee hired Payne to oversee a home incarceration program. Lee’s willingness to forgive, associate with, and even hire convicted felons has long vexed the FBI, the MCC, and the media.

The Crime Commission has other critics — usually present or former officials in state and local government — who feel the MCC has grown too powerful. To their view, Harry Lee may be the one to clip the MCC’s organizational wings. However, Lee says he is not sure if he can use campaign funds to finance his war against the MCC. That money will continue to come from other sources, he says.

Can he say where? “I can say, but I won’t,” the sheriff says.

The MCC raised $783,102 in 1998. Its tax returns and the salaries of MCC executives can be found on www.guidestar.com, Goyeneche says. The names of board members and other information the sheriff requested can be found on its Web site www.metrocrimeno.org. Goyeneche challenges the sheriff to make public all of his outside business interests.

Meanwhile, outgoing Judge Gerald P. Federoff dismissed a lawsuit Lee filed against the MCC in Orleans Parish Civil District Court at the MCC’s request on March 27.

In the end, there might be only one group to benefit from the battle between the Lee and the MCC. The Press Club of New Orleans is counting on the battle to provide plenty of grist for a team of satirical scriptwriters; Sheriff Lee is the “headliner” for the media’s 40th annual gridiron show this fall. Tickets are already on sale.