Krentel case involved in court decision
SLIDELL – The St. Tammany Sheriff’s Office has come out on the losing end for the second time in a 2019 case that involved the arrest of a former S.O. deputy who had criticized the Sheriff’s Office regarding a high-profile murder—the killing of Nanette Krentel in July 2017.
However, Sheriff’s Office attorney Chadwick Collings said he will appeal the most recent ruling to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The case began through a series of private emails from Jerry Rogers to Krentel family members, with Rogers criticizing a deputy regarding his failure to solve the murder. Rogers was later arrested by the Sheriff’s Office for that criticism.
After the criminal case was thrown out of 22nd Judicial District Court, Rogers filed a civil lawsuit against three members of the Sheriff’s Office, including Sheriff Randy Smith. The S.O. reacted to the criticism from Rogers by arresting him under a criminal defamation statute that had been declared unconstitutional as applied nearly a half-century earlier.
Last Friday, a federal judge ruled that Rogers is “entitled to judgment in his favor” against the three Sheriff’s Office defendants on constitutional and state-law claims of false arrest and false imprisonment.
Defendants arrested Rogers even though they were reportedly warned twice in advance by the District Attorney’s office that arresting Rogers would be unconstitutional.
After Rogers was arrested, the St. Tammany Parish District Attorney’s office said that to “think someone can be arrested for this is crazy,” and that it is “so obvious” the deputies would not have qualified immunity for Rogers’ arrest.
When the case came before Judge Scott Gardner of the 22nd JDC, he found “no probable cause” for Roger’s arrest and released him from his bond.
However, Collings believes the judge in the case “is mistaken on the law” and plans to appeal to the next higher court.
“The facts in this case are not really in dispute,” Collings said. “Jerry Rogers was a long-time employee of former Sheriff, and now convicted felon, Jack Strain. He has a documented history of mental health issues, and he took it upon himself to anonymously begin contacting the grieving family of a homicide victim, Nanette Krentel, in which he made demonstrably false and defamatory statements against the lead detective working the Krentel investigation.
“The statute under which he was arrested, criminal defamation, although recently repealed by the Louisiana legislature, was still a valid and enforceable law on the books at the time of Mr. Rogers’ conduct,” he added.
In Rogers’ e-mails, he referred to the lead investigator for the Sheriff’s Office as “clueless” and a “stone-cold rookie,” while also making derogatory remarks about others on the case—all leading to his arrest.
The Attorney General’s office also dismissed the prosecution on the grounds that they were “precluded by law” from pursuing it.
And the FBI agent who investigated the Sheriff’s Office regarding the arrest requested that “a full investigation be opened to investigate for evidence of a criminal conspiracy conducted by the above mentioned STPSO members, and/or others, to deprive Rogers of his constitutionally protected civil rights.”
Collings sees the arrest from a very different view.
“We believe the Court misappreciated the law in finding that it was the duty of the Sheriff’s Office to make its own determination of whether the statute as applied to these facts was somehow unconstitutional. In my view such questions are the sole province of the Courts, and there has never been a case before any Federal or State Court that stated a detective, as opposed to an elected official, is legally incapable of being a victim of criminal defamation, and thus the plaintiff’s claims should have been dismissed by the District Court,” Collings said.
“The decision that was made to investigate and ultimately arrest Mr. Rogers was never about Sheriff Randy Smith, it was about defending the integrity of the homicide investigation that Mr. Rogers was attempting to undermine and to defend the deputies working that investigation. That’s what the Sheriff has always done, defended his deputies,” he added.
Despite the criticism of the arrest, each defendant testified that they would arrest Rogers all over again, even knowing what they know now.
These facts led federal judge Triche Milazzo of the Eastern District of Louisiana to conclude that: “no reasonable officer could have believed that probable cause existed where the unconstitutionality of Louisiana’s criminal defamation statute as applied to public officials has long been clearly established and where the officers had been specifically warned that the arrest would be unconstitutional.”
She therefore ruled that “Plaintiff is entitled to judgment in his favor on his claim for false arrest and state law false arrest and false imprisonment against Defendants Canizaro and Culpeper in their individual capacities.”
Rogers currently works as a federal investigator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General.