Day: March 13, 2012

BREAKING: Fred Heebe files suit against Times Picayune commenter Henry L Mencken, claims commenter is assistant US Attorney Sal Perricone

All I can say folks is Fred Heebe is throwing some serious money down this rabbit hole filing suit against Times Picayune commenter Henry L. Mencken. Gorden Russell has the breaking news for the Times Picayune and they included a link to the 151 page suit Heebe lawyer Kyle Shonekas filed in NOLA Civil District Court which mostly focuses on specualtion as to the identity of Henry L Mencken being assistant US Attorney Sal Perricone. The alleged defamatory comments are on pdf pages 3 and 4 of the suit and to my untrained eye look pretty weak.  The T-P has 598 of the 601 total comments left to various stories by Mencken on his T-P profile page linked above and there is copy of all his remarks circa December 2011 in Heebe’s suit.

From a bigger picture standpoint this really signals a new level of nasty between Team Heebe and Team Letten.  The speculation as to Mencken’s identity is enticing but it is also not the legal question. Its inclusion in the complaint tells me this is way more than a simple prelude to a US style defamation suit.

File this one under chilling effects from the mean streets of blogging.

sop

Tuesday Links

Blaine Kern Artists improperly received $1 million in tax credits for building floats, auditor reports ~ Jeff Adelson

This Rich Rainey story from late last month on JPAC is worth visiting. I belatedly mention Rich’s story as it is both topical here on Slabbed and because it came out of the blue as the JPAC debacle has fallen out of the news cycle.  One thing everyone needs to do is read the Legislative Auditor’s report on the JPAC boondoggle.  PDF page 26 (report page 23) of the report contains the reason there is talk about Jefferson Parish Councilman at Large Elton Lagasse role in the JPAC debacle receiving investigative scrutiny given we now know Tim Whitmer is cooperating with the Feds.

Cowardly court backs off Memorial case ~ James Gill

The whole problem with the argument that gives Memorial Hospital a pass in the large number of deaths that happened post Katrina at the hospital is that conditions were also very bad across the city including at other hospitals, like Charity Hospital which was also flooded out.  I profiled in depth the plight of the staff and patients at Charity post Katrina,  including the fact their morgue was not piled over with dead patients like Memorial’s. The defamation suit filed by the memorial docs against ProPublica and the New York Times over subsequent reporting of the tragedy went nowhere. It also appears the Times Picayune’s efforts to get to the Grand Jury documents in the case are also at an end. The lawsuit filed by the victim’s families against Memorial Hospital settled last July which means we’ve likely heard the last of this in the news cycle.

I have a busy day on tap here in Soggy Bottom. Feel free to add your own links in comments.

sop