Louisiana news briefs

Lafayette School Board sacks superintendent
LAFAYETTE (AP) — The Lafayette Parish School Board has voted 7-2 to fire Superintendent Pat Cooper immediately.
The board also — by the same vote — found that Cooper had breached his contract in four matters.
Before the vote Thursday night, Cooper told the board he would sue if he was fired.
Board members found that Cooper refused to fire special assistant Thad Welch after it was shown he didn’t meet the original job description, and again after the board canceled Welch’s salary.
The board also found that Cooper used district money to pay a personal attorney to represent him against the board, and paid some principals for more work days than authorized.

Ex-cop being tried
in pill mill case kills self
NEW ORLEANS (AP) —
— The lawyer for a former New Orleans police officer says his client shot and killed himself two days into a federal trial on charges that he took money and sexual favors to protect alleged “pill mills” while he was on a federal drug enforcement task force.
Donald Nides, 64, shot himself overnight Tuesday in his River Ridge home, Arthur “Buddy” Lemann said.
Lemann said he thought Nides had a good chance of acquittal. “I thought we were definitely in the game,” said.
He said he felt that former colleagues’ attitude during testimony Tuesday had devastated Nides.
“There was a certain amount of eagerness ... that really crushed him,” Lemann said.
Authorities were notified of Nides’ death about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, Jefferson Parish Coroner Gerry Cvitanovich said.
Charges against him included conspiracy to dispense prescription pain pills, lying to federal investigators and obstruction of justice in a case involving pain clinics owned by Tiffany Gambino Miller in Metairie and Slidell, who pleaded guilty.
U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan confirmed Nides’ suicide during a brief hearing Wednesday to dismiss the charges at prosecutors’ request. The jury was not present.
Miller had not testified. Prosecutors said she would testify that she performed oral sex on Nides and gave him envelopes of cash many times from 2007 to 2008, and in exchange got advice about how to keep investigators from learning that she was running clinics where doctors freely wrote prescriptions for powerful painkillers.
Records filed with plea agreements from Miller and Dr. Joseph Morgan III, who ran one clinic, described weekly or biweekly payments of $600 to $2,000 to Nides.
Morgan testified that the clinics brought in $1.5 million a year which he split with Miller.

Momentive to spend $66M
on Geismar, Luling plants
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Momentive Specialty Chemicals Inc. plans to spend $66 million to build a new chemical production facility in St. Charles Parish and upgrade its plant in Ascension Parish.
The expansions will increase Momentive’s production of formaldehyde for use by nearby chemical plants in the manufacture of other products.
The plant announcements were made Thursday by Momentive Executive Vice President Dale Plante and Gov. Bobby Jindal.
The projects will retain 55 existing jobs at the Geismar plant, while creating 13 new direct jobs — eight in Luling and five in Geismar — with an average annual salary of $82,300.
The Geismar plant expansion should come online in the fourth quarter of 2015. It will have a direct pipeline delivery system into the adjacent manufacturing sites of BASF Corp. and Huntsman Corp.

Feds probe fires
at political operative’s home
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Federal investigators are looking into suspicious fires that destroyed the vehicles and New Orleans home of a political operative early Thursday.
ATF agents joined city and state fire examiners probing charred remains at Mario Zervigon’s home in the city’s Uptown neighborhood. Zervigon and eight people, including his wife and two children, escaped at 2:27 a.m. No injuries were reported but at least three cats died.
Kevin Moran, a special agent of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said an arson investigator confirmed the fires were deliberately set.
“The origin of the fire is unknown at this time,” Moran said. “The lab will work to determine if any accelerant was used and what type. It will be a few weeks before we can say what was found.”
Witnesses reported hearing glass breaking moments before two vehicles belonging to Zervigon were seen ablaze. Flames from one parked behind the home, quickly engulfed much of the house and damaged an adjacent property.

Jindal adding himself to
anti-Common Core lawsuit
BATON ROUGE (AP) —— Gov. Bobby Jindal is asking to join a lawsuit filed by 17 state lawmakers seeking to stop Louisiana from using the Common Core education standards.
The governor petitioned the court Thursday to add him as a plaintiff.
The lawsuit alleges state education officials didn’t follow Louisiana law when adopting the standards, saying it required a public comment period and legislative oversight.
Education Superintendent John White disagreed, saying the oversight process wasn’t required. And the district judge in the case earlier refused to immediately stop use of Common Core, saying the lawmakers failed to demonstrate the likelihood they would succeed at trial.

Mixed results in suit
over La. voter registration
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court order dealing with Louisiana’s enforcement of a national law on voter registration was mostly a victory for the state.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed complaints that the state wasn’t providing required voter registration forms to people applying for government benefits by Internet, telephone or mail. It also rejected an argument that the state violated a law requiring that registration forms be provided to people who don’t explicitly reject — in writing — the opportunity to register.
The appeals court did rule that the Secretary of State’s office has the power to make other state agencies comply with the federal act. Secretary of State Tom Schedler said Thursday he disagrees with that part of the ruling, saying it conflicts with the state’s constitution.
Schedler said the ruling proves the state is in substantial compliance with the National Voter Registration Act.
“This case has frustrated me since the beginning because it never took into account the cold, hard fact that Louisiana’s voter registration numbers are outstanding,” Schedler said in a news release. “Eighty-four percent of eligible citizens in our state are registered.”
Plaintiffs were pleased with the ruling that Schedler has enforcement over other state agencies and noted that the opinion said there was evidence public assistance agencies were not providing forms to aid applicants who applied for aid in person.
“Aspects of the 5th Circuit’s ruling sharply contravene the text, spirit, and purpose of the National Voter Registration Act,” said Ryan P. Haygood of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
The statement from supporters of the lawsuit noted that state agencies had made moves to comply with the law. Neither side said whether any further appeals are planned.