BATON ROUGE — Several East Baton Rouge Metro Council members testified before the attorney general's office Wednesday morning as part of an ongoing corruption probe.

Council members Rowdy Gaudet, Darryl Hurst, Denise Amaroso, Brandon Noel and Anthony Kenney were all subpoenaed as witnesses. Amaroso and Noel were dismissed before they testified.

"They told us we were free to go and they don't need us to help with anything today," Noel said.

Gaudet said he cooperated fully with the process.

"I was asked to be a witness and I provided input and testimony to the best of my ability," Gaudet said. "Beyond that, we've been asked not to speak about any of the proceedings inside."

The subpoenas came after former Capital Area Transit System Chief Administrative Officer Pearlina Thomas and contractor Jay Colar were implicated in an alleged scheme with Councilmember Cleve Dunn, in which Thomas and Colar allegedly made fraudulent and plagiarized reports about pre-agreed-upon contracts to defraud CATS of tens of thousands of dollars. 

The grand jury investigation has also resulted in indictments for former Broome administrator Courtney Scott and for Veronica Mathis, whose company assisted Broome's "Safe Hopeful Healthy Baton Rouge" program. They each face allegations including conspiracy, theft, bribery, money laundering and public contract fraud, while Scott is also accused of malfeasance as a government employee.