He Tried to Fix the Flooding. Now He's Facing Four Felonies.

A St. Martin Parish grand jury indicted former Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory on four felony counts of malfeasance in office on Feb. 19, 2026 — exactly one week after Lafayette's own district attorney reviewed the same project and declined to bring any charges at all.

At the center of the case: a secret, overnight drainage operation that moved earth from one parish's riverbank to the other's, without the neighboring parish's knowledge and, depending on who's asked, without the federal permit it needed.

How Lafayette Got Here

Lafayette Parish's drainage obsession has roots in the catastrophic August 2016 Louisiana flood — the same multi-day rain event that devastated Baton Rouge. An estimated 146,000 homes were damaged across 56 of Louisiana's 64 parishes, 60 people died, and total damages reached roughly $15 billion, making it one of the worst U.S. disasters since Hurricane Sandy. Thousands of homes and businesses flooded in Lafayette Parish specifically, and drainage became, and stayed, a top public priority in the years that followed.

Guillory campaigned on fixing flood control and treated it as an urgent issue in office. After another major flash flood hit in May 2021, the Lafayette City Council approved a $20 million emergency allocation for drainage projects.

The target became a spoil bank along the Vermilion River — an earthen, levee-like berm on the St. Martin Parish side, originally created decades earlier from material the Army Corps of Engineers dredged out of the river in the 1950s. Guillory's administration argued the spoil bank was blocking natural water flow into the Cypress Island Swamp, backing floodwater up into Lafayette, and that removing it would restore natural drainage and benefit both parishes.

Why Touch St. Martin's Side at All?

A natural question: if Lafayette wanted better flood protection, why not build it entirely on Lafayette's own side of the river, and leave St. Martin's side alone? Two things explain why LCG ( Lafayette Consolidated Government) didn't take that route.

First, practically: the dirt LCG excavated from the St. Martin side spoil bank was the same material reused to build a new levee on the Lafayette side. It wasn't two separate projects — it was one dig-and-relocate operation, almost certainly cheaper and faster than sourcing, hauling, and separately permitting new fill for a project that was already ballooning past its original $390,000 budget.

Second, and more fundamentally: LCG's own stated engineering rationale required altering something physically located in St. Martin Parish. The claim wasn't that Lafayette needed a new levee — it was that an existing structure on the other bank was blocking floodwater from draining into the Cypress Island Swamp. If that theory were correct, there's no version of the project that avoids St. Martin's side, because the alleged obstruction sits there, not in Lafayette.

That theory itself is disputed. Multiple engineering studies were conducted on the project, and they reportedly reached opposite conclusions — one supporting St. Martin's position that the bank protects the parish, another supporting Lafayette's. One study specifically found the removal posed no threat to Lafayette Parish, but real risk to St. Martin residents — raising the possibility that the project's claimed benefit to Lafayette may not have been real in the first place.

One Night, Under a Code Name

On Friday, Feb. 18, 2022, LCG executed a contract amendment authorizing the spoil bank's removal — just three days before work was scheduled to begin. The operation itself launched Monday, Feb. 21: a formal “Notice to Proceed” email went out to contractor Rigid Constructors at 5:01 p.m., and work was underway on site by 8:05 p.m.

The project was known internally only to a handful of Lafayette officials, under the code name “Apollo” — reportedly chosen by Guillory himself because the work was, in his own description, “very secretive.” According to his then-Chief of Staff, the secrecy was intentional: officials were concerned St. Martin Parish President Chester Cedars would seek a court injunction to stop the project if he learned about it in advance.

Because the crew was working under cover of a single night's darkness, the actual removal fell well short of what engineers had recommended for any meaningful flood impact — one watchdog account described the result as the spoil bank getting only “a haircut.” Neither publicly available reporting nor the audit specifies exactly how many hours the barges obstructed the river; what's documented is that it was a single overnight operation, not something left in place for days.

The Ownership Problem

LCG only held a two-thirds interest in the property where the spoil bank sat; the remaining co-owner opposed the project and was never approached for consent, despite Louisiana law requiring agreement from all owners for that kind of alteration. LCG purchased its two-thirds share the same day work began — but didn't record the sale in St. Martin Parish's conveyance records until March 9, weeks later. The dissenting co-owner ultimately sued; the case was later settled for roughly three times the property's appraised market value.

The Permit Question

LCG initially applied for a federal Section 404 permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, then withdrew that application when it became clear the permit would likely be denied — reclassifying the project's scope as confined to “upland areas” that wouldn't require federal permitting. The Corps later confirmed a permit was in fact required. By then, the work was already complete. No permit was obtained from St. Martin Parish either, which requires one under local ordinance for levee-related work — and St. Martin Parish was never notified the project was happening at all.

Two Investigations, Two Different Conclusions

In August 2025, the Louisiana Legislative Auditor concluded Guillory's administration likely violated state and federal law, Lafayette's own Home Rule Charter, and public bid laws — proceeding without required permits, intergovernmental agreements, or full landowner consent. Internal messages cited in reporting on the project reportedly showed it was designed to be “perfect for campaign season” — a detail suggesting political timing, not just engineering urgency, drove the schedule. The audit's findings were referred to both the 15th Judicial District Attorney's Office and the U.S. Attorney's Office; some individuals connected to the project have reportedly received Kastigar letters, a notice tied to compelled or immunized testimony, suggesting a federal investigative track separate from the state case.

On Feb. 12, 2026, the 15th Judicial District Attorney's Office — covering Lafayette Parish, under DA Don Landry — issued a letter declining to prosecute Guillory or any Lafayette officials or employees. The memo, authored by First Assistant DA Fritz Welter, found the office couldn't prove criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt, and noted it had never received a formal complaint or investigative file from law enforcement — typically a precondition for review. Landry endorsed Guillory's 2023 re-election bid and has been described as a close political ally.

One week later, a grand jury convened at the request of 16th Judicial District Attorney Michael Haik III — covering St. Martin Parish — returned a four-count indictment against Guillory. The charges allege the spoil bank was removed without Army Corps of Engineers permits — violations of the Rivers and Harbors Act and Clean Water Act — without St. Martin Parish authorization, and that barges illegally obstructed a navigable waterway.

Guillory was booked into the St. Martin Parish Correctional Center and released on a $30,000 bond. He pleaded not guilty in May 2026. His trial, originally set for August, has since been reset for November 2026. The case remains pending.

Guillory's Defense

Guillory has said he and his family were “shocked” by the indictment, maintaining he made no money and received no personal benefit from the project and calling the prosecution “driven by politics, not the facts.” He's pointed to current Lafayette Mayor-President Monique Blanco Boulet — who defeated him in his re-election bid while campaigning on calling him corrupt — and former St. Martin Parish President Chester Cedars as behind what he describes as a politically motivated case. He has separately called the Legislative Auditor's office “a politically appointed fixture masquerading as a watchdog.”

St. Martin Parish officials reject that framing directly. Cedars has said Guillory called the Legislative Auditor's own findings political as well, and St. Martin Parish Sheriff Becket Breaux — whose office pursued the investigation — has said there's “nothing political about being a law enforcement officer and pursuing the facts.” St. Martin Parish is separately pursuing a civil case to force restoration of the spoil bank, which current Parish President Pete Delcambre says remains necessary to protect the Cypress Island community from flood risk.

The Question Underneath the Case

Strip away the legal filings and this is, at bottom, a dispute over whose flooding matters more — and over whether the project actually helped anyone at all. Guillory's defenders frame it as a Lafayette administration finally correcting a decades-old Army Corps mistake. St. Martin Parish frames the same project as Lafayette shifting water risk onto their side of the river, done secretly and without the permits or notice the law required — for a benefit that at least one engineering study concluded may not have existed.

Neither the Legislative Auditor's findings of likely legal violations nor Lafayette's own DA declining to prosecute actually resolve that underlying question — only the St. Martin Parish trial in November will.

Sources:

64 Parishes — 2016 Floods

USGS — Flood, August 2016, Louisiana

The Advocate — Auditors: Lafayette's handling of spoil bank project illegal

The Advocate — Former Lafayette officials, including mayor, won't face charges in spoil bank case

The Advocate — St. Martin Parish grand jury indicts Josh Guillory over spoil bank project

The Current — Former M-P Guillory's malfeasance trial reset for November

The Current — Former M-P Guillory indicted on malfeasance charges by St. Martin Parish grand jury

The Current — State auditor rebukes Guillory admin for federal, state law violations

Citizens for a New Louisiana — The Spoil Bank Project: A Story of Secrecy, Shortcuts, and Consequences

KPEL — LCG Sues St. Martin Parish over Spoil Bank Issue

KLFY — St. Martin Parish calls for restoration of spoil banks after Guillory indictment

KATC — Former Lafayette Mayor-President indicted, posts $30K bail