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State auditor talks scope of 'unusual' city-parish probe prompted by alleged corruption

BATON ROUGE -- The state legislative auditor says his team will spare no effort to root out corruption in the city of Baton Rouge following a request by Mayor-President Sid Edwards.

Edwards requested the auditor's help last week following the arrest of Metro Council member Cleve Dunn for criminal conspiracy and malfeasance.

"I would say if one [contract] is done incorrectly, there's probably others that are done incorrectly, so we're gonna go through them all," said legislative auditor Mike Waguespack.

Waguespack and his team agree they have a challenge ahead of them.

"It's not typical that we come into a metropolitan area of this size."

While Dunn's indictment is the most recent instance, it's not the only allegation of corruption tied to the city-parish. Last year, an affordable housing program called "Housing for Heroes" came under scrutiny when the developer was arrested for misappropriating millions in funds allocated by the Metro Council. 

State officials say the developer behind "Housing for Heroes", Bradly Brown, received over $6 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds. Waguespack says he's particularly interested in any use of funds during the COVID-era when there was a lot of federal money floating around.

"We will probably go back four years and look at all the existing contracts and make sure it makes sense, and review the contract, review the payments, and look into deliverables or lack thereof."

As Mayor Edwards emphasized during his press conference last week, so far, all instances of misappropriation occurred before he assumed his office.

Waguespack says his team will examine all of it.

"What the prior administration did as far as documentation or lack thereof -- the new administration basically takes over, so the new administration has full access to all the books and records of the prior administration."

Waguespack says his team will begin in March, and the process will take anywhere from six to 15 months to complete.

He says he has been in communication with the Attorney General's office, which is also doing its own investigation into multiple city-parish adjacent organizations.

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