Happy Anniversary!

Hey look, Waste Management's civil RICO suit against Fred Heebe and Jim Ward is turning 10 years old.

Both sides have lined up high-powered attorneys – Waste Management is represented by a group of lawyers from Phelps Dunbar, a white-shoe New Orleans law firm, as well as the Washington firm Baker Botts, while Heebe and Ward’s legal team includes, among others, Kyle Schonekas and Billy Gibbens, the lawyers that blew up the federal investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2013.

Given that legal horsepower, it’s perhaps not surprising that the litigation is about to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. There are more than 600 items in the online court docket, including dozens of complex motions, and the plaintiffs want to introduce more than 400 exhibits, a move Heebe and Ward are opposing.

Do you think all those big money lawyers are "celebrating" this cash cow? I think they are celebrating.  Ray Nagin, whose bribery conviction, obviously, figures into this case, once said he decided to go into politics because it was, "the dominant industry." And now everyone involved in this case has a decade's worth of stimulus checks to prove it. 

But that isn't the only interesting principle of politics this group of "high-powered attorneys" has proven in the course of their work.  They've also demonstrated that amassing great fortune and influence through corrupt political dealings and environmental endangerment, is nowhere near as serious a crime as commenting on websites. 

Heebe, meanwhile, was represented by some of the city’s most aggressive defense lawyers, who pushed back as federal investigators dug into how he secured a near-monopoly on the local landfill business. They didn’t wait for the feds to strike. Instead, they went on offense, revealing that two top prosecutors had routinely posted comments — using aliases — on news stories about cases the U.S. Attorney’s Office was handling.

The scandal turned the office upside down, ending the long reign of popular U.S. Attorney Jim Letten. More remarkably, it won Heebe and his stepfather, Jim Ward, his partner in the River Birch landfill in Waggaman, the equivalent of a pre-emptive pardon. The Department of Justice, which rarely even confirms the existence of investigations, announced that its probe of Heebe and Ward was over, and that neither would be charged.

This astonishing precedent was further cemented when we learned that commenting on websites is, in fact, so egregious an offense as to outweigh actual murders committed by police.  

“Legacyusa” turned out to be one of the top federal prosecutors in New Orleans. His post was just one of many anonymous barbs that led a federal judge Tuesday to throw out the convictions of those ex-cops in the Danziger Bridge shootings, which left two people dead and four seriously wounded.

In a 129-page ruling, District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt cited long list of “egregious and inflammatory” comments by at least three Justice Department officials using a variety of online identities. Those comments fueled a “21st century carnival atmosphere” that tainted the 2011 trial and will require a new one, Engelhardt wrote.

Engelhardt actually threw out the River Birch case at one point too, even though that ruling didn't stick.  Wonder how that happened. 

Engelhardt had connections to other players in the case. When Heebe and Ward pushed to unmask the pseudonymous commenters in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Engelhardt joined the crusade, eventually directing the Department of Justice to appoint a special prosecutor to probe the commenting scandal.

Engelhardt owed his appointment to the federal bench to then-U.S. Sen. David Vitter; he had served as Vitter’s campaign treasurer. Vitter was also an ally of Heebe and Ward. He was among the politicians who questioned decisions by the state DEQ to hastily open landfills around the region, moves that also drew scorn from environmentalists.

The "dominant industry" works in fascinating ways, doesn't it.  I mean.. look what happened even during the time it took me to type this up. 

This time, there was no 11th-hour surprise. But once again, Fred Heebe and Jim Ward, owners of the River Birch landfill in Waggaman, found a way to dodge a public accounting of what their detractors have long portrayed as an improper influence campaign meant to keep potential rivals at bay -- and as much local garbage going into their dump as possible.

On the eve of trial of a civil racketeering lawsuit that was filed a decade ago, the two men settled with their accuser, Waste Management, one of the largest garbage companies in North America. Terms of the settlement, noted in the case's lengthy docket on Friday by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, were not disclosed. The case was set for trial Monday.

Well, happy anniversary, in any case. To quote Nagin once more, thanks for "keeping the brand out there."

Bible pledges

It's not an original expression by any means but it does seem popular this year. Eddie Rispone made it a thing in one of his early ads this summer when he promised to "get tough on illegal immigration the second my hand comes off the Bible.”  This week John Bel had a riff on it too.

“There is a big difference between me and him,” Edwards said, “but I am supremely confident as I stand before you today that the people of Louisiana know that, they get it and when the hand comes off the Bible on inauguration day, it will be my hand.” He was mocking a commercial by Rispone who promised to get tough “on illegal immigration the second my hand comes off the Bible.”

It's weird what politicians think is funny, or even novel. Bible pledges have been a thing for as long as I can remember. It's what you say instead of, "On Day One..." when your campaign relies on patronizing churchy types.

And I guess that does fit Derrick Shepherd's M.O. well enough. He's always inclined toward that sort of thing. It's no surprise that he would lean on it even harder now in his first run for office since getting out of jail. Shep is in a runoff now with his cousin Byron Lee for the Jefferson Parish Council District 3 seat. He's made "atonement," with a fair amount of religious subtext, a theme in his messaging.

Beyond that there is the, well, the text that appears on the website of his website, 2ndChanceNOLA. Ostensibly the site is about Shep taking up the cause of ex-offenders' rights. In a vacuum, that is quite laudable. In fact, we here at this very blog have cheered Shep's previous efforts at restoring the full civil rights of those who have been convicted of felonies. Although, we can't help but suspect that his motivation in these matters is, to put it nicely, personal, to put it less nicely but more accurately, cynical.

During his days in the state senate, Shepherd was most famous as the author of one of those "baggy pants" bills that were popular at the time among the Cops & Jesus set.  Despite his sudden affected sympathy the victims of the criminal punishment system, Shepherd's website indicates he is in no way reformed on those points.

I owned up to my crime, pleaded guilty and paid my debt to society.

I am pro-criminal justice, pro-police and pro-law and order. Going to prison didn't change the core values I upheld as a citizen, a JAG officer in the military, attorney and state senator. I still believe in the strength, honor and importance of those values as strongly as I believe in God. With everything I brought upon myself, my family, friends and the constituents I represented in the state legislature, I still want to be a contributing member of the community and not sink into the shadows.

So it's not surprising at all to read that Shep would be the latest candidate to deliver a bible pledge. The circumstances of that are pretty interesting too.

Lee has at least one powerful ally on his side. A political action committee funded by River Birch Landfill owners Fred Heebe and Jim Ward has sent out several mailers calling Shepherd untrustworthy and bringing up his past legal troubles, including allegations of domestic violence.

But Shepherd shrugs off the attacks from the New Horizons PAC, saying they were prompted by his vow to make sure River Birch is operating in compliance with state regulations.

"I plan on siccing (the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality) on the River Birch Landfill as soon as my hand comes off that Bible," Shepherd said.

Long time Shep fans will recall that his name did come up in the River Birch bribery case when he and other local officials appeared to work on behalf of the River Birch owners to shut down a rival landfill by, yes, "siccing DEQ on it." It was then alleged that Shepherd turned to the River Birch owners in search of an exchange of favors-for-favors.

No evidence has surfaced to show that Shepherd was working on behalf of River Birch. But at least once, he had a direct interaction with one of the company's owners.

On Dec. 18, 2008, after he was convicted and shortly before he reported to prison, he pulled into Ward's driveway and demanded an audience, according to a letter that River Birch attorney Peter Butler wrote to U.S. Attorney Jim Letten.

Ward invited him into the backyard, where Shepherd said he was "contacting his 'friends' to help him out and asked if Mr. Ward could give him a job," Butler wrote. Shepherd then asked for money.

Ward ended the conversation and brushed off Shepherd.

And now Shep is on the comeback trail and, if the above story is correct,  River Birch would understandably be worried he could end up in a position to seek retribution.

Of course, if Eddie Rispone's hand comes off the bible too next year, it's questionable whether there will be anyone left at DEQ to sic on anybody. So, you know, joke's on Shep.

Getting a lot of buy-in

The John Bel Edwards re-election campaign continues to take shape.

In recent weeks we've seen John Bel strike a deal to steer hundreds of millions of dollars toward highly questionable Superdome renovations. Among the planned changes are the destruction of much-loved stadium exit ramps and the addition of a  "natural lighting" source which many of us believe would ruin the atmosphere in there.  At the state bond commission meeting where the funds for this were approved, the commission deferred a decision on $7 million for affordable housing in New Orleans because they had too many questions.

But the important thing for John Bel is that he's satisfied the state's most high profile billionaire and the criminal sports entertainment empire she represents. That's not just good campaign "optics." It's how you pay off powerful potential allies to make sure they stay that way.

Speaking of which, we also find that John Bel has handed a massive state "energy services" contract to serial disaster profiteer Jim Bernhard.  The benefits to the state in this privatization deal are murky and debatable. The immediate political benefit to John Bel for entering into it is easier to figure out.

Bernhard Energy Solutions partnered with the HVAC company Johnson Controls at the request of the Edwards administration after both firms submitted proposals to the state. Bernhard Energy Solutions is one of several companies controlled by Bernhard Capital Partners, a private equity firm run by former Shaw Group chief executive and Democratic Party official Jim Bernhard, who was floated as a potential candidate for governor before ruling it out last year.

And then there is the strange case of John Bel's handling of the state's Medicaid contracts. This year the Governor decided to cut out Aetna and Louisiana Healthcare Connections and hand their shares of the $8 million pie over to Humana.  While I still haven't seen any reporting that points us to exactly why that choice makes political sense for the Governor (it does seem to have upset Cedric Richmond) there must be some reason. The companies who lose out on the deal seem to think so, for what that's worth.

A Louisiana state health department evaluator fell asleep during the sales pitch for one of the companies trying to land a state contract worth billions.

At least that’s the way Kendra Case, the chief operating officer at Louisiana Healthcare Connections Inc., recalled the June 24 meeting in a sworn affidavit presented as proof that the state had gamed the competition to keep them from winning one of the lucrative “managed care” contracts.

The point is, as election time rolls around, John Bel is doing the most to attract a lot of buy-in from some powerful players around the state.  Which is why this shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anybody.

Jim Ward and Fred Heebe, the owners of the River Birch landfill in Waggaman whose prodigious political donations were at the center of a sweeping, four-year federal criminal probe that eventually imploded without any charges being filed, have re-established themselves as a dominant force in Louisiana king-making.

Ward, Heebe and other landfill executives are some of the largest financial backers of the effort to reelect Gov. John Bel Edwards even as they gird for a civil trial that will air long-standing accusations that some of their earlier political donations constituted bribes — in particular, a batch of checks they gave to disgraced New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who sits in prison on unrelated corruption charges.

New Horizons USA PAC, a political group formed by Dominick Fazzio, the longtime chief financial officer at River Birch, has donated at least $200,000 to Gumbo PAC, an organization that is expected to play a crucial role in Edwards’ reelection bid. That tied New Horizons for the title of largest in-state donor to Gumbo since Edwards took office.

 Nothing untoward there, for sure.

Forget about it, it's Trash Town

Very good to see the trash men who rule us are finally able to put aside their differences and allow their system of rote bribery to continue apace.

Nearly five years after federal authorities abruptly abandoned a massive corruption investigation targeting local landfill owner Fred Heebe, a civil case with similar contours — this one brought by a competitor in the sometimes bare-knuckles trash-disposal business — was settled on the eve of what was expected to be a two-week trial starting Monday in federal court.

Given that the feds never brought charges, the trial over Waste Management’s civil racketeering claim against Heebe and his stepfather, Jim Ward, looked likely to be the closest thing to a public airing of the allegations that investigators were exploring before they gave up the chase.

Now those issues may never be aired. The terms of the 11th-hour settlement, reached Thursday, are confidential, according to court records.

I don't keep up with such things the way some people do but I do still wonder if Heebe and Ward have ever thanked Sal Perricone for his service. These days we're never quite sure whether or not the President is going to start a war by posting a fart noise on Twitter. But if one guy saying racist things in NOLA.com comments could derail a whole federal racketeering investigation, then we may only be beginning to scratch the surface of what is possible.

This article laments the things we may now never learn about River Birch. But another benefit of living in the Age of Trump is that it probably doesn't matter what comes to light or doesn't now. Nobody is ever going to be held accountable.  Besides, what more brazen admission than this are we hoping for?

The now-aborted trial appeared likely to provide a window into the broader allegation that River Birch built a web of influence by illegally subverting Louisiana campaign laws.

A summary of the two sides’ cases drawn up by Engelhardt noted that Ward, in his deposition, “incredibly admitted that River Birch made campaign contributions to Broussard through various shell companies in order to give more than the legal maximum of $5,000 to Broussard and ‘to make it not as obvious to anybody that’s looking into the records as to what is going on.’ ”

Most of the shell companies were in the name of Dominick Fazzio, River Birch’s chief financial officer, who had a low public profile until he was indicted amid the federal probe. The feds later dropped their case against Fazzio, who had been expected to testify at the trial.

And remember this is what Engelhardt will write even as he's the person responsible for keeping most of this bottled up through his rulings in this civil case and through his role in reacting to Perricone's impact on the Danziger trial. As we sink further and further in to the kleptocratic hellworld, Engelhardt is nothing if not an appropriate judge for such times. Looks like he's also being recognized for his service.

Engelhardt, who was nominated to the federal bench by President George W. Bush, may be in his final weeks in his current post. President Donald Trump has nominated him for a spot on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, located next door to the federal district courthouse.

It's Chinatown

Fred Heebe runs and owns all of it. Ray Nagin gets a day out of jail to go testify and all but, you can kind of see where things are headed.

In a sense, the bare-knuckled lawsuit brought by trash conglomerate Waste Management represents the closest thing to a public airing of the corruption claims against Heebe and Jim Ward, his father-in-law, that New Orleanians are ever likely to see.

That’s because the criminal case the federal government was building against the two men cratered amid evidence, unearthed by Heebe’s legal team, of major misconduct by top officials in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

And the case is resurfacing at precisely the same moment that the leader of Heebe’s legal team, defense lawyer Kyle Schonekas, is expected to be nominated by President Donald Trump to run the office whose leadership he toppled five years ago.

In another odd convergence, the jurist presiding over Waste Management’s civil racketeering case, U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt, is the same judge that eagerly embraced the evidence of prosecutorial misconduct that Heebe brought forth in 2012, and embarked on his own crusade to measure its extent.

By the time the case gets to the courtroom, in late August, it's possible that Engelhardt, the chief judge in the district court, will have moved on as well: He is said to be a leading contender for an open seat on the New Orleans-based U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeal. Such a nomination would also come from Trump, with input from Louisiana's senators.

Yeah so congrats to everybody on their promotions.

Bobby's still got friends

Even after getting smoked by Lindsey Graham in the kiddie debate Wednesday, it's good to know Bobby's still got people he can rely on.  

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal held a post-debate fundraiser in New Orleans Thursday evening, raising $350,000 for his presidential campaign.

The fundraiser was held at the home of Landfill magnate Fred Heebe on St. Charles Ave.

It's Chinatown

Our glimmering Hollywood South racket. It's the same as all the other rackets.

One of the defendants is Peter Hoffman, a colorful Hollywood producer who has beaten a federal rap once before. Another is Michael Arata, an actor and lawyer who is married to Emily Arata, a top deputy to Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

The Aratas are related by marriage to Fred Heebe, the landfill magnate who was the target of a federal investigation when he famously brought down former U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and two of his top lieutenants by bringing to light an online-commenting scandal. Arata is being represented by Billy Gibbens, one of the lawyers who helped Heebe get the federal probe of him dropped.

"Open secret"

It sure seems like it's taken a while to crack the open secret all the way open but better late than never.

As a defense attorney, Gibbens served on the team representing Fred Heebe, co-owner of landfill company River Birch Inc., as federal officials began to probe allegations that Heebe had bribed officials for preferential treatment.

By then, the fact that at least one federal prosecutor was using Nola.com comments to weigh in on cases had been an open secret in New Orleans’ clubby legal community for years. It was a secret that Gibbens and co-counsel Kyle Schonekas would use to explosive effect in a defamation suit when they — with the help of a former FBI profiler — identified Assistant U.S. Attorney Sal Perricone as the author of 595 comments posted on Nola.com under the handle “Henry L. Mencken1951.”

The moment Heebe trotted out his forensic divination charlatan guy two years ago, many readers immediately suspected Perricone was more likely to have been outed by the grapevine.  All of these people know each other. Heebe, himself, was almost nominated to be US Attorney once. The whole thing is one big "clubby" inside game.

And remember we still don't know all of the identities of the prosecutors who took part in what increasingly looks like a coordinated public propaganda campaign.  We don't know how high up it went. Some have suggested that one of the remaining suspicious comments handles belonged to Jim Letten himself.  It's also possible that one or more participants in or people with knowledge of the scheme are still on staff at the US Attorney's office.  At a recent appearance, the new boss Ken Polite said that "he spends an inexcusably inordinate amount of time dealing with internal personnel issues."

As for this Gibbens character, it's difficult not to admire him a little bit.  Sure some crooks may get off the hook thanks to his efforts.  But not all crooks are created equal.  Justice in the Danziger case would be worth twenty Ray Nagins walking free, for example.  All of that notwithstanding, it seems appropriate that someone stand up to the haughty bullying, public grandstanding, and sockpuppet propagandizing Jim Letten and his deputies disgraced his office with.

The issues all of this raises for the press are serious, though.  And I don't mean to give the principles at issue short shrift.  But, in practice,  it's not entirely clear that they don't deserve a bit of comeuppance themselves for the role they've played at times. But that's pretty much an open secret too.

Who is poisoning "the discourse"?

Tigerdroppings and NOLA.com are famous internet-wide for being hosts to the most outlandishly mean, racist, sexist, what have you, comment threads a person could hope to experience.  They're often exhibit A held up by whatever pearl clutching community leader is militating for a clamp down on internet speech in the name of preserving the "civil discourse."

It's interesting to me, then, that we keep finding out the people contributing the most corrosive "uncivil" comments happen to be well.. judges and US Attorneys and such.

An Arkansas circuit judge has called off his campaign for higher office after he confessed to making what some deemed to be offensive comments under an alias on the LSU fan message board, Tiger Droppings.

A political blogger first suggested on Monday (March 3) that Arkansas Circuit Judge Mike Maggio was behind the pseudonym “geauxjudge” in a post on his website, Blue Hog Report, according to The Associated Press. Maggio acknowledged the comments were his on Wednesday (March 5), apologized and ended his campaign for a seat on the Arkansas Court of Appeals.

Some have called the comments racist, sexist, homophobic or inappropriate.

Speaking of which, the US Attorneys comment scandal is likely far from over.

Repeat after me: WE DON’T KNOW JACK SQUAT. The next time you read an article on Commentgate — and you will— whisper that mantra under your breath.

We’re two years deep in this scandal and still can’t answer any of the fundamental questions: How many feds were making comments? How many usernames were used? How many comments were written?

Based on my research I’ll wager that there are many thousands of undiscovered comments written by feds who are supposed to be impartial servants of the law.

NOLA.com, the calls are coming from inside the house

I never believed Heebe's techno-forensic phrenologist palm reader guy was what brought the Perricone case to light. Most likely, Fred Heebe just knows (and owns) a lot of people.

I've speculated, ad nauseam, about my suspicion that someone, or someones, from within Nola.com was/were data mining commenters' personal information and sharing it with Heebe's defense team.  Applying Occam's razor, it seems to be the most logical way these commenters were identified or were even known to be commenting in the first place.  In the wake of the revelations about Sal...and then Jan Mann...I began to see some very obvious signs that backed that theory up.

And there's a coda to this. Dambala mentions it in the comments as well but.. come on.

The Times-Picayune’s motion for additional time does not indicate whether the newspaper plans to appeal Wilkinson’s order. Rather, it says, producing the information by Wednesday may be difficult because “the individuals associated with The Times-Picayune who have the ability to retrieve the information at issue are located out of state, and the retrieval of the information involves review of multiple databases by personnel in several states.”

That guy who googles IP addresses works in a different office and unfortunately our robust internet media company has no way of communicating with anyone over so great a distance. 

Just keep checking the comments

Eventually everything will be published there, anyway.

The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility has declined to make public its investigation into possible misconduct by former Assistant U.S. Attorney Sal Perricone and perhaps other prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office. A lawyer for the office recently wrote to NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune to say she was "withholding any responsive information" to a request the newspaper made under the federal Freedom of Information Act for any reports or documents generated as part of the investigation.

All their bats are corked

Moseley does well with this metaphor.

Some fellow pundits claim the scandals involving online comments and possible prosecutorial misconduct only tarnish the terminal months of Jim Letten’s legacy as U.S. Attorney in New Orleans. They’re a stain at the end of his distinguished tenure, according to WWL’s Clancy Dubos. A bad final chapter in an otherwise great book of accomplishments, according to WGSO radio host Kaare Johnson.

It’s as if Letten were at bat in the bottom of the ninth inning, and struck out on a wicked slider thrown by businessman (and former federal target) Fred Heebe. Then he retired. You can’t boo a Hall of Famer for one untimely lapse, can you?

Government and politics is no place for hero worship.  No one rises to these leadership roles through the awesome force of shimmering virtue. Instead, such men and women make their careers through grasping compromise of principle; by going along to get along; by consciously conforming themselves, their opinions, and priorities, to those of the governing class; by whispering together in their dry cellars and such.

High ranking public officials are not "dragonslayers." They are club men.  Their most common distinguishing characteristic is cowardice. This isn't always a bad thing, of course.  Because we are fortunate enough to live under a mildly responsive, somewhat functional, kind of democratic form of government, we can occasionally frighten the cowardly club men into doing the right thing.  But what that requires from us is constant attention, and much screaming and yelling at no small expense to our leisure, our security, and to our pocketbooks.

Even so the failure rate remains high. The club, after all, is the club and its members enjoy many privileges most of us do not. In any case, there is no time in this to stop and pretend any of our presumed leaders, even when occasionally made to behave, is our friend.  It would be helpful, then, if the gatekeepers of our journalism would refrain from doing so too. But maybe that's too much to ask since so many of them clearly want to be in the club themselves.

Uh oh

One of the lawyers involved with the Plaintiff's steering committee in the BP trial has resigned.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A Texas lawyer has resigned from the team of plaintiffs’ attorneys who brokered a multibillion-dollar settlement with BP PLC and are facing the company at trial over the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier’s order Wednesday did not say why Mikal Watts, who was in court only for the trial’s first day, resigned from the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee.

Probably won't be as damaging to the case against BP as evidence tampering was to the case against Fred Heebe.

In short, Lemann believes it’s no coincidence that the probe and trial were called off right before the government was to hand over evidence—a microphone disguised as a pen—for forensic examination by the defense. The pen-mic was used by businessman Mark Titus, then under federal investigation, to record his meetings with the feds. Lemann thinks the government lied about what was discussed at meetings, and perhaps even erased data on the recorder to help their case.

But it's an annoyance nonetheless.  A few week's ago Dambala called attention to the developing situation with regard to Watts. 

Speaking of snake oil salesmen

There's now a New Yorker profile (CORRECTION: Not a "profile" More accurate to say the story credits him) on the guy Fred Heebe hired to pretend he cracked Sal Perricone's Enigma machine or whatever.

Of course this is mostly bullshit. Heebe clearly had information about Perricone from someone inside the US Attorney's office long before he hired the Mr. Language Carnie to help pad his lawsuit.

Update: And now Perricone, who has already owned up to having authored many of the NOLA.com comments in question, says that Heebe's psychic is full of shit anyway.

The gist is that he didn't write the legal brief that led the FBI profiler to unmask him. Will post a story shortly.
— Gordon Russell (@GordonRussell1) December 19, 2012

Russell's story isn't up yet but I gotta run.  Will post it when I see it.

Update: Here you go.  

Strange bedfellows

About that thing we mentioned yesterday regarding everybody involved in the Heebe-Letten-Vitter-Perricone-Robinnette business being very closely tied together by their professional, political, and personal associations.  Here, via Slabbed, is what we meant by "personal."

We now know Senator David “Diaper Dave” Vitter was ensnared along with Billy Nungesser and that both guys like their sex kinky.  Vitter of course was the guy who got Judge Kurt Engelhardt on the bench. Engelhardt in a prior life was Vitter’s campaign manager and somewhere along the line it came out the Sinator used his campaign money to indulge his sexual proclivities and that it was Engelhardt that likely wrote the checks.

Engelhardt is the judge now trying to use Perricone, et al as an excuse to  have the Danziger verdict tossed out.

Meanwhile, keeping with the title theme, check out all the money people lining up behind Dana Kaplan.

Notable Kaplan contributions in the most recent reports: $4,000 from developer Sean Cummings ($1,500 before the Nov. 6 primary and $2,500 after); $2,500 from Mayor Mitch Landrieu's election campaign; $2,000 from political strategist and commentator James Carville; $1,000 from Louisiana House Speaker Pro Tem Walt Leger's campaign; and $500 from banker/developer Joseph C. Canizaro.

Update: And now here's more from Moseley on Letten.

Busy doing lots of stuff

Just wanted to mention quickly, if you've been reading that Sal Perricone's and Jan Mann's online smack talking in NOLA.com comment forums might now overturn the Danzinger conviction, you may also be interested in the following.

Mark Moseley has written a pair of columns on this subject this month that are well worth your while.

I guess an interest in the overall benefit requires us to take Jim Letten's side in a cage match vs Fred Heebe.  That doesn't mean we have to like cheering for Letten the way... say... Clancy Dubos so often does.

But one thing Mark's first column does illuminate is just how disturbingly interchangeable the two men are. Not to mention how tightly their professional, political, and personal associations are wound together.*

You may recall that Letten made an unusual move in 2007 in support of Vitter at the height (nadir?) of the D.C. Madam scandal. Vitter’s cell number was found on the Madam’s call logs, and there was rampant speculation that Vitter was also involved with local working girls. Letten said that Vitter’s name never came up in the federal investigation of the Canal St. brothel case, which seemed to contradict claims by “Canal St. Madam” Jeanette Maier.

Now, during the prosecutor’s darkest hour in office, Vitter isn’t bending over backwards to support Letten, a fellow De La Salle High alumnus. Where’s the loyalty? Hell, a decade ago Vitter was supporting Heebe over Letten for the open U.S. attorney post! Who knows how differently Vitter’s career—not to mention the River Birch scandal—might have turned out, had Heebe been installed in that ultra-powerful office?

For the record, I'm guessing not that different.

Anyway, Moseley goes on to examine the online comments themselves and adds some speculation about which aliases Perricone was using and how many other insiders at Letten's office he may have been interacting with.

Also see the footnotes to those columns Moseley posted here under his own online alias.

And finally there's this thread where Dambala, Adrastos, Doug and others try and figure out what it all means. 

As I say at the top of this post, I'm too busy to write much about this right now but, very quickly, my comments and questions are:

 1) Is it really that plausible that Letten didn't know anything about any of these activities?  I've read the line about Letten's "lack of online savvy" repeated so many times that I'm beginning to see it as a bullshitting tactic.

2) How far does Heebe's hand extend into Letten's office in the first place? I'm pretty much convinced that Heebe's defamation lawsuit happened in the first place because he was at least tipped off by someone on the inside.  I can't help but wonder about what role Heebe's relationship with Perricone and Mann plays in all of this as well.

3) Same goes for the Danziger case.  If we're going to speculate that Judge Englehardt is "on the take" we may as well extend that speculation to the US Attorney's office as well, right?

*Note that the Letten-Heebe-Vitter, etc. circle extends also to Clancy Dubos and, of course, Garland Robinette.

Mission Accomplished

Now that Letten has recused himself from the River Birch case, Heebe can go ahead and drop the defamation suit against his office.

More commentary from Slabbed.

Fred Heebe is officially above the law

U.S. Attorney's Office recuses itself from River Birch-related cases

Knowing how the gossip galley works around here it might be a while before we get to this point so I'll say it up front. This is about more than just Perricone. Fred Heebe has tentacles all over the Jefferson and Orleans Parish media and political classes including the US Attorney's office. Hell, Fred Heebe at one time very nearly was the US Attorney.

How many "bad apples"?

One of the interesting things about the Perricone reaction is this apparent consensus among the many many columnists and commentators which assumes Perricone's general attitude to be an aberration in the US Attorney's office; that we shouldn't take a serious look under Jim Letten's hood based on Perricone's obnoxiousness.

I have no idea what this supposition is based on. Frankly I'd find it difficult to believe that the aggressively politicized, sexist, and even violent impulses Perricone's own comments reveal that he brought to his job were somehow unique to Letten's Hall of Virtue. Indeed, Moseley, in examining Perricone's interactions on NOLA.com, finds at least one additional commenter he suspects may have been a fellow prosecutor.

Determining online identities isn’t brain surgery. For example, in that same thread a commenter named irishjean wrote, “You obviously didn’t know [Volz].” Which is another way of irishjean saying, “I knew Volz.” After a quick review of irishjean’s comments, I’d bet irishjean knew or even worked with Perricone and Letten. Irishjean certainly sounds like Perricone, with the same cheerleading for Letten, focus on legal stories, and right-wing politics. This stuck out like a sore thumb and I wasn’t even looking for it. It’s a random example, but it shows that most commenters don’t strain to cover their identities on messageboards. It doesn’t require much sleuthing to narrow down the list of their possible identities.

I've read several lamentations about the damage Perricone's activities might have done to the image of Letten's office in the public mind. But if the image conjured is, in fact, a more accurate one than what Letten's fans in the press tend to cultivate then what will we have lost besides a distorting illusion?

Jarvis Deberry turned in his obligatory Perricone column today and in it he hits on this point.

Perricone seems to have spent a great deal of time making online comments, but the time he spent isn't as disturbing as his refusal to be satisfied with the tremendous power he already had as a federal prosecutor. Perricone possessed the power to put people on the path to prison. The feds routinely convict or convince to plead guilty 90 percent of their targets.

That not enough for his ego? He needed something more? He had to go incognito to publicly belittle the subjects of investigations?

In essence, that makes Perricone no different from those he sought to nail on official corruption charges. Isn't that what characterizes the corrupt politician: discontent with the prescribed amount of power? A push for just a little bit -- or a whole lot -- more?

US Attorney is a political office and a terribly powerful political office at that. Shouldn't it be subjected to the most terrible scrutiny as a result? Instead I get the impression that an effort is being made to quarantine this one "bad apple" and defend the rest of the office without giving so much as a thought as to what his presence there might imply?

Moseley says he isn't too interested in learning the identity of the supposed leak who fingered Perricone for Fred Heebe. Of course it could always just be Jeremy Shockey again but shouldn't the possibility of a Heebe collaborator in Letten's office draw at least a little curiosity? It's a particularly compelling question now that we know Aaron Broussard had one too.

A high-level member of the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Orleans was one of dozens of people on a Lake Tahoe ski trip that prosecutors now describe as an illegal fundraiser for former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard.

Fred Harper is the deputy chief of the criminal division of the office, which is led by U.S. Attorney Jim Letten. He acknowledges making the trip about 10 years ago, but denies any knowledge that the outing -- an annual event -- was, in fact, a political money-maker.

Veritable paragons of virtue and good judgment, this team of Letten's is turning out to be.

Serpas Signal

Hmm and we're entertaining company this weekend. The press release reads.

The New Orleans Police Department will establish a Sobriety Check Point on Friday, March 23, 2012 in the Uptown area. The checkpoint will operate between the hours of 9pm to 5am.

Officer Garry Flot

You may not have been aware of this but one reason I meticulously curate all of these check point notices is I'm thinking of turning them over to Fred Heebe's forensic linguist, fortune-teller, guy for analysis. I think this "Officer Garry Flot" who's in charge of leaking these plans all the time might actually be Norman Robinson... or possibly Helena Moreno.

Anyway, all of this is an elaborate way of saying I didn't have a joke to go with an invitation for you to read this Lens post by Mark Moseley where he speculates about what we might learn about the federal case against Fred Heebe from what we know about the Canal Street Brothel case... both of which involved disgraced prosecutor Sal Perricone... and how the cases may end up relating to one another.