Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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In the summer of 2011, less than a year before Bruce was murdered, he was part of a business venture that failed miserably. Bruce, his friends Dan Burris and Dudley Geigerman were all members of LLCs that were listed officers of a parent LLC called Global Disaster Housing, a company Jared Rickey was the registered agent of, which often went by the acronym GDH.
As a reminder, Jared was Bruce's boss at Southeastern Louisiana Water and Sewer Company. Dan was a local attorney/investor, and Dudley, I haven't really mentioned him much until now, but he was another one of Bruce and Jared's associates from St. Tammany Parish, who made his money owning a chain of adult video stores. Dudley was also the first person to meet Ann at the medical center in New Orleans where Bruce was taken after he was shot.
I walked up and I saw Dudley Geigerman, the first person outside, and he was like, "I'm sorry," whispered it. And he was already there waiting? He was there waiting. By 2011, the GDH guys had pulled their financial resources and different areas of expertise together to create prototypes of a mobile housing unit they wanted to market to the government and oil and gas companies overseas. Basically, this thing was a mobile home that workers could live in and was easy to tear down and transport.
Dan, who was a Navy veteran, had hired some fellow Navy buddies in New Orleans to construct the prototypes. I spoke with one of those builders, a guy named Robert Armbruster, on the phone last year, and he agreed to do a recorded interview with me, but then never came through. While I'd had him on the phone, though, he told me that from day one, this business venture was unorganized and fraught with problems. He was close friends with Dan, but didn't know any of the other men involved.
Robert told me that the construction crews hired to build the prototypes rarely met with the GDH members to go over details of the designs. On top of that, he said there were money problems. Financial issues started toward the end of August 2011, almost immediately after Bruce and his friends partnered with an oil and gas engineering consultant from Texas named Richard Sharpe.
Richard was originally from Louisiana, but had moved to Texas to start his company, Sharp Global Energy Services. He claimed to have dozens of industry connections with companies in the international oil and gas market who would be interested in buying the mobile housing units. Towards the end of the summer of 2011, he presented the GDH Group with a plan to market the prototypes to clients in the Middle East.
The men from Covington accepted Richard's services and made him a member of the GDH board of directors. At the time, Richard had a criminal record in St. Tammany Parish for forgery and issuing worthless checks. Those prior arrests were from 1991 and 1992.
Bruce's friend, Jack Branch, remembers Bruce talking about this budding business partnership. And based on the initial details he heard, Jack felt like the opportunity sounded shaky at best and warned Bruce against staying involved. I had told him just to be careful with a couple of the people that were involved in that operation. I just said, be real careful, the guys you hold and, you know, partnering up with.
Jack reminded Bruce how the seal a water cell to the parish had ended and told Bruce to make sure that this time he would get a payout. He goes, I think you got a bad read on them. I go, I don't think I got a bad read on them. I got to be real careful investing with these guys if they've promised you, you know, things in the past and haven't delivered them upon those. Why then are you thinking about getting involved in a business deal in the middle of the desert to provide housing for people?
you know, oil workers and hope that this is going to work out any better. Despite Jack's warning, Bruce forged ahead. He wanted to be a part of the GDH group venture with Richard Sharp. But in November 2011, the deal went south. According to court documents, the GDH guys uncovered that Richard had not been representing the group's mission to potential partners overseas like he'd promised.
On top of that, the court documents say the men also discovered that Richard had advanced himself close to $155,000 in company funds without permission and put that money into a personal bank account. When Richard had tried to rectify his actions and pay back the money, his checks bounced, according to court filings.
The men from Covington sued Richard in St. Tammany Parish Civil Court on November 19, 2011, for breach of contract, theft, racketeering, and fraud. A criminal investigation was also opened, and Richard was arrested in Texas and extradited to Louisiana.
The civil lawsuit states that in addition to committing financial fraud, Richard also used a false name and email account to pose as a representative of a prospective energy partner and communicated with some of the members of the GDH group under that fictitious alias to keep his con going.
On January 10th, 2012, two months after suing Richard, the members of the GDH group decided to drop their civil lawsuit against him so that the criminal case against him for fraud and racketeering could move forward unhindered. Richard agreed to the terms of that settlement, and within days, a St. Tammany judge granted him bond. He was out of jail by the end of January 2012, but still planning to fight his criminal charges.
Two and a half months later, in April, Bruce was murdered. A few months after that, in October, Richard decided he wanted to go back to civil court with the GDH guys, minus Bruce.
Richard filed his own civil lawsuit in Texas federal court against the remaining GDH members. Along with the Covington men, Richard sued the St. Tammany Parish judge who'd granted him bond and the district attorney who was prosecuting him for fraud and racketeering. Basically, Richard was taking everyone to court that he felt was against him.
In his lawsuit, he claimed certain members of St. Tammany Parish's government were corrupt and conflicted because they had personal relationships and history with Bruce Kachera and members of the Rickey family. Essentially, Richard claimed he'd gotten railroaded. A federal judge ultimately tossed out Richard's case in September 2014, but there were a few bold claims he made in the lawsuit.
One, Richard claimed that while he'd been out on bond in the spring of 2012, Jared and Dudley had verbally and physically threatened and harassed him more than once. He said prior to bonding out in January, both men had visited him in jail a few times and told him they would make sure the criminal charges against him went away if he agreed to settle all civil litigation in their favor.
Two, Richard said he believed that he and his family were in danger because of Bruce's murder. And three, he claimed Bruce's business associates had not been cleared as suspects in the murder investigation. And because of that, he was afraid for his safety.
Now, I want to be clear. No one has ever corroborated Richard Sharp's claims. They are accusations he made in court documents that, like I said, were later dismissed by a federal judge. But I think it's important we take a minute to explore why he made those statements and how timing might be a factor. ♪
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For me, whenever someone makes the kinds of claims Richard Sharp did, timing is a huge factor that has to be considered. In October 2012, when Richard made those statements implying he knew who was behind Bruce's murder, there was a lot going on. One, Bruce's murder investigation was still in full swing. Two,
Jared had sued for Bruce's life insurance money and gotten it. Three, depositions in Ken Dutrick's lawsuit against Selah and Jared were still ongoing. And four, Richard was actively fighting criminal charges for felony check fraud and racketeering.
It's completely possible Richard saw the unfortunate timing of Bruce's murder alongside all those other independent things as a way to make himself look better and tear down men like Jared and Dudley who were associated with Bruce and were also people Richard disliked. Then again, it's also possible that some of his claims held truth.
I verified through court records that the former St. Tammany Parish judge and district attorney who Richard sued and said couldn't be impartial, well, they did have close friendships and history with Bruce and Jared. In fact, the judge later had to recuse himself from the case for having a conflict, and the DA, Walter Reed, he was later convicted of public corruption in an unrelated investigation and went to prison.
So Richard wasn't completely off base in his assessment of those men. Regardless though, in June 2015, Richard took a plea deal for his criminal charges against the GDH group. And he admitted to issuing worthless checks and racketeering.
For those of you asking if Richard could have been involved in Bruce's murder, my answer is, I don't know. Here's what I can back up with facts. First, St. Tammany Parish jail records confirm Richard was not incarcerated at the time of Bruce's murder. Two, NOPD has never publicly named Richard as a suspect. Anything beyond those two things would be speculation.
"I have no way of knowing if Richard was in Louisiana or back home in Texas on April 24, 2012. I don't know who he called that day or if police have ever questioned him in relation to the murder investigation."
But just consider this hypothetical for a second. Why would Richard want Bruce dead? And assuming for the moment he was somehow involved, why would he target Bruce and not go after Jared, Dudley, or Dan? Richard's beef was with the whole GDH group, not just Bruce. So how would Bruce's death benefit Richard?
The answer isn't clear, at least not to me. Chris, Bruce's son, doesn't think there's enough there to make that leap. I think the Richard Sharp thing is just something that happened, that just happened to coincide with all the fraud and everything happened to just coincide with our dad getting killed. It wasn't like a part of it or anything. But I also think he was an easy person. He's just an easy person to point at.
Last year, I spoke with Richard Sharp several times on the phone and through social media messages and email. He denied any involvement in Bruce's murder.
More than once, we were all set up to do a formal interview, but then he canceled a few times last minute. And eventually, after talking to his lawyer, Richard stopped responding to my emails. He's been out of prison for a few years now and is back working in the energy consulting business. One of the requirements of his guilty plea was that he had to recant everything he'd ever written or said about Bruce's murder. You
You know, the claims he made in his federal lawsuit against Jared and members of the St. Tammany Parish government about being threatened and living in fear? Well, that portion of his guilty plea reads, quote,
I admit and express remorse for fabricating, communicating, and spreading false and baseless information. I distorted facts, spread rumors, and engaged in libelous, defamatory, and slanderous actions by falsely insinuating that GDHI, Jared Rickey, Dudley Geigerman, Daniel Burris, and Patrick Gross were involved in the death of Bruce Kachera.
It goes on to say, quote, I further admit that I fabricated arguments to the court wherein I claimed that Bruce Kuchera was my star witness after Bruce was murdered.
End quote.
In one of our last exchanges, Richard told me he was forced to make those statements. Chris met with Richard in Texas a few years ago, and Richard told him the same thing.
We actually went and met at this tennis club I go to, and we had a long conversation. I mean, he's a very motivated person to help. He feels like he was wronged in a lot of these situations. He's very motivated. He's working and trying to clear his name. Do I think what he was saying was true? I mean, I think that, I guess if we're, I guess what I'll say is this. The manner in which
They shoehorned into that settlement agreement him agreeing to say that the stuff he said about his business partners being involved in our dad's murder, which has nothing to do with settling a debt that he was being accused of defrauding them, right? And then just at the end of that, he had to put that in. To me, I think he was forced to do that. He was forced to put that in there. And he's told me as much.
One of Richard's last messages to me, he wrote, quote, End quote.
Retired Louisiana public corruption and politics reporter Tom Aswell has also spoken with Richard. And you guessed it, Richard told Tom the same thing he told me and Chris. At one time he was calling me and texting me virtually every day, texting me several times a day. And some of his theories are very radical.
He was giving me leads to good information. Some of the leads didn't develop, didn't pan out. Some of the things he told me bore fruit. But he knows enough stuff. He knows where some of the skeletons are buried. I think developed properly, he could be a very valuable source.
And Tom did develop Richard as a source for a while. Tom's blog, Louisiana Voice, is where he's written a lot about Richard's claims and Bruce's murder. Full disclosure, even though Tom once had a career as a credentialed news reporter, he does not work as a journalist anymore. He's retired and in his 80s. The content he puts on his blog does not meet conventional journalistic standards, a fact he freely admits.
I have never claimed to be impartial on that blog or objective. I'm very subjective. I'm very opinionated because I have the license to do so. I'm not a traditional news reporter where I have to be so objective right down the middle. I can insert my opinion, and I do. I think he was coerced into pleading guilty in that court case.
I don't think he had a choice in it. I think that he is a victim. Now, whether he is a victim to the extent that he claims he was remains to be seen. In the end, what Richard's endgame was in saying those things about Bruce's murder, then recanting and now recanting his recanting, is a mystery I don't think I'll ever be able to get to the bottom of.
When I tell you I've spent a very long time researching Richard Sharp, I mean it's been months and months of long days focused solely on him. To this day, I still find myself reading through stuff about him and his connection to the North Shore and the GDH failed business venture. At one point while I was in that rabbit hole, I stumbled upon something that really shook me up.
It has to do with one of Richard's former attorneys, a guy named Daniel Abel. Daniel was one of Richard's lawyers for the federal lawsuit he filed in Texas against the St. Tammany Parish judge, the DA, and the GDH guys. When I went to contact Daniel for an interview, I found out he was dead, and not from natural causes. Daniel was run over by a van in the heart of downtown New Orleans in December 2020.
At that time, he was no longer Richard's attorney, and I was not looking into the Bruce Kuchera case. From what I read in the accident reports I requested from NOPD and the city fire department, a witness stated that they saw the driver of the van that hit Daniel plow into him while Daniel was clearly within a crosswalk and had a green walk signal. The driver of the van was questioned, but not arrested. And in the end, the crash was ruled an accident.
Now, for those of you asking how this connects to anything I've spent the last 11 episodes telling you about, the answer is, I have no proof it does. It's just a very strange incident that happened to a man who once represented Richard Sharp in a highly contentious lawsuit. A lawsuit that's petitioner later recanted his claims.
Odd discoveries like this are everywhere in this story. And their oddness is only compounded when you factor in so much litigation was flying around between people and Bruce's life. The one question that's unavoidable, though, is, is there a nexus? Scott Brownell, the legal expert who consulted for this show, phrased it this way in our interview. I've never seen a factual scenario like this unfold, especially with all of the
intertwined or overlapping issues and they are an unmitigated mess. If you think of a ball of string that's kind of compressed together, that's intertwined but you can't pick through it to determine if they're actually tied together. The idea of connections being there versus connections that you want to be there or you think might be there.
You've got a ball of twine and it's all jumbled up. They're certainly intertwined and it certainly makes up one big messy ball, but you have no idea if those individual threads are actually tied to one another. The same with this case. There's a lot of overlap between Bruce's murder, the lawsuit, the succession, the debts that were claimed against the succession. All of these things are absolutely intertwined, but we have no way of knowing if they're actually tied to one another.
I'm not trying to give you a sound bite, but I'm just sort of stream of consciousness because I don't really know how to phrase when you have such an unusual factual scenario. And there are absolutely reasons to believe that these things could be tied together.
But there's absolutely no way to know it on that same note. And it's twisted up, it's messy, and it all overlaps, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's all touching. Which brings me to the point in this investigation where things get truly bizarre. Or as Scott put it, messy. In the next episode, I'm going to take you through my investigation of a fire in Covington that happened two years after Bruce's murder.
All the fire damage is towards the front in the office area. To find out if those flames hold the key to figuring out which pieces of string in this messy yarn ball are connected. They had gas cans that were just located sporadically throughout the building. Some had gas in them, some were empty, and then they had hay that was all over the building.
They felt in the back of their mind this was a suspicious fire. That's in the next episode of CounterClock, episode 12, A Flame. Listen right now.
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