Campaign finance reports must be filed by political candidates with the Louisiana Ethics Commission.
These campaign finance reports list all campaign contributions by name, address, and amount. They also list all in-kind contributions, campaign loans and campaign expenses.
Failure to file these reports on time can result in substantial fines. The same is true of filing false campaign disclosure reports.
Whitehorn's campaign finance report for the period ending September 4, 2023, reflected an in-kind contribution of $1,500 by the Law Office of Joshua Williams for campaign headquarters rent for July - September 2023. This equates to an in-kind rent contribution of $500 per month.
Whitehorn's campaign finance report for the period ending October 29, 2023, did NOT list an in-kind rent contribution for the month of October. NOR did it reflect a campaign expenditure for rent. The Whitehorn campaign headquarters were open in October at the Josh Williams law office building.
Whitehorn's campaign finance report for the period ending December 18, 2023, did NOT list an in-kind rent contribution nor a payment for rent even though the campaign headquarters were open in November and December. This report did NOT list any campaign expenses even though Whitehorn had election workers out at the polls for the November general election.
Both of these reports were false.
On February 1, 2024, an amended Whitehorn campaign finance report was filed for the period ending October 29, 2023. This report listed another in-kind contribution by the Law Office of Joshua Williams in the amount of $500 for headquarter campaign rent for the month of October.
On February 1, 2024, another amended Whitehorn campaign finance report was filed, this time for the period ending December 18, 2023. This report indicated an in-kind contribution of another $1000 for office rent by the Law Office of Joshua Williams for the months of November and December. More importantly, this report included an itemization of campaign expenses of $34,825 versus $0.
Both the original reports for the period ending October 29 and December 18 reflected campaign funds on hand of $50,652. The amended October 29 report reflected the same amount of campaign funds. However, the amended December 18 report only reflected campaign funds on hand of $15,826.
In essence the Whitehorn campaign failed to timely report almost $35,000 in campaign expenses in the time interval between the primary and the general election. Additionally, the campaign failed initially to report a $2,000 in-kind rent contribution.
The Sheriff's office has almost 600 employees with a budget of almost $78 million. In addition to law enforcement, the Sheriff's office collects the parish ad valorem taxes and operates the Caddo Correctional Center.