Jack P.F. Gremillion - Gremillion's Legal Troubles

Gremillion's Legal Troubles

In 1960, Gremillion was charged with contempt of court for a comment he made in a federal courtroom while he was opposing the New Orleans school desegregation case. Judge Edwin Ford Hunter, Jr., who charged Gremillion with contempt, had been his personal friend for many years.

In 1971, Gremillion was charged with mail fraud, conspiracy, and fraud in the sale of securities in U.S. District Court in Baton Rouge in regard to his dealings with the bankrupt Louisiana Loan and Thrift Corp. He was tried and acquitted and decided to seek a fifth term as attorney general. Then he was convicted later in that campaign year on federal perjury charges in a related case. He was sentenced to three years in prison and served fifteen months in the facility at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Governor Edwin Washington Edwards pardoned Gremillion in 1976, and he resumed his law practice. Edwards said that the pardon was required by Louisiana law because all first offenders who complete a sentence are automatically pardoned. He signed the pardon paper to avoid any misunderstanding in Gremillion's case.

Meanwhile, Gremillion was denied a runoff berth for the Democratic nomination for attorney general in the 1971 primary. He was succeeded in the office by his fellow Democrat, then State Senator William J. "Billy" Guste, Jr., of New Orleans. Guste defeated his Senate colleague George T. Oubre, Sr., and then crushed the Republican nominee, Thomas E. "Tom" Stagg, Jr., of Shreveport. While Gremillion had been a Kennedy elector, Guste in 1976 was an elector for Democrat Jimmy Carter. Guste continued as attorney general for five terms.

Gremillion was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Fred Cassibry in New Orleans to three years imprisonment for lying about his role in Louisiana Loan and Thrift. Judge Cassiby lectured Gremillion:

"We both know that in the United States, no man is so small as to be disregarded by the law. Neither is any man so great as to be above it. Your offenses cannot be condoned as one committed in ignorance of the law or wittingly, or in the heat of a momentary passion."

Gremillion's son, Jack Gremillion, Jr., who was an attorney for the Teamsters Union union, ran into legal troubles of his own. In 1975, Gremillion, Jr., pleaded guilty in Louisiana to a federal charge of conspiring in the obstruction of justice. Three years later, he was convicted in Georgia on a federal mail fraud charge. He was imprisoned in both cases and disbarred. In 2002, while he was the business manager of an automobile dealership in Baton Rouge, Gremillion, Jr., petititoned to regain his right to practice law but ran into opposition from the bar association disciplinary committee.

Jack P.F. Gremillion, Sr., died after a long illness in Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge. He and his wife Doris are interred at Greenoaks Memorial Park in Baton Rouge.