BATON ROUGE, La. — Two weeks after a Baton Rouge police officer told reporters about corruption in the Baton Rouge Police Department’s Narcotics Division, prosecutors working on removing more than 700 dismissed charges from nearly 100 people’s criminal records are looking for money, WBRZ reported.
The drug charges were dismissed because of corruption at BPRD, but those charges still appear on people’s records until they are removed.
“(We’re) trying to restore them back to where they were prior to their arrest as best we can,” East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore said.
Expungements costs around $400 each, the majority of which goes to State Police.
“One of the issues we are running into is expungement and expungement law requires by statute that money be paid,” Moore said. “State Police requires money be paid to them by statute, and it’s not waivable by statute.”
Normally when charges are dismissed, Moore says most don’t pursue an expungement because it’s an arduous process
“Making illegal cases, utilizing prostitutes to set up drug deals,” Ardoin said.
The Baton Rouge Police is launching investigations into all of the claims he’s made. A news conference has been scheduled for Monday for them to address the situation for the first time.
In December, Ardoin was arrested for possession of stolen things. He began cooperating with his bosses, giving them a lot of information. That ultimately led to a BRPD’s officer arrest for stealing drug evidence.
