BATON ROUGE, La. – District Attorney Hillar Moore said his office is working to expunge the records of nearly 100 people who recently had drug charges dismissed against them because of corruption in the Baton Rouge Police Department’s narcotics division.
This year, more than 700 drug charges were dismissed for people involved in about 100 cases. However, with the charges being dismissed they can still show up on those people’s records because they have not been expunged.
“Trying to restore them back to where they were prior to their arrest as best we can,” District Attorney Hillar Moore said.
Those expungements come with a cost. A typical expungement costs around $400. A small portion of that goes to the clerk of court and district attorney, but the majority 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.
Two weeks ago, Baton Rouge Police Officer Jeremiah Ardoin sat down with the WBRZ Investigative Unit in an exclusive interview where he alleged coverups, quotas and said he overheard officers talking about planting drugs on people.
“Making illegal cases, utilizing prostitutes to set up drug deals,” Ardoin said.
Ardoin’s rare tell-all interview resulted in Baton Rouge Police 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.
