On July 2, 2014, St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives along with the Louisiana Department of Justice Office of the Attorney General started a joint investigation concerning a suspected systematic theft by sheriff’s office contract employee Rachel Marie Bourgeois, 43, of Fairway Drive in LaPlace..
Bourgeois performed contract work for the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office since June 2008. She transcribed statements taken by detectives of the Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division. The investigation revealed that Bourgeois altered invoices; doubled billed the sheriff’s office for transcript work; and submitted fraudulent invoices, resulting in being paid multiple times for the same transcript. Documents of evidence of the investigation revealed that Bourgeois illegally collected $42,534 between January 2013 and June 2014. The total dollar amount stolen by Bourgeois and the period of the thefts are presently unknown pending further investigation of Sheriff’s office records.
Rachel Bourgeois was arrested on a judicial court ordered arrest warrant Thursday morning at her residence. She was booked with theft by systematic practices, forgery, filing or maintaining false public records, and public payroll fraud. She remains in custody in lieu of a $200,000.00 bond.