After Lying About Being Disabled Veterans, Four Arrested in Louisiana Hunting License Scam

It’s truly incredible to see the lows that some folks will go to in order to save a few bucks. And when it comes to scamming hunting license fees that help fund conservation, it adds another level of scummy douchebaggery.

That description sums up what is being reported as a two-year hunting license scam in which three Louisiana men lied about being disabled veterans while being aided by a female accomplice. 

On Monday, LDWF officers arrested John Ballard Jr. and his two sons Brian and Trevor after they allegedly falsified public records to receive disabled veteran hunting licenses. As what is looking to be an inside job, officers also arrested Kara Meek, who was an employee with the Office of Veterans Affairs who greenlit the trio’s applications.

These special licenses are typically approved for military members or members of Louisiana’s National Guard and give applicants a free hunting and fishing license for life. Where a regular lifetime hunting and fishing license in the Bayou State goes for $500, the accused worked diligently to ensure that they avoided ever paying for another license by ways of stolen valor.

While Brian Ballard did reportedly serve in the Louisiana National Guard, it was soon discovered that none of the men were disabled service members. Using their contact at the Veteran Affairs, John Ballard was the first to apply and receive his disabled veterans license in July 2022. A year following their father’s ‘successful’ application, the two sons, Brian and Trevor, then used Meek to apply for a pair of disabled veterans licenses for themselves.

Pushing the paperwork through the system, Meek eventually admitted to investigators that she “knowingly and intentionally falsified applications to obtain the three licenses fraudulently, knowing the individuals were not disabled veterans," the arrest report said.

Following the lengthy investigation, LDWF’s law enforcement division discovered the fraudulent licenses this past December during a routine compliance inspection. It was then that officers uncovered the licenses and their fraudulent origins. 

While the matriarch of the family maintains that the error obviously came from the LDWF’s licensing system (really?), the three men were all soon booked into the East Baton Rough Parish Prison on counts of filing false public records. Their inside man woman, Kara Meek, was arrested on three counts of injuring public records. The charges all come with a potential $5,000 fine and five years in prison for each offense.