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Kenny Payne
A police chief was indicted after allegedly demanding oral sex from a woman in exchange for dropping a criminal case against her boyfriend. Kenny Payne of Plaquemine, Louisiana, did not comment to WBRZ about the five counts of malfeasance in office, but he previously denied allegations and refused to resign. This isn’t geared to be a he-said, she-said matter. Authorities claim he also ordered a police lieutenant to delete texts from the victim making the allegation, and also asked Iberville Parish Sheriff Brett Stassi “to not conduct or to cease conducting an investigation of him.”
Court documents stated that Payne asked the woman to bare her breasts and perform oral sex on him, according to The New Orleans Advocate.
“[Payne] said, ‘I know you’re willing to do anything to get him out,”” the woman previously told WBRZ. “He took a sticky note off of the lady’s desk. It was a big pack. And he wrote, ‘Will you give me a BJ to get him out of trouble?’ He took that sticky note off of there, and he did this [held it out] and showed it to me.”
Stassi told Law&Crime on the phone Tuesday that police had been looking for a person for violating a restraining order. Payne asked Stassi to tell police that the restraining order was expired. Stassi said he refused.
“It’s always a sad day when you have to arrest one of your own,” he said. “But you’ve got to follow the law.”
Payne is also accused of using a city storage building for personal stuff. He reportedly posted $250,000 bond after surrendering on Tuesday.
“That was never in my mind to resign,” he previously told WBRZ. “Am I going to retire at some time? Yes, sir. Is that time decided? No.”
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“I’ve been told by lawyers along the way that you can indict a ham sandwich if you like,” Payne told the outlet before the indictment. “Because the grand jury is a process where the district attorney — and I’m not specifically speaking of our district attorney; I am generalizing here; please do not edit that out — where the district attorney tells a story. And that story may not necessarily have any type of evidence whatsoever. But he tells a story.”
Payne declined to comment after getting indicted.
“We’ve indicted him, and next step is to give him a copy of what we have and give him some motions and a trial date,” District Attorney Tony Clayton of the 18th Judicial District told WBRZ. “If it’s a trial that he wants, he’ll have that.”
Clayton said they have more evidence than just the woman’s allegations.
“It’s very sad,” Clayton said. “Because you know, in law enforcement we’re held to a different standard. But it is what it is. This case is not just based on innuendos, but there’s evidence. So anyone can say anything. Just because somebody said something, that doesn’t give you grounds to indict a guy. But when you start bringing forth evidence with your actions, that’s what we have here. So we are following the evidence. So just any allegations made on anyone in law enforcement is just that, an allegation. But when you start putting forth evidence, and you get an indictment, and then you need stronger text of that evidence at a trial, and that’s just the way the judicial system is. It’s like making sausage. It is what it is.”
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