The Lens

By Matt Davis, The Lens staff writer

The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office runs a lucrative program hiring out deputies for private security work frequently at far higher pay than their commissioned duties – but it’s not just the deputies who are bringing in a tidy sum. The program provides Sheriff Marlin Gusman with a regular supply of discretionary money.

For every hour  Gusman’s deputies work on a moonlighting shift, they pay $1 into what’s called the Sheriff’s Detail Fund. In addition to writing thousands of dollars in checks to “cash” out of this account, Gusman has used this fund to buy alcohol for parties and gifts for his employees, according to records obtained under the state’s Public Records Act. The state Attorney General has said such spending is an illegal use of public money.

Aside from that discretionary fund, the overall sheriff’s program of outside paid details is remarkably similar in structure to the one run by the New Orleans Police Department, which the U.S. Department of Justice excoriated as an “aorta of corruption” in the department.

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