BATON ROUGE - A contractor with 45 years of experience said he has emails from the city-parish to back up work that was recently performed on private property. That work was not authorized by the homeowner and is not listed as servitude under the city-parish's maps.

Contractor Brent Bergeron admitted to digging the large ditch that measures approximately 200 feet long, 30 feet wide and 25 feet deep. The ditch slices John Raby's five-acre property off Staring Lane in half.

"It's concerning a lot," Raby said. "You can't rest at night. It makes you nervous because someone is taking your land that you worked for all your days."

In September, Raby thought the contractor had made a mistake or it was some type of sick joke.

"They were playing a game with me," Raby said.

It was no game. In fact, Bergeron told WBRZ he would be extremely upset if a contractor came and did that to his property. But, he says he had orders from the city-parish.

"I don't go on someone else's property without permission," Bergeron said. "For me to go across someone's property and dig a ditch, I wanted someone to send me an email confirmation that we are supposed to do this. And I did get that from Shannon Dupont."

In the email shared with the WBRZ Investigative Unit, Shannon Dupont, an engineer with the city-parish wrote, "The culvert definitely needs to be removed and the channel restored to drain properly. Permission is certainly granted to do so."

As Raby gets ready to weight out his legal options, he wants attention brought to this matter so it doesn't happen again.

"If he gets away with it, they'll do it to someone else," Raby said.

Initially the city-parish told WBRZ in a phone call in November it did not authorize the work on private property. However, in a statement today, the city-parish did not confirm that.

The statement provided said: "We are continuing to conduct research to document ownership and appropriate use of the drainage at this location. We will continue working with the property owner as well as the developer to come to an amicable solution." 

PORT ALLEN - Details surrounding what led to the arrests of two deputies with possibly more arrests coming will be revealed during a news conference Tuesday at the West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office.

On Thursday, the WBRZ Investigative Unit learned two deputies were arrested after an audit found some issues with the department's work release program, according to a spokesman. The audit came in the wake of repeated escapes.

A search of WBRZ archives shows this has been a problem for years. In 2016, it caught the attention of state auditors where 22 escapes were logged between a two-year period, which was the most in the state.

Following that audit, Sheriff Mike Cazes promised changes during another one of the escapes.

"I stressed very seriously you have to touch bodies, flesh," Cazes told WBRZ. "That's the only way to do a security check. These guys are criminals. They are masterminds on how to prevent things and how to do things."

Following the audit that showed West Baton Rouge had the most escapes, WBRZ continued reporting on escapes that plagued the work release program. At least two high-profile escapes resulted in a carjacking, robbery and one of the inmates threatening to kill a victim. Another escape left a victim battered after an inmate threw her into a wall and threatened to kill her with a kitchen knife.

The West Baton Rouge Parish has not yet said how far their probe went into the escapes, and the sheriff's office has not named the deputies who were arrested.

GONZALES - A parish councilman believes the Ascension Parish Parks and Recreation Department is sticking its hands where they shouldn't go. It involves a feud between the parish recreation department and a non-profit that runs the baseball program.

Following the August 2016 flood, the parish appointed a president to the non-profit. But when the non-profit elected a new president on Nov. 18, 2018, passwords and financial information were never turned over to the new president. That has one councilman concerned that this could rise to a criminal issue.

"I don't understand the motivation behind it," Parish Councilman Aaron Lawler said. "It's concerning and borderline criminal. If you are withholding funds from somebody that's extremely serious."

Lawler, who is an attorney, said he was contacted recently about the issue. That's when he started researching the bylaws for ABC, Ascension Baseball Council. Lawler said the organization is clearly a non-profit that elects its own president.

"I called the former president to get information, and I can't receive anything," Danny Allen, the new president of ABC said. "I can't get bank accounts, stuff to the website to open for registration which starts at the end of December. No paperwork or anything."

In a text message obtained by the WBRZ Investigative Unit which was reportedly sent by former president Byron Bordelon, Bordelon indicated that he was instructed to give all information related to Ascension Baseball Council to the parish.

"That's extremely concerning," Lawler said. "There's no government entity that should be taking away a non-profit's funds and withholding them from them because they disagree with the leadership of the non-profit."

Councilman Lawler said he personally reached out to those at the Recreation Department who insured him they would cooperate.

"My initial contact was, 'Why doesn't the parish just stay out of this?' And they said they would," Lawler said. "My explanation to them was whether this organization rises or falls it's up to them. The parish should stay out of it, and I was contacted again and told that the parish hasn't stayed out of it."

Lawler said he is concerned about the implications this could have in the future. He wants the parish to do the right thing and not get involved in a non-profit's work.

Phone calls to the assistant director of Parks and Recreation were referred to Ascension Parish's public information officer. He told WBRZ the parish works a half day on Fridays and no one was available.