Whipped Cream Difficulties

Mike the Musicologist tipped me off to an interesting story from Louisiana.

Tyrin Truong is the mayor of Bogalusa. He’s 23, which makes him the youngest mayor in Bogalusa’s history, and one of the youngest ever in the state.

And he got busted on Tuesday for drug trafficking.

Investigators determined that members of a drug trafficking organization in the Bogalusa area were using social media to distribute opioids, high-grade marijuana, THC products and MDMA, State Police said. Profits from the drug sales were used to purchase firearms. Some of the firearms were “funneled” to individuals prohibited from legal possession and some were linked to crimes in the Bogalusa area, State Police said.

But, apparently, no blow. Which is kind of disappointing, because:

Northshore District Attorney Collin Sims, whose agency is involved in the investigation, said Truong allegedly “organized entertainment with a prostitute” at an AirBnB while attending a mayor’s conference in Atlanta. The AirBnB had been rented using public money, Sims said.

…

Truong, now 25, was booked into the Washington Parish Jail in Franklinton on counts of transactions involving proceeds from drug offenses, unauthorized use of a moveable and soliciting for prostitutes, State Police said in a news release.

“unauthorized use of a moveable”?

Even before officially becoming mayor, Truong did not shy away from political battles and controversies. As mayor-elect, he pushed for the resignation of the Bogalusa police chief after a Black man died in the department’s custody.
During his tenure he encouraged law enforcement to patrol more in Bogalusa, but also suggested the city could dissolve its 33-officer police force and transfer responsibilities to the Washington Parish Sheriff’s office to save money.

Meanwhile, Thomas Clasby, the former director of the Quincy Department of Elder Services (that’s in Massachusetts), has been charged with “embezzlement, mail and wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property”.

Starting in 2019, Clasby used the city’s purchasing power to pay for personal expenses and make money for himself.

What kind of expenses?

Clasby arranged for the city to pay $8,950 to a music studio to produce recordings of him singing, $2,236 to food service vendors for 153 pounds of bourbon steak tips, $4,800 for a Toyota Prius and $1,658 for a self-portrait, federal prosecutors said.

The articles don’t specify if that was a down payment on a new Prius or an outright purchase of a used one. I did run the numbers, and that works out to $14.61 a pound for the bourbon steak tips. I don’t know if that’s a good price or not: my H-E-B app does not list steak tips (with or without bourbon) at my local store. I also can’t find “bourbon steak tips” online – I was thinking that might be something Omaha Steaks sells – but I did find lots of recipes for “bourbon” and “honey bourbon” steak tips online. Might be something worth trying.

Clasby also arranged for the city to pay over $38,000 to a New York consulting company owned by his friend, federal prosecutors said.
The consulting company didn’t provide any goods or services to Quincy, federal prosecutors said. Instead, Clasby’s friend cashed the city’s checks and gave Clasby the money at three separate places: A rest stop in Framingham, a ferry terminal in Bridgeport, Connecticut and at the friend’s New York apartment.

Okay, now you’re just being scummy instead of amusing. But we’ll always have the “signed, lacquered, framed portrait” and the studio recordings of his singing. Not that I’ve found those anywhere yet, but I’m sure prosecutors will be entering those into evidence and playing them for the jury.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 9th, 2025 at 1:20 pm and is filed under Beef, Food, Law, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.