JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — Disgraced former Jefferson Parish President Mike Yenni returned to public office this morning for the first time in more than four years, taking over as Registrar of Voters Dennis DiMarco’s chief deputy.
Yenni returned to government over the objections of several parish council members who have no control over whom DiMarco hires but feel Yenni’s sexually explicit texts to a 17-year-old in the summer of 2015 – which drove him out of political office – should disqualify him from an important position overseeing elections.
Yenni disagreed, claiming the sexting scandal was the “one mistake in my life.”
“I'm not going to keep reliving nine years ago and going back to that time,” he said. “It was a mistake. I apologized. Myself, my family; we've moved on. And, you know, unfortunately, there's the World Wide Web and Google, and you'll never get away from those things. So, (the chief deputy registrar position is) an opportunity for me to come back and serve the public in a great capacity with one of the most important things out there, voting.”
Yenni also emphasized that while he’s back in government, he’s out of politics.
“I'm working in an apolitical environment and so happy to be back where I feel I belong, having graduated from college with a governmental degree and having 21 years in governmental service, it's an opportunity for me to continue serving,” he said.
Council Chairman Scott Walker said he and his constituents want Yenni out of the parish government in any capacity.
"This isn't about politics; this is about morals. It's about a black eye on the registrar's office, a black eye on the Parish of Jefferson," Walker said. "Countless phone calls, countless emails have all been in opposition to this hire, not one in support of it. I have a platform that I can use to speak for the people that I represent, and that's what I'm doing. And this is not a good move for the registrar's office or for Jefferson Parish."
The Registrar of Voters is a state office under the Louisiana Elections Commission, but the parish government does control a portion of the office’s salaries. Parish officials say they plan to withhold the parish’s $20,000 portion of Yenni’s $78,000 salary.
“If that's their decision, I have to stand by their decision,” Yenni said. “I've never really done a job for the salary. I have done it for the public and I've always done that.”
"If you're having a conversation about a new employee who had a relationship with a teenage boy that he admitted was inappropriate, no matter your experience (level), I think that is a disqualifier on a lot of jobs, not to mention the government job that he now has," Walker said.
He and Councilman Deano Bonano both said that "everything is on the table" for the council to express its opposition to the hiring of Yenni.
Yenni met the questions head-on today. Yenni has repeatedly declined to do interviews with WWL Louisiana about the sexually explicit texts, both before and after the station broke the story in September 2016. When the station broke the story last month that Yenni would be returning to public office, he again declined interview requests.
DiMarco also has declined to answer questions about why he was hiring Yenni, accused the station of doing a “hatchet job” on Yenni by reporting on the sexting scandal and said “nothing to report” 28 times during an interview while leaving a public meeting last month. His office said DiMarco would be out of town Monday.
But when WWL showed up at the Registrar of Voters Office first thing in the morning and requested an interview with Yenni, he came right out from his office and answered questions for more than five minutes before heading back to his first day of work.
Yenni said he didn’t know DiMarco’s process for hiring him, but said he believed the registrar had considered other candidates for his Number 2. Yenni stood by his own credentials for the job.
“I think my resume speaks for itself,” he said. “I was a chief administrative officer (of Kenner), I was a mayor, I was a parish president, I'm a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve,” Yenni said. “So, I think I understand administrations and running an office of 17 employees for the for the State of Louisiana.”
He also sought to allay concerns from some public officials about whether he would be running elections at polling sites at schools. The Jefferson Parish School Board banned Yenni from going on school grounds after WWL’s report that he had first seen the 17-year-old at a high school graduation function.
Yenni disputed that.
“That didn't happen. Never saw him at a high school function, never came across him,” Yenni said. “And I'm not going to keep going back to nine years ago. That's 2015. We're almost at 2025. It's almost ten years. I'm not living in the past. I'm living for the future and trying to protect the voters of Jefferson Parish.”
A legal opinion in 2020 said the school board ban from 2016, which specifically referred to Yenni as the parish president, ceased to be in effect after Yenni left office as president. But Yenni said Monday it’s irrelevant to his role as chief deputy registrar anyway.
“The Clerk of Courts Office handles all of the polling precincts,” he said. “The Registrar of Voters Office has nothing to do with that. We handle voter registration, we handle early voting, and that's it.”
The teen told WWL Louisiana in 2016 that a 19-year-old mutual friend had connected him and Yenni after his high school pre-graduation event and they started a texting relationship. He said that led to Yenni visiting the boy at his summer job in the mall, giving him underwear, later asking him to model them for him and telling the teen he wanted to perform a sex act on him.
The teen texted in June 2016 that he disapproved of Yenni, who was the 40-year-old mayor of Kenner at the time, cheating on his wife. But he texted that he was willing to have a sexual relationship with Yenni. Later, the youth, who at 17 was of the legal age of consent to have sex, said he felt uncomfortable as Yenni kept asking to meet and ended the relationship.
After WWL broke the story, Yenni produced a TV ad apologizing and admitted he sent “improper texts to a young man.” He’s never been willing to discuss the content of the messages. Asked today if he has ever apologized to the teen, he appeared to confirm what the youth told us years ago: He had not.
“I think when I did that video back in 2016, if you carefully listen to it, I apologize to everyone involved,” Yenni said. “And I'm not going to keep going back there. What I'm focused on is today and going forward and making sure the voting process in Jefferson Parish is seamless.”
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