The American Press

The Burl Cain family saga at the state Department of Corrections continues with the federal indictment of Nate Cain, the eldest son of Burl Cain, the former warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Burl Cain retired after questions about his business dealings with relatives and friends of inmates.

Nate Cain, the former warden at the Avoyelles Correctional Center at Cottonport, resigned his post over a year ago during multiple investigations by The Advocate. The newspaper was exploring nepotism and possible misconduct.

Tonia Cain, Nate Cain’s estranged wife, has also been charged. Her husband promoted her to business manager at the prison and earlier this year she was charged by the Avoyelles district attorney’s office with malfeasance in office, injuring public records and the theft of $25,000 or more of funds meant to benefit inmate clubs.

The federal indictments say Nate and Tonia Cain both face one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 17 counts of wire fraud. Neither had state-billed credit cards in their own names, but the charges say the Cains sometimes used other employees with state credit cards to purchase personal items for the couple’s home.

Each of the 17 wire fraud counts is based on a single credit card purchase made between December 2012 and January 2016. A news release accompanying the indictments says federal authorities are seeking forfeiture of $152,365 believed to be the value of personal items the Cains improperly purchased.

Purchases were also made at a furniture store owned by the husband of a corrections department employee, but it has since closed. Investigators in June of 2016 seized 52 items from the Cains, about half of them related to firearms.

Even if Nate Cain were found guilty of the charges against him he wouldn’t lose his disability retirement that pays him a lifetime annual salary of about $43,000. He worked only 15 years at the Department of Corrections.

The federal case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Dee D. Drell in Alexandria.

Gov. John Bel Edwards and his department secretaries need to let taxpayers know they have taken steps to end nepotism in all state departments that too often leads to this kind of skullduggery.