8 September 2025
By Greg LaRose and Julie O’Donoghue
Contributing Writers
(lailluminator.com) — The Louisiana Board of Ethics on Friday (Sept. 5) agreed to drop formal charges against Gov. Jeff Landry for failing to disclose flights he took on a political donor’s private plane when he was attorney general.
In return, Landry agreed to admit publicly to other instances in which he failed to disclose free travel he accepted from business groups and political contributors. The trips he acknowledged date back to 2021 and include travel since he’s been governor.
The board also fined the governor $900, though Landry could have faced tens of thousands of dollars of fines for failing to disclose the gifts.
GOV. JEFF LANDRY
File photo
Landry publicly admitted to 19 instances where he did not report free travel and accommodations he accepted as governor and attorney general. The total value of the gifted travel was $13,540, according to estimates Landry provided in documents filed this week.
As part of his deal with the ethics board, Landry must report when and where he accepts free travel and lodging moving forward.
“The Governor is pleased the Ethics Board agreed to clarify who needs to file paperwork related to official travel,” Stephen Gelé, one of Landry’s private ethics attorneys, said in a statement to the Illuminator. “… The Governor respects the process. He is glad to bring an end to this matter and continue to save the taxpayers money, as he was already doing.”
The Illuminator has also reached out to the governor’s office for comment.
As attorney general, Landry accepted flights to and from Hawaii in June 2021 from Station Aviation, a company owned by retired oil and gas businessman Greg Mosing, a major political donor to Landry.
Landry traveled to the Attorney General Alliance conference, where he was a featured speaker, at the Grand Wailea Maui, a luxury beachfront resort.
The ethics board used the Hawaii flights as the basis of charges they filed against Landry in 2023 and dropped this week. It also scuttled similar charges against Stanton Aviation and Mosing.
But until last Friday, it wasn’t publicly known the ethics board and Landry were in discussions about disclosing 18 other instances of complementary travel.
Six flights on private aircraft that Landry took as attorney general, including the trip to Hawaii, were listed in the consent opinion signed by Landry that included his fine for not obeying the law.
Paperwork for 13 other instances of free travel Landry took as governor were filed with the ethics board Wednesday but not listed in the consent agreement.
Lawyers for Landry had sought an advisory opinion last year from the ethics board as to whether he must report any complementary travel and lodging he accepts as governor. Gelé and Charles Spies, who represented Landry before the ethics board, suggested Landry shouldn’t have to fill out the required forms because he is the “head of the agency” who obviously approves his own travel.
State ethics administrator David Bordelon, in the advisory opinion, said the governor must continue to fill the forms when he accepts free travel accommodations.
Bordelon provided guidance to the governor and other state agency heads to clarify instructions on the forms, which the ethics administrator said are in the process of being updated. Landry’s attorneys contended the form’s confusing language made it difficult for department leaders and other top officials to understand whether they had to disclose gifted travel and accommodations.
“Hopefully, the Advisory Opinion and a new form will prevent future confusion,” Gelé said in his statement.
Louisiana’s ethics code prohibits elected officials and state employees from accepting anything of value as a gift if the giver has “substantial economic interests” over which the public employee has influence. The forms are required to verify there is no conflict of interest when an official accepts a gift.
The decision to drop the charges against Landry was made in conjunction with the new guidance on travel disclosure forms, Bordelon told board members. It ends more than two years of deliberations with Landry’s attorneys since the charges were filed.
There’s additional significance in the s decision as it comes from an ethics board that now consists of members the governor and Republican-led legislature have appointed directly. They voted last year to expand the board from 11 to 15 members, which allowed Landry and lawmakers to seat seven new members. Previously, the governor and legislators had to pick ethics board members from a list of recommendations leaders of private Louisiana universities submitted.
This article originally published in the September 8, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.