Disqualified

By: TONY MARKS
Editor

A three-judge panel at the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal reversed a ruling of the honorable Judge Chuck West of the 13th Judicial Court and declared Ville Platte Chief of Police Neal Lartigue is ineligible as a candidate and is disqualified.
Chief Lartigue did not wish to comment at this time.
Lartigue’s challenger, Al Perry Thomas, who filed the lawsuit, commented, “We are comfortable in where we are. We are happy with the decision of the appellate court.”
The appellate court found Thomas, during the hearing held before the honorable Judge Chuck West, proved Chief Lartigue “was not qualified to run for the office of chief of police of Ville Platte during the November 8 election due to lack of domicile.”
As a result, the court held the burden of proof shifted to Chief Lartigue. According to the appeal decision, “Defendant’s primary defense in this case is that at no time did he intend to or did he actually change his address from the Chataignier address to the Cavalier address.”
Later in its decision, the appellate court stated, “We conclude that defendant offered scant evidence to rebut the compelling evidence offered by plaintiff. His two witnesses (Gene Lavigne and Robert ‘T-Rob’ Soileau) provided little, if any, support for assertions, and his own testimony is, at best, equivocal.”
The court of appeal went on to examine the countervailing evidence and found, “Defendant’s only objective evidence to support his contention that the Chataignier address is, in fact, his domicile consists of using the address and/or a post office box on certain documents and asserting that the post office box is associated with the Chataignier address. This evidence provides no proof that defendant habitually resides at this address. Taken alone, these documents might be indicative of defendant’s intent to make the Chataignier address his domicile at some point in the past, but it offers no direct proof that he habitually, physically resides at that address and has done so for at least the requisite one-year period. Moreover, defendant’s testimony that the Chataignier address is his domicile and habitual residence is refuted by plaintiff’s credible and compelling evidence, as well as defendant’s sworn testimony during the divorce trial.”