Former Head of Louisiana Wildlife Pleads Guilty to ‘Conspiring to Defraud the United States’

Jack Montoucet, the former head of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, pled guilty this week to a federal conspiracy charge stemming from a corrupt kickback scheme — one that also involved a former wildlife commissioner and a contractor who ran the agency’s online education courses. In announcing the guilty plea Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Montoucet had “conspir[ed] to defraud the United States” by soliciting and accepting kickback payments in exchange for awarding state contracts.

Investigators with the FBI and the IRS Criminal Investigation Unit worked alongside the Department of Justice on the sweeping bribery case. The other co-conspirators are already serving prison time, according to News 15.

“The citizens of Louisiana deserve and demand honesty and integrity from those entrusted with public office, including when they contract for services on behalf of our Louisiana communities,” U.S Attorney Zachary A. Keller said in a statement released by the DOJ. “Officeholders like Mr. Montoucet who abuse that trust undermine confidence in government and the public contracting office, and our Office will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to prosecute these abuses and see that offenders face justice.”

The 78-year-old former director, who served as LDWF Secretary from 2017 to 2023, was indicted in May 2025. Court documents show that prosecutors charged Montoucet with one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., three counts of wire fraud, and one count of money laundering. Montoucet pleaded not guilty to all five charges in June, according to The Advocate. 

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Keller told reporters Tuesday, however, that they reached a plea deal in which four of the charges were dropped in exchange for Montoucet pleading guilty to the conspiracy charge. Mountoucet now faces up to five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000. He is scheduled to be sentenced in June.

“We are going to be advocating for prison time,” Keller said during a press conference Tuesday. “We would never enter into a plea deal, we would never have a change of plea like we just had, if we weren’t satisfied that we were reaching a result that was just, that was appropriate, and that was going to be serving our community.”

Although the official indictment against Montoucet was handed down in 2025, it had been expected since April 2023, when he abruptly stepped down from his post at LDWF. His resignation came just one day after the Times-Picayune identified him as being implicated in the bribery scheme that had already ensnared Dusty Guidry, a former state wildlife commissioner. Guidry pleaded guilty that March to bribery and conspiracy charges, admitting that he and a high-ranking LDWF official had accepted bribes from a contractor who provided the online courses for hunting and boating licenses. Guidry was later sentenced to four years in prison.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office broke down the corruption scheme in its announcement Tuesday, explaining that Montoucet, in his role as Secretary, agreed to steer a state contract to Leonard C. Franques’ company, DGL1, LLC, to provide online hunter and boater education courses. In exchange, Montoucet received a kickback for one-third of the profit that resulted from the contract, with the other two-thirds divided between Guidry and Franques. The co-conspirators also worked together to conceal and disguise the kickbacks, prosecutors said, “agreeing that Franques would hold Montoucet’s portion until after he’d departed LDWF.”

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According to the federal indictment, the state agency had already held back more than $122,000 from this contractual agreement. It also noted “other things of value” that Montoucet and Guidry had agreed to accept in exchange for steering the contracts to Franques’ company.

“If all went as planned, [Mr. Montoucet] would have continued to get payments totaling in the millions long after he retired from Wildlife and Fisheries,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Tapp said during Tuesday’s press conference. “Thankfully there are still good people out there who reached out to the FBI and local law enforcement to report this illegal activity.”