The morning after WWL-TV’s 2021 coverage, the FBI searched Arnold’s office at the S&WB and confiscated all outstanding plumbing permits and inspection records.
NEW ORLEANS — The former top New Orleans sanitation official pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing more than $100,000 from the Sewerage & Water Board by pocketing the fees plumbers had to pay for work permits.
Jay Arnold was indicted by the government in May.
But Arnold was suspended in November 2021 after WWL-TV reported that he and one of the inspectors at his office had engaged in a web of self-negotiation with plumbers in the area to issue permits and inspect each other’s work.
The morning after WWL-TV reported, the FBI searched Arnold’s office at the S&WB and confiscated all outstanding plumbing permits and inspection records, which at the time existed only on paper and index cards.
At this point, there was no computerized record in the S&WB Sanitary Department, not even a database of what records existed. This appeared to help Arnold keep his alleged arrangement with plumbers a secret.
“Arnold would direct plumbers to make him payments for the fees required to obtain plumbing permits,” the federal fee documents state. “Arnold would keep the payments for his personal use and then have S&WB issue the permits without S&WB receiving the required fees.”
For more than a decade, Arnold, a Harahan resident, ran the City of New Orleans Sanitary Inspection and Permitting Department in a fiefdom. It was the only building permit office housed at the Sewerage & Water Board rather than at City Hall. And Arnold was responsible for all city sanitation inspections, though he hasn’t had a license to inspect in Louisiana since at least 2016.
www.wwltv.com
https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/investigations/top-plumbing-official-new-orleans-sewerage-and-water-board-pleads-guilty/289-f8a18d4b-14e0-4329-8280-7b1a0d136f6f
