KENNER, La. - The Louisiana Board of Ethics has charged a Kenner assistant city attorney with multiple violations after a WWL-TV investigation revealed that the prosecutor was moonlighting as a domestic violence counselor.
Attorney Christopher Weddle was counseling defendants under a city diversion program, despite the fact that his prosecutor’s office was responsible for referring the defendants.
Operating as “Diversion Resources,” Weddle used the Kenner’s Lions Club Hall directly behind City Hall to conduct the counseling sessions. The Ethics Board said the dual roles violated several statutes of the state Ethics Code.
Weddle was in violation “by virtue of his receipt of a thing of economic value, through Diversion Resources, for counseling services rendered to persons who are participating in the pretrial diversion program regulated by his agency,” according to the charges.
City officials disallowed Weddle to continue operating as a counselor for Kenner defendants after WWL-TV aired its story in November 2014. By then, Weddle had been operating for nine months as a counselor, earning about $9,000, according to the ethics charges.
“As a result of Channel Four's investigative report on the city of Kenner, Weddle is now the subject of ethics charges for doing with his own agency,” WWL-TV legal analyst Chick Foret said.
Foret said such conflicts of interest aren't uncommon, especially with part-time public servants like Weddle. But he said that fact won't get him off the hook.
“In Louisiana and even throughout the country, it's very prevalent that people cross the line,” Foret said. “But while the statute is broad, it's very clear. A public servant cannot accept gifts from or conduct business with any entity that his office regulates.”
Loyola Law Professor Dane Ciolino said the next step for Weddle is an administrative trial.
“Now that formal charges have been filed, Mr. Weddle will have the opportunity to present whatever defense he wants to mount,” Ciolino said. “If he's ultimately found to have violated the state code of ethics, he could be subject to fines and forfeiture of all the fees he received.”
Ciolino said if Weddle is found guilty, he could be forced to reimburse his profits and pay a fine as high as half of what he earned, putting his possibly total penalty at $13,500.
Several licensed therapists said their Kenner referrals dried up when Weddle began operating as Diversion Resources. In addition to the convenience of his location next to City Hall, documents show that clients might have gravitated to Weddle because he was allowed to offer a shorter program than other counselors.
All the other agencies offered 52-week programs, the professional standard for domestic violence counseling. But Weddle was allowed to conduct 26-week programs. All of the city-approved therapists, including Weddle, were listed on a referral sheet given to defendants by the Kenner city attorney’s office.
On some early referral sheets, there is no mention of Weddle’s name, just his company. But on later versions of the sheet, the name “Mr. Chris” appears under his company, in stark contrast to the full names and licensing credentials listed for other counselors.
We tried to contact Weddle for comment, but he has not returned our calls. He continues to work as a prosecutor, a city spokesman said.