LSU's head of human resources retires quickly after 9News investigation

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BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -
The head for LSU’s human resources department was placed on leave and retired hours later amid a 9NEWS Investigation into his university emails that contain multiple uses of profanities as well as degrading language to describe fellow university employees.

Associate Vice President A.G. Monaco was placed on leave from the university within hours of LSU releasing hundreds of emails requested by the WAFB Investigative team Tuesday afternoon.

At 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, LSU issued a statement saying Monaco had decided to retire.

“A.G. Monaco has done a lot of good work on behalf of LSU,” said the statement from LSU Interim Vice President of Strategic Communications Jason Droddy. “However, recent records requests caused LSU administrators to review Dr. Monaco’s emails and their tone. Rather than have the emails become a distraction from the good work that university staff is performing, Dr. Monaco decided to retire effective July 1, 2018, and to go on leave until that date.”

In one of his emails, Monaco describes the LSU Police Department as an “asylum”. In another, he refers to a fellow employee as a “lying cheat”.

After a legal deposition Monaco took part in last year, he emailed LSU President F. King Alexander about the lawyers involved.

“My role was to challenge them over every comma and to be caustic and insulting,” part of Monaco’s email to Alexander said.

Alexander emailed back to say the lawyers were upset that Monaco had used the word “fuc*” during the deposition.

“Yeah, I later told them that if cussing was a crime, I should be on death row in Angola,” Monaco emailed back.

Monaco was the subject of a 9NEWS Investigation last November involving a secretly-recorded meeting he was in. During that meeting, Monaco berated a veteran LSU police officer who was accused of wrongdoing.

The WAFB Investigative Team continues to analyze the emails received through our public records request and will publish more information on the emails as they are reviewed.

In one email, in March of 2016, he referred to the media as the “fuc*ing press”.

While WAFB is censoring the “f-word” in this report, Monaco did not in his emails. We will also censor his profanities as we further report on his emails.

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