St. Tammany DA Walter Reed gets Zuriked AGAIN, ETA: And now Pagonesed

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Travis Sanders has been mixing drinks for 15 years.
"I tell people all the time, I tell my wife all the time," he says, "there's no place I'd rather be than behind the bar."

He's an instructor at the Crescent City School of Bartending. He also tends bar at New Orleans' Hotel Monteleone and at private parties and weddings.

I have a beverage catering company," he tells us. "In a party, the most I've ever made was a thousand dollars."

When we show him an invoice from Walter Reed's Sept. 2012 fundraiser at the Castine Center in Mandeville, Sanders says, "Get out of here! Wait, really? No…"

It's how much Reed, the St Tammany Parish District Attorney, paid his son Steven's company, Liquid Bread, LLC, to handle bar services at his fundraiser - $29,400.

"That's not possible," Sanders says. "29 grand? $29,400? That's ridiculous. That's half of my salary in a year."

We obtained the Castine Center's entire folder on the event, in which they detail and document the caterer, the band and the production companies, and even list the bartenders.

That folder has no mention of Steven Reed or his company, Liquid Bread.

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Birthday party dinner described as planning for Reed’s fundraising event

Walter Reed spent nearly $3,000 at the Dakota restaurant on March 19, 2005, an expense that is explained on his campaign finance report with a single word: “meeting.”

But a framed menu, topped with the words “Happy Birthday Claire,” tells a different story about the reason for the gathering.

Claire Bradley kept the framed menu — a gift from Reed — as a memento of the party that the St. Tammany Parish district attorney threw for her 46th birthday. Bradley, who was Claire Ursin before she resumed using her maiden name, says she dated Reed for years and was briefly engaged to him. She recalls the party as a high point early in their relationship, which she said ended for good in late 2012.

The menu, decorated with three tiny hearts, lists the date along with the bill of fare. About 40 guests started with classic shrimp remoulade on garlic-grilled foccacia and wild mushroom bisque and truffled wild mushroom sauté. The main course was pan-seared filet mignon topped with Maine lobster and lobster sabayon.

With the total bill coming to $2,887.59 and 40 guests, that works out to about to $72 a person.

***More

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