Part II
Forced out over sex, drugs and other infractions, fired officers find work in other departments
By Kimbriell Kelly, Wesley Lowery and Steven Rich December 22, 2017
Another officer Doucette hired was his nephew Eric P. Doucette Sr., who was fired by New Orleans police in 2005 for neglect of duty, records show. The chief said he followed ethics guidelines and did not directly supervise his nephew. Eric Doucette, 59, did not respond to requests for comment.
When Chief Doucette resigned from Delgado in 2014, college officials replaced him with another former New Orleans police officer: Julie Lea, a former lieutenant in internal affairs.
Julie Lea at an event in New Orleans on Aug. 17, 2014. (Josh Brasted)
Lea had resigned from New Orleans while under investigation for “neglect of duty” for failing to “properly supervise subordinates,” according to police records.
In preparation of a federal audit that was part of the ongoing Justice Department investigation, Lea was told to complete pending internal affairs cases, records show. Investigators said Lea, however, allowed one of her employees to retire with 18 cases pending. The department later sustained the administrative violations against Lea.
Lea, 44, told The Post that she was “never notified of an investigation.” By the time New Orleans internal affairs upheld the charges against her, she had been sworn in as chief at Delgado. Delgado officials said they were unaware that she was under investigation when she was hired.
One of Lea’s hires at Delgado was fired New Orleans officer Mario Cole, who lost his job in 2013 after 11 years with the department when he tested positive for opiates during a random drug test. Through Delgado police, Cole, 38, declined to comment.
“I’m sure I looked into it and found out what it was,” Lea said when asked whether she knew of Cole’s prior misconduct when she hired him in 2016. “But I don’t remember.”
In January 2017, after a little more than a year as Delgado’s chief, Lea was fired.
An internal investigation by the college concluded that she had misused state funds and compromised student safety by ordering two of her officers to guard the homes of relatives of a deceased police chief during his funeral.
“Most chiefs would never get fired for something like that,” Lea said.
She said that after she was fired, she applied for another job as a police chief but was not hired. She now runs a nonprofit entity that she founded to organize Mardi Gras parades and events.
In August, Delgado replaced Lea with yet another former New Orleans officer: Eddie Compass III.
Compass spent 26 years with New Orleans Police Department, ascending to superintendent. He resigned in 2005 amid widespread criticism of the department’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
In an interview, Compass, 59, said that all of Delgado’s hiring of New Orleans officers with troubled records predated his arrival. He said he has not had any problems with the officers but criticized the department’s prior hiring practices. He said Delgado will no longer hire officers who have been forced out of other departments.
“They never should have been hired,” he said. “But that’s something I can’t do anything about.”
Delgado’s police department has three openings.
Alice Crites contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...rainbow&wpmm=1