Tag: Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP) CIAP

Tina Shumate released from prison (Updated)

Slabbed has learned that Tima Shumate, former head of the Mississippi DMR CIAP program, has been released from MDOC custody. Stay tuned to this developing story.

Update:

I’d like to take the opportunity to dispel two rumors as Eye Spy took the opportunity to help me out with some links and background plus I spoke with a couple of other folks that will remain nameless.

1. There is no truth to the speculation that Ms. Shumate’s release is in any way related to the Livingston Parish CIAP Investigation.

2. Ms. Shumate’s release was not politically motivated. Our state prisons are stuffed full of nonviolent offenders. In 2013 a law was passed that reduced the amount of time nonviolent offenders had to serve to 25% of the total sentence so that we could house more violent offenders. Shumate, based on when she took her plea, fell under the new law. If someone deserves the blame for this state of affairs it would be her lawyer Tim Holleman, who would be on the short list of people I’d go see if I got into serious criminal trouble. The bottom line is Ms. Shumate is being treated no differently than others similarly situated.

Rooked: FBI probing Livingston Parish CIAP Land Purchase

Since RFP did the work digging up the old links on Slabbed, a comment bump is in order as the FBI is now poking around a subject Slabbed first reported on a bit more than 2 years ago:

More Mississippi Mud? Louisiana Mud too? Flipping swamplands and CIAP funds? FBI has been asking questions? Say it ain’t so. Oh, and that name seems strangely familiar.

Land deal appraised by tax assessor Barber probed

“Federal authorities have been looking into Madison County Tax Assessor Gerald Barber and his role in a Louisiana land deal that scored almost $3 million in profits for private citizens and a conservation group.

The lynchpin for the deal may have been an apparent inflated appraisal done by Barber’s firm, Barber & Mann Inc., that the U.S. inspector general called “noncompliant” and unreasonably priced in an audit.

See also:

DMR Scandal day 53: The bucks are beginning to stop.

Rooked: Elizabeth Rooks Barber of Barber and Mann exports the DMR friends and family program…

Exactly one thought on the Shumate state guilty plea

I’ll term these thoughts 1 and 1a in response to Eye Spy:

It is unusual for someone entering a guilty plea to immediately go into custody of MDOC let alone do it voluntarily yet that is exactly what Tina Shumate did last bad news Friday. With no activity on PACER and a looming late September trial date before Judge Keith Starrett this can only mean that when Ms. Shumate makes an appearance before the court she’ll be wearing prison orange and likely, shackles. Thought 1a from the old days and Dr. Demento: Continue reading “Exactly one thought on the Shumate state guilty plea”

DMR Document Dump Miscellany: More Heberts and a Shumate plus Miller Time

It’s Miller time so let them eat shrimp!

By Anonymous Leak to Slabbed New Media
By Anonymous Leak to Slabbed New Media LLC

2014 Coastal Legislative Reception on the Taxpayers

We’ve had some people asking about the administration of the Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP). Here are two interesting sets of CIAP Technical Review Committee Documents: Continue reading “DMR Document Dump Miscellany: More Heberts and a Shumate plus Miller Time”

DMR Memorandum lend color to insider purchase of parent’s land with Coastal Impact Funds

This is the defense side of things per Anita Lee’s DMR employee’s South Mississippi home searched circa January 2013.

The DMR paid $245,000 for the lot on a bayou near the Pascagoula River.

Holleman said Shumate removed herself completely from the land transaction. He said her parents, Curt and Ann Hebert, saw the program advertised and approached the DMR about buying the property.

“When her parents got involved, she had nothing to do with it,” Holleman said. “There will be documents that support that.”

I have what I believe to be the documents to which Tim Holleman referred. Continue reading “DMR Memorandum lend color to insider purchase of parent’s land with Coastal Impact Funds”

Exactly one thought on the Bill Walker plea

More precisely one thought on the information contained in Anita Lee’s story on same.

Shumate allegedly approached the Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain about buying the property. The Land Trust and Scott Walker signed a sales contract in April 2011.

Shumate’s attorney, Tim Holleman of Gulfport, who attended the plea hearing, said afterward that Shumate maintains her innocence. He noted that the government alleges Bill Walker “directed” her to approach the Land Trust, not that she conspired with the Walkers. But she is included in the conspiracy charge with the Walkers.

I seem to remember that a conspiracy could involve other acts. Shumate’s purchase of her parent’s property with Coastal Impact funds could be one such possible act the prosecutors would use. The Good Book appears to back this understanding.

It will be interesting to see if Shumate and Ziegler cave or take this into a courtroom.  Both have top notch legal representation.

There really is a method to the madness….

I hope everyone enjoyed Halloween.  I have less time than yesterday to post but all hell is breaking loose on several fronts. (h/t to several readers and commenters.)

The method to the madness is called building a critter called institutional memory. It comes in handy on days like today.  Here are some salient links:

A dispatch from ghouls of Halloween past ~ Jason Berry

Jason has been covering the Wisner Foundation and the MDL OIl Spill litigation for quite some time now. Seeing the intersections between those topics and a certain class action lawyer whose name has showed up frequently on these pages is most gratifying. Speaking of that clique:

Gusman ends controversial flat-rate contract with firm ~ Claire Galofaro

And from the whistleblower retaliation files Sheriff Gusman remains stuck on stupid…..

Orleans Parish Prison whistleblower who helped expose problems fears for his job ~ Naomi Martin

Meantime the jackassery on the Jefferson Parish Council is hitting full tilt with the gang deciding the voters really do need to have a say so on this hospital deal: Continue reading “There really is a method to the madness….”

Inside the investigation: Who tattooed Scott Walker’s mortgage on the lot that DMR purchased via the Land Trust

Vital background via Anita Lee can be found here.

The land deal closed 12 days before Scott Walker’s final, lump-sum payment was due on a loan at Merchants & Marine Bank, Jackson County land records show.

Walker had used the property in July 2008 as collateral on a $310,590 loan, which called for monthly payments of $2,775. The balance and all interest payments were due July 25, 2011, although the terms did allow for loan extension or modification.

Tattoo? I heard that word most from investment bankers doing M&A work a decade or so ago. Tatoos are not easily removed, especially those given a bank by a family member to induce the extension of credit to someone that is not otherwise creditworthy enough on their own to nab a $310,590 loan.

Stay tuned.

By popular demand: Of home furnishings and ‘culture of corruption’……

But first some lovely music:

Pickering: DMR probe may reveal “culture of corruption” ~ Da Noose

Auditor Pickering had to get out in front of the rampant rumor mill and boy did he! So what do we know now?  Here are a few observations.