Alternative New Media for the Gulf South
For true they did as Judge Guirola ruled yesterday on the appeal bond. As for any perceived frivolousness of the Goatherder’s appeal following is their brief and the readers can decide that for themselves. Just over a week from today will mark one year this issue has been litigating in federal court. (Click the pic to nab the 44 page pdf)
A day has elapsed since yesterday’s sentencing hearing for Karen Parker, Tom Wilkinson and Aaron Broussard in Judge Head’s temporary courtroom on Camp Street and the accounting by the media of yesterday’s events is almost complete, “almost” being because I have not chipped in my two cents worth. First up I need to highlight Jason at American Zombie, Editilla at the Ladder and Mark Moseley aka Oyster over at Your Right Hand Thief for the hat tips and support. There are people taking real personal risks telling this story besides me and they deserve the recognition. To those guys I’ll add I have sources whose families have been threatened because word has gotten out they spoke with me. I can honestly say I’ve never been prouder of those of you that have entered the crucible with me despite the personal risk telling this story entails.
Next I need to point everyone to Drew Broach’s second story on the Broussard sentencing because it is good and he can actually spell sophomoric correctly. He hits all the high points save one so I’ll highlight how the media portrayed what I am talking about and hopefully convey a deeper understanding of what went down yesterday so let’s start with this snippet from Drew’s story:
Head said he considered a series of regular payments from Kenner businessman Bill Mack to Broussard as a single bribe for parish business, not several. And he downplayed Broussard’s “leadership role” in the payroll fraud conspiracy that gave the parish president’s then-fiancée, Karen Parker, a public job for which she was not qualified and at which she rarely worked.
As a result, the judge calculated the sentencing guidelines range to be 46 to 57 months.
And a few of the other media accounts:
Gambit
Broussard faced a maximum of 15 years for the crimes, a sentence likely cut down because of his clean criminal record and his cooperation. Head, a Texas judge appointed to the Broussard case, further reduced the sentence, citing a number of disagreements with recommendations from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the federal probation office.
The government recommended sentence enhancements for accepting multiple bribes from Mack. But, Head pointed out, those bribes resulted from a single agreement.
“A bribe paid in a series of installments is one bribe,” he said.
Head also struck down an enhancement based on an assertion that he was the organizer of a bribery conspiracy involving five or more people. The deal, the judge said, was strictly between Broussard and Mack.
Fox 8:
Broussard originally faced 58 to 72 months behind bars, but U.S. District Judge Hayden Head reduced the sentencing guidelines and only ended up giving Broussard 46 months. In court, Judge Head, brought in from Texas, disagreed with prosecutors on how some of the charges were counted, thus deciding to change the sentencing guidelines.
WWL TeeVee
Legal expects (sic) expected Broussard to receive a sentence in the five to eight year range. The Texas judge handling Broussard’s sentencing said prosecutors had double counted his bribe payments.
Judge Hayden Head also appeared to downplay the hiring of Broussard ex-wife Karen Parker as a paralegal supervisor even though she lacked the proper credentials to do the work.
He said from the bench: “This was not a sophisticated operation. It must be common procedure to put people on the payroll.”
The apparent light sentence caught many court-watchers by surprise, given the nature of the public corruption charges.
“He gave a lecture to the U.S. Attorneys Office, to the probation department and he calculated the sentencing guidelines differently than the probation office had calculated them and that worked to the benefit of Aaron Broussard,” said Eyewitness News legal analyst Donald “Chick” Foret. “He was not impressed with the payroll portion of the case which dealt with Tom Wilkinson and Karen Parker. It was almost like he was trying to talk Tom Wilkinson out of his guilty plea at times.”
Drew Broach got it the closest while the Gambit oversimplified things to the point of being misleading. I did not expect much from the TeeVee media though Chick Foret’s analysis always seems both informative and amusing.
First we need to dispel the notion that Judge Head gave a downward departure from the sentencing guidelines because that is simply not true. As I previously said in comments Judge Head called the case straight so in my opinion the criticism he is taking in comments to the various news accounts is neither warranted or deserved. Second Slabbed’s legal experts had no preconceived expectations of Broussard’s sentence though I’ll add NOLA Born, a former Federal prosecutor has opined the sentence handed down is in line with the crime and fact pattern as submitted to Judge Head. Continue reading “Public outrage on display Part 1: Some thoughts on the Broussard sentencing.”
Aaron Broussard arrived in a New Orleans court Monday morning, where his 35-year political career ended with a 46-month prison sentence for fraud committed while he was president of Jefferson Parish, the most populous New Orleans suburb.
Broussard, who must also repay $280,000, apologized “for bringing dishonor to my position. I will pay for that dishonor for the rest of my life.” He requested he be sent to Pensacola Prison when his term starts on April 8.
Before the massive political corruption scandal that rocked all of New Orleans, Broussard was most well-known for his shameful and histrionic display of “crocodile tears” on national television in the USA following the Katrina disaster in New Orleans. It was charged by some that Broussard’s actions in the wake of Katrina caused tens of millions of dollars in damages to hundreds of New Orleans properties due to avoidable flooding. Continue Reading at SouthCoastToday.ca………
Aaron Broussard sentenced to 46 months in prison; Wilkinson, Parker get probation ~ Drew Broach
Former Jefferson Parish president sentenced to 46 months ~ Charles Maldonado
Aaron Broussard Sentenced: Former Louisiana Parish President Gets Four Years For Giving Wife Fake Job ~ Janet McConnaughey
Aaron Broussard sentenced to 46 months on federal corruption charges ~ Travers Mackel
Former JP President Aaron Broussard gets 46 months in jail ~ Meg Gatto
Aaron Broussard gets 46-month prison sentence ~ Paul ‘n Chick
I’ll be on twitter this morning covering the goat roast on Camp Street. Follow me there or on the twitter feed on the right sidebar.
I recently introduced the contributor here. I’ll further generally describe this contributor as a former (pre Katrina) mid level employee of one of the various local governments in the metro New Orleans area that is now a private citizen. In other words way outta the game that unfolds before us today. This person, with the help of reporting by the Times Picayune, Slabbed, American Zombie etc has put together the beginnings of a timeline of the corruption scandal that I now share with you today.
There is one thing I must point out first though because there is a date that belongs on this timeline that is omitted because I’ve not yet shared it before today. What I mean by shared is I have not shared it in context so we must refer back to the following post I did on a Times Picayune story written by Manuel Torres way back in the day: Land swap to give landfill longer life – Council expected to approve proposal. IMHO NOLA needs to reactivate their link to that piece and all the related reporting as Slabbed has learned certain Public Records Requests are being denied on this very topic as it is evidently the subject of the ongoing Federal Grand Jury Investigation into Fred Heebe. Drum roll please as we roll out the players at that point in time:
With that laid out and without further adieu following are 8 pages of a timeline that begins with the Dutchie Connick memo: Continue reading “RICO Part 1: The beginnings of a comprehensive timeline, from a Slabbed contributor”
Anita Lee is a champ as she and Karen Nelson tag team the next installment of as The Land Trust Turns. In what turns out to be a weird cosmic twist of fate, I too spoke with Melanie Allen with the Land Trust in her capacity as an individual board member not speaking for the Entire Board of Directors or organization. The information she conveyed to me greatly enhanced my understanding of the events surrounding the purchase of Scott Walker’s lot by the Land Trust, acting in the role of financial intermediary for DMR at the behest of CIAP Administrator Tina Shumate, also on the Land Trust Board of Directors. There was one question that Ms Allen could not answer for me but before I get to that I want to emphasize the Land Trust Board is taking this very seriously and have engaged the issues the transaction has brought to the fore.
That said it is also true the same board still contain a cancerous element because the people at the top of the Land Trust have/had financial relationships with DMR. Let’s start with the comment I just left on Anita’s story:
Absolutely these financial relationships were ignored in their decision making. The majority of the board allowed themselves to be led down the primrose path by people with a financial stake at DMR. And there is no doubt they had to know the connection between the seller and DMR.
The question they should have asked themselves is, if the money were not being provided to do this deal, would we buy this parcel over the lot next door that was still relatively pristine? The money being provided to make the deal work was a red flag.
And that perception dates back to the fact set I highlighted back on day 99:
A reader that knows the lay of the land at the Land Trust sent me a few of the connections to Walker on the Land Trust’s Board of Directors as the reasons for the organization conspiring with Walker to allegedly perpetrate a crime comes into sharper focus:
Laura Bowie – Board President; works in an office in the DMR Bolton building at the pleasure of Bill Walker. She is paid by a different group.
In that same office is one of Bill’s long time best friends Phil Bass. Bass retired from the state and went to work for the EPA Gulf of Mexico Program. He is on loan from them.
John Bowie – Advisory Committee member, Laura’s husband. Works for the EPA.
Grant Larson – worked for Tina Shumate at the DMR
William Corky Perrett – worked for Bill at the DMR
On Corky Perret, Anita explains the relationship: Continue reading “DMR Scandal Day 122: Sun Herald reports Tina Shumate the catalyst for DMR purchase of former DMR Executive Director’s son’s lot”
Thursday, February 21st, 2013
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
BIG BANKS AND THEIR CRIMINAL LEADERS GO SCOTT FREE!
After years of financial chicanery, federal prosecutors have decided that Wall Street manipulators are both too big to fail, and too big to jail. The most recent culprit, in what seems to be a conspiracy to “go soft” on financial shenanigans, is the British owned bank, HSBC, that was granted a criminal reprieve and monetary slap on the wrist for confecting the largest drug and terrorism money laundering scheme in U.S. history. To give the aura of being tough on crime, the Justice Department levied a fine of $1.9 billion, which amounts to about five weeks of profit for this international bank for highly suspect, if not outright criminal actions, quite possibly extending as far back as 2001.
HSBC is far from the only bank guilty of such deplorable dealings. There has been a pattern of the largest banks on Wall Street engaging in the most relentless and irresponsible behavior – and this has undermined the entire U.S. financial system. At a U.S. Senate hearing in Washington last week, Senator Elisabeth Warren from Massachusetts confronted bank regulators and ask if they could identify any example of Wall Street bankers being criminally charged and taken to trial. The regulators could only say: “We will get back to you.”
Financial columnist Matt Taibbi concluded in a recent column: “Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial–crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth – and nobody went to jail. Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up and cashed in on the phony financial boom has ever been convicted.”
In the case of HSBC, it was the financial lapdog for a number of Mexican drug cartels, many of whom were suspected in thousands of murders during the past decade. The bank also had ties and handled money exchanges for groups linked to Russian gangsters, Hezbollah, Iran, North Korea and Al Qaeda. This was not your friendly, local neighborhood bank. So why wasn’t the bank and key employees charged with assorted federal crimes? Continue reading………….
And folks I couldn’t have explained the nuances to this any better than Drew Broach did for NOLA Media Group. This part echos a theory I’ve had since last fall:
And were the government to promote Broussard’s cooperation to Head before sentencing, it ordinarily would do it by writing what is known as a 5K letter. The court record in the case contains no indication that such a letter has been submitted.
That could mean several things, say several defense lawyers familiar with the case. Perhaps Broussard has given information on River Birch privately, in interviews and grand jury testimony, but won’t receive a government recommendation for help until after he goes to prison. That’s an uncommon, but not unique, sequence of events.
Drew is fair including the theory the former Goatherder in Chief does not know much about the alleged racketeering conspiracy involving the River Birch Landfill but given the Dutchie Connick memo written in 2004 that possibility is remote. That said sources indicate to Slabbed that Aaron Broussard was overheard in a restaurant (Andrea’s) recently saying he was taking all his “secrets to the grave” so my guess would be a lack of cooperation with the prosecutors.
Also Drew correctly points out Broussard was never known as a wealthy man but that was part of the scam with the guy, always broke, always out of money having to borrow from his friends. My sources, some of whom date to Broussard’s college days, describe him to Slabbed as the consummate hustler and the always being broke routine was part of it.
Given his flippant behavior after his last court appearance before Judge Hayden Head, I would add it is not outside the realm of possibility his Honor remands the disgraced former Goatherder in Chief to federal custody immediately. That in turn, would give me the warm fuzzies.
Slabbed will be there Monday to cover the events live from Lafayette Square where I hope to have a live interview with the legendary Wino of Lafayette Square. Meantime, since Aaron’s days with us here in the community are short before his extended vacation at the Graybar Hotel, I would like to turn to new media sensation Alexyss Tylor from Atlanta for some timely prison advice for the former Goatherder in Chief. Continue reading “Coming Monday on Camp Street: The former Goatherder in Chief gets his just deserts”