A hotel nestled alongside the stunning Pacific Ocean just 20 minutes from Panama City, Panama. A Panama Canal cruise tour and nighttime tour of Old Panama. A golf tournament. A cocktail party on the MiraFlores Lock, a Black and White Gala and Karaoke Night.
Ah, what a breathtaking getaway.
But this was no personal vacation. It was a weeklong continuing legal education seminar for Louisiana attorneys and judges last month in the Republic of Panama, and taxpayers footed the bill for one Baton Rouge state district judge to attend.
Public records obtained by Business Report indicate Judge Trudy White spent a week in Panama City during the period the seminar was scheduled. Receipts show the Judicial Expense Fund paid $1,509.74 for her to stay at The Westin Playa Bonita in Panama, located on a mile-long stretch of beach along the ocean. Her king-sized accommodations for two included a “heavenly bed and bath” and a rainforest view. Airfare ran another $705.40, and seven days of economy parking at the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport, another $56. Round-trip transportation between the airport in Panama and the hotel was $42.
Although the records provided did not include an accounting of White’s registration fee for the seminar, the event’s website indicates judicial rates ranged from $750 to $1,000.
The Judicial Expense Fund is derived from state and city-parish funding and court fees, according to Judicial Administrator Ann McCrory.
The Panama event was offered by the CLE of Louisiana, founded in 1994 by New Orleans attorneys Keith Doley and Ammon L. Miller Jr., who envisioned the concept while vacationing in Jamaica. Net proceeds from the seminars—held in exotic locations like Belize and the Virgin Islands—fund Louisiana law school scholarships.
Sessions were offered daily from 9 a.m. to lunchtime, exploring legal topics like recusal, evidence, medical malpractice discovery, consumer class action, human trafficking and other topics.
In an email to Business Report before the records were released, White notes that she requested “full disclosure” from the court’s administrative office. At press time, however, the judge had not responded to additional questions about the trip. White is noted for being the first African-American female elected to Baton Rouge City Court. She moved to state court in 2009.
A search of the Louisiana Supreme Court’s calendar of CLE seminars offered during the same time period indicates 16 were offered in south Louisiana, including five in the Capital Region.
The trip first made headlines late last month in New Orleans after an investigation by WVUE-TV uncovered that longtime New Orleans traffic court Judge Ronald Sholes used $2,000 in public funds to pay for the excursion just two weeks before he planned to retire.
Business Report filed similar public records requests with Baton Rouge City Court, the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney’s Office and the First Circuit Court of Appeals, but turned up no records of any other officials having requested public funds to attend the seminar. Says District Attorney Hillar Moore: “We just don’t have the funds to attend something like that.”
