The Duck Hunter

From today's T-P

Neither Pierson nor federal prosecutors identified the landfill owner who paid off Mouton, and court records mention only "co-conspirator A." But other public documents suggest it is Fred Heebe or his stepfather, Jim Ward, owners of the River Birch landfill in Waggaman. Neither has been charged with a crime.

In court records, Mouton said he met co-conspirator A in 1996 during an overnight duck-hunting fundraiser "for a former Louisiana governor." That was the year Mike Foster, elected in 1995, succeeded Edwin Edwards as governor.

"Shortly thereafter, co-conspirator A contacted Mouton and offered to pay Mouton $2,000 a month and, in exchange, Mouton agreed to provide co-conspirator A with insider political information and access to the governor," the court records say.

Mouton didn't register as a lobbyist for his co-conspirator, however.

For what it's worth, most of us would need only the words highlighted in red to identify the former governor in question. There were times during the Foster administration when it was widely assumed that duck hunting was the governor's primary occupation. Buddy Diliberto, who was miffed at Foster's lack of attentiveness to the then very serious question of keeping the Saints in New Orleans, had taken to referring to him as "The Duck Hunter" derisively on the air.