[StBernard] St. Bernard Sheriff Jack Stephens retires, says he's 'seen it all'

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Sheriff Jack Stephens retires, says he's 'seen it all'

Published: Sunday, July 01, 2012, 6:30 AM

 By Times-Picayune Staff 

The longest-serving current sheriff in Louisiana hangs up his spurs today.
"Come in. Sit down. Let me tell you a story," St. Bernard Sheriff Jack
Stephens said last week, inviting another visitor into his office. At 6
feet, 5 inches tall, the sheriff spoke in his typical straightforward mix of
curse words and anecdotes.

St. Bernard Sheriff Jack Stephens says his good-byes gallery (6 photos)

Often, long conversations with the 63-year-old Stephens begin with that
short opener: "Let me tell you a story..." Growing up in Shell Beach,
Stephens was surrounded by storytellers and he says it's a way of
maintaining history that has been lost over time.

"I enjoy history. I enjoy listening to things that are real. And, I have
tried to remember," Stephens said.

After 28 years in office, Stephens just misses the title of longest-serving
St. Bernard Parish sheriff. E.E. Nunez was elected sheriff in 1879 and held
the post until his death in 1909.

To hear Stephens tell it, there were any number of reasons he decided not to
seek an eighth term last fall: Increased scrutiny; an ever-growing
post-Hurricane Katrina bureaucracy; expanding responsibility. But mostly,
perhaps, this: "Time, when you've done a job long enough, it repeats and
nothing new happens. You've seen it all."

Sheriff Jimmy Pohlmann ceremoniously takes over the office's reins today at
3 p.m. at the Frederick J. Sigur Civic Center in Chalmette. After seven
terms in office, Stephens says a change is necessary.

"With every change of leadership there are new ideas, new possibilities,"
Stephens said. "Jimmy, he's of the right age and pedigree."

Changing of the guard

In 2009, at the age of 60, Stephens collapsed during a dinner at Ruth's
Chris Steak House and was rushed to the hospital. He had suddenly become ill
and dizzy but never lost consciousness. Pohlmann, then Stephens' chief
deputy and his ever-faithful No. 2, stayed by Stephens' side.

"The sheriff's still the sheriff, thank God for that," Pohlmann told The
Times-Picayune at the time.

Pohlmann started at the Sheriff's Office right out of high school, in 1983,
about a year before Stephens took over the office. And during Stephens' last
election cycle in 2007, Stephens brought Pohlmann around on the circuit to
see if he had the touch and enjoyed the political circus.

"He had the stuff," Stephens recalled. "And he's got a good cap on his
shoulders, as he controls his emotions, doesn't let them control him."

Read more

Key dates in St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stephens' tenure

Stephens' tenure was rarely boring. He is outspoken, sometimes blunt, and
hardly ever politically correct. His business dealings, particularly with
heiress Arlene Meraux, were a constant source of political intrigue.

And there was also a touch of glamour.

The suburban department has handed out honorary badges to many stars
throughout Stephens' tenure. Just since his last term began in 2008,
honorary commissions have gone to Kid Rock, Motley Crue singer Vince Neil
and action-movie star Steven Seagal. Before them, supermodel Cindy Crawford
and her husband Randy Gerber, CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien, singer Mel Torme
and rocker Lenny Kravitz all received St. Bernard badges.

"They must be drawn to me," Stephens jokingly explained to a reporter a few
years back, after he reeled off the list of stars.

The road to the Sheriff's Office

Growing up on Shell Beach in eastern St. Bernard, Stephens dreamed of one
day becoming a commercial trapper or fisherman. It was a trade many in his
family had thrived on, but by the time Stephens reached high school, the
industry had begun to falter.

"What was always appealing was its independence, how you could go out and
trap or fish and work as an individual. Corporations began taking it over,
and making a living became harder for the average man," Stephens said.

He changed course and applied to Loyola University, where he received a
bachelor's degree in business administration, then went to Syracuse
University, where he earned a master's degree in public administration.

Stephens worked as the executive assistant to the director of the
Mississippi River Bridge Authority for about three years, then became the
parish Police Jury's director of planning for four years. In 1980, he took
on the role of the Police Jury's chief administrative officer. And in 1983,
at the age of 34, he was pushed into politics by that same Police Jury.

Then-Sheriff Ralph J. McDougall had become embroiled in a federal narcotics
investigation over a supposed drug smuggling operation out of the Rigolets,
which eventually resulted in the conviction of four deputies on drug-related
charges. Factions developed and a rare opening against an incumbent sheriff
arose.

Stephens' defeat of McDougall in 1983 marked the first time an incumbent St.
Bernard sheriff had been unseated since L.A. Meraux became sheriff in 1924.

When he took office on July 1, 1984, the 35-year-old Stephens made the
controversial decision to lay off 101 of the 179 deputies, which dominated
local headlines for several months. He told The Times-Picayune that the
decisions were "the most difficult I've had to make in my professional life"
but he said he was "not going to back down" because of public criticism.

"Indecision won't plague my administration," he said at the time. "While
it's a privilege to be sheriff, I was never desperate to get this office,
and I'll never be desperate to keep it."

The closest call he's had for re-election was in the 2003 race, when
Stephens squeaked by challenger Larry Landry by 115 votes. The election
cycle before that, in 1999, he was automatically elected to a fourth term
when no one signed up to run against him.

A cloud of criticism

In 2003, some residents said they hadn't voted for Stephens because of his
position on the multimillion-dollar Arlene and Joseph Meraux Charitable
Foundation board. The board was created to administer Arlene Meraux's $250
million estate, one of the single largest collections of real estate
holdings in St. Bernard that also includes prime properties throughout
downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter, and numerous other businesses.

The fortune ties back to a former St. Bernard Parish sheriff, Louis A. "Doc"
Meraux, who died in 1938 after gaining control of vast tracts of land during
his 15 years as top law enforcement officer and tax collector. Arlene
Meraux, the longtime companion of Doc Meraux's grandson, inherited the
estate in the early 1990s, then disinherited her son and daughter and asked
that all the estate's money go to a charitable foundation after her death.
She died in 2003.

Stephens has been criticized for his lucrative association with the Meraux
Foundation, and accusations often have been leveled about cronyism within
his department, which lacked uniform hiring and promotion procedures.

During last fall's election campaign, even Pohlmann distanced himself from
Stephens, saying he would introduce new hiring and promotion policies and
get rid of much of the excess top brass. In the past few days, Pohlmann
already has chopped the number of colonels, majors and captains in half,
from about 42 to about 22.

Pohlmann's challenger in the recent election, Wayne Landry, frequently
brought up the Meraux Foundation, accusing Pohlmann of aiding Stephens and
company in using whatever means necessary to gain some control of the
fortune.

Stephens admits his association with the foundation clouded his tenure as
sheriff, and said that's why he stepped off its board last year. "It was
controversial from the beginning and I took a lot of s--- for it and I just
wanted to de-complicate my life," he said.


>From shotguns to shot glasses


For now, Stephens said he plans to run Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, a popular
watering hole on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. While the Arlene and
Joseph Meraux Charitable Foundation owns the building, Stephens said he has
an additional 15-year lease on the property.

While he also at one point had a long-term lease to manage property that
houses the Breton Sound Marina and offshore oil and gas support equipment on
Meraux Foundation land in Hopedale, Stephens said his only current business
ties are with Lafitte's, and management of that bar will become his main job
when he leaves office.

He said that often he introduces himself as "a Bourbon Street bar owner
instead of a sheriff, because people are much nicer to me that way."

A quarter century of change

Stephens said that when he took office in 1984, the parish sheriff
controlled everything. And even though the power of the Sheriff's Office has
waned, some of his fondest memories involve flexing the muscle that comes
with being a Louisiana sheriff.

For example, a year after Hurricane Katrina, "the first time since the storm
I was wearing my (sheriff's) suit," a man in his 80s living in a 30-foot
FEMA trailer told him that he had received a speeding ticket from a deputy
and that he couldn't afford to pay it because of all the storm-related
finances weighing down his life.

"'Give me that ticket,' I told him. 'I'll handle that ticket.'"

The man first refused, saying he wanted to pay.

"It's generational," Stephens said with his trademark boisterous laugh.
"People of that generation, they want to pay their bills."

But Stephens insisted. "I told him, 'I'm going to roll it up and stick it up
that deputy's ass,'" Stephens said. "A few years later, that man died before
he finished rebuilding his home, but he was buried in St. Bernard.

"You help people out and you never finish," Stephens said. "It's emblematic
of what this job is like. When you can use your power, you should."

Stephens laments though, that as the Sheriff's Office has transitioned "from
a rural to a suburban, at times even urban one," new oversight and
responsibilities have come with the office.

"Nowadays, it's also a very litigious business," Stephens said. "And you now
have the Justice Department looking over your shoulder making sure you're
running things right."

Because of that added oversight and the new technology dramatically
increasing the pace of modern-day police work, Stephens described the 21st
century job as at times "like a horror movie."

"It's a pattern that doesn't let you win," he said.

'One of the safest places around'

Looking back, he is proud of several accomplishments. He said he has never
had a civil rights suit filed against his office and he has never lost a
deputy in the line of duty.

He recalled the eventually successful fight to implement a half-cent sales
tax for the Sheriff's Office in 1992 that provided funds to give raises to
his deputies, hire more deputies, build substations and buy equipment.

By that point, he had already opened a battered women's facility and a
prison and juvenile detention center that held nearly four times more
inmates than the former jail could hold.

Mainly though, he credits the department under his tenure with keeping the
parish's murder rate low and fighting illegal drug sales. "The parish has
changed since I took over, but it's still one of the safest places around,"
he said.

Stephens said he has no plans to return to public office and that he plans
to stay at his house in Shell Beach, which is 21 feet above sea level,
riding out any storms that may come.

"People ask me, 'You're outside the levee system, how do you survive
storms?' I tell them that you know you're vulnerable, you know you're on the
tip of a spear down there, but I can't think of another place to live."

Benjamin Alexander-Bloch can be reached at bbloch at timespicayune.com or
504.826.3321.



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