43 thoughts on “BREAKING: River Birch probe ended”

  1. don’t forget big jim. the head coach takes the W’s and L’s, not the players. with all the free time on camp street forthcoming i wonder if things are gonna get heated up in st tammany and st bernard?

    1. Aye. The back story to the Titus prosecution is sickening. We’ll be calling on DoJ to release Titus and at least try to make this completely right.

          1. Having directly seen a slow motion coup d’etat in another setting in another time, where some of the supposed pawns did fine financially, thank you, the sad saga of LettenthemOff justifies my Menckenian beliefs.

  3. Wow, if you think those cocksuckers were taking us to the cleaners before, watch what they start doing now that they know they are fucking untouchable….

    Jimbo fucked us royally and now gets to teach the youts how to do it in the future…..

    3rd world is way to high a number to call this place…

  4. Isn’t that incredible to think all that sound and fury resulted in Mouton & Titus, of all the hapless nonentities? I’m still trying to process the news. Obviously the new boys found more than just comments and one deal on the side with Titus, and I would LOVE to know what. That’s certainly one way to turn in on a report on prosecutorial misconduct, by dismissing the prosecution altogether, but it’s not exactly what I had expected. 🙂

    1. So there goes the theory of the wrist slaps for Broussard, Whitmer and Wilkinson being part of an effort to get the bigger fish. In reality, Boente probably looked at the mess surrounding the RB investigation and decided there could never be a clean prosecution. You can’t fault him for that. Nice job by Heebe’s legal team, although they were apparently out on the town celebrating this over 2 months ago.

      I wonder if a FOIA (public records request) could determine how much taxpayer money was WASTED on this investigation, as well as the related prosecutions that yielded nothing.

      Doug will recall the very day Perricone was unmasked, and what was predicted this at the time.

      1. Yep I do recall. And as the saga unfolded it became more and more apparent your prediction would come true.

        You’ll remember from the day Fazzio hired Buddy Lemann I said he had a keeper for a defense lawyer. And Lemann exploited every gift that he received to the maximum.

      2. I tried to keep a good thought. Wrong again. No matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up.

    2. A Polite thing would be to bake a pie and listen to the pie eaters scream, don’t you think?

      To help that along, I have a great recipe

      As American as Cherry Pie
      by I Lick

      1. Hey, OnASteed so you have a nickname “I Lick’em up right” . I didn’t know you liked me so much as to adopt such a name. You know what they say about copycats. You just can’t leave me alone can you. Could it be I hit a big nerve in a post/s. But if I were you I wouldn’t publicize such a name as it sounds a wee bit fruity and I’d suggest you go back and crawl under the rock from where you came.

        And Steed, noticed you are not posting much now on NOLA.com. Wonder why? Son,I do believe your work has been done for Freddy and others.And I’ll give you an A for good work especially with all your medieval BS which you seem to share an affinity for with BrouStar, the ex-dragon slayer and now branded dragon.

        Looking in your Merlin’s crystal ball can you tell us what cherries are coming your way from Freddy for such a flaming,fabulous cute recipe.

        1. OnASteed:Just noticed you have been working on your above flaming recipe since last night the 8th at 9:32PM and posted it today the 9th sometime after 12:00 PM.

          I guess you WILL be getting lots and lots of cherries from Freddie for such devoted work.

    3. Ho! Speaking of Lemann, he dropped one of his trademark bombshells on WWL 870’s site (which is an unexpected source, to say the least). That was Oyster’s excellent catch of the day/week/month, and MANY thanks to him; it can be found here http://www.wwl.com/More-prosecutorial-misconduct-behind-DOJ-River-Bir/15752356 .

      In brief, the magistrate judge intended to let Lemann examine Titus’ pen recorder, and the government couldn’t let that happen because of what had been deleted from it (a recording of the clandestine meeting between Fazzio & the prosecutors that was not supposed to, and did, concern River Birch).

      Mann & Perricone lied about the recording and its deletion, judge said she’d order FBI to let Fazzio examine the recorder, and poof! Prosecution withdrawn. There was also a bit about Jim Mann altering a sign-in sheet to remove the signatures of Fazzio and Titus. Remind me which side was supposed to be the criminals? There seems to be some confusion. 🙂

      P.S. Re unmasking prediction: Oh, boy. Let me guess, Heebe would miraculously escape the guillotine? And here we are, not a full year later.

  5. The experienced cynics among us would simply suggest enough low lying fruit have been cultivated, a few scapegoats for the turnip truck crowd put through public dog & pony shows and the trained seal media, and a goodtime afterward was had by the rest, laughing on their way to the bank.

    2. So with Mouton, that begs the question of how he could have been bribed if nobody was guilty of paying him a bribe.

  9. Merry Christmas to River Birch.

    Hoe,Hoe,Hoe. Its a Canal Street brothel prosecution rerun.

  10. You could see this coming all the way from Biloxi.Fred was a lot smarter than the FEDS. The 97% conviction rate just notched down slightly.They bully most into a guilty plea or majority can not pay for a good lawyer.I stopped in at the International when I was in New Orleans the other day and sent an email just for the heck of it and smiled for the camera !!! Touche’ DOJ Touche’

  11. “The experienced cynics among us would simply suggest enough low lying fruit have been cultivated, a few scapegoats for the turnip truck crowd put through public dog & pony shows and the trained seal media, and a goodtime afterward was had by the rest, laughing on their way to the bank.”

    That pretty much sums the whole thing up, Empire. That’s exactly what we just experienced.

  12. I told you people a long time ago … Fred Heebe would never go to jail on this investigation … at best he would have been an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme, with the participation of certain JP Officials, to award River Birch an illegal landfill monopoly …

    1. There you have it. It was all on these pages in advance. The advantage of a community of knowledgable individuals on display.

      I know there are some people feeling very low tonight. I feel great sympathy for Mark Titus. What’s done is done. Tomorrow and the next day we’ll be here to lend context and perspective.

      The Wino sent me a bat signal. All eyes on Whitmer. Well could be the work of the peeps at Public Integrity is not quite done. Set the alarms for May.

    1. There is an internal backstory to the factoid. Busiest week of the year for me. I’ll do my best to share my thoughts on that.

  14. Who was/is Peter Butler Sr.’s assistant whose computer was seized in the River Birch raid?

        1. He will henceforth be the Minotaur (Man-Bull) as a tortured Spanglish interpretation of his name suggests.

          1. I was not able to post the following comment on nola.com (3/11 8:20 a.m.). “He will henceforth be the Minotaur (Man-Bull) as a tortured Spanglish interpretation of his name suggests.” Sockpit – Slabbed. As it is written, the name must be known, so let it be done “But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,/ With an alien people clutching their gods./ I should be glad of another death.” T.S.Eliot ‘Journey of the Magi’. Dictionary of the Bible (John McKenzie, S.J.) Name. “It is a widespread cultural phenomenon that the name is considered to be more than an artifical tag which distinguishes one person from another. The name has a mysterious identity with its bearer; it can be considered as a substitute for the person, as acting or receiving in his place…Vestiges of such beliefs survive even in civilized societies when they retain ancient customs which surround the conferring of the name with solemnity…It is a diaster when one’s name is destroyed or blotted out (1S 24:21; 2K 14:27). The supreme threat to the wicked is that he will have no name (Jb 18:17), that his name will rot (Pr 10:7). Daniel Abel v. Doug Handshoe & Anne-Marie Vandenweghe + Trout Point Lodge v. Doug Handshoe = Free Pussy Riot.

  15. I’ve been pretty speechless since I heard about this because I have NEVER seen anything like this in 17 years with the federal government. NEVER saw the government let someone off the hook by publicly announcing that they are NOT going to indict him OR publicly stating that they were ending an investigation. Of course, the government closes investigations all the time–but NOT with a public announcement.

    It is so highly unusual that I think there must be something HUGE uncovered in the DOJ investigation. First of all the announcement is from the Public Integrity Section, DOJ. From that I deduce the Prosecutorial misconduct is so massive or widespread that don’t want it presented as a defense in federal court. And they are letting high level targets off scot free because of it.

    I’m guessing this has gone way beyond Perricone and Mann. Was the online commenting widespread in the office and/or included other high profile federal employeees such as federal law enforcement agents? Have they now learned that this is a problem in other USAOs? Or does it mean that was Letten personally involved? Whatever it is, it should come out and it’s going to be ugly.

    1. Huge, eh? Lemann was apparently about to expose, in court, a chain of events involving illicit meeting/recording thereof/deletion and denial of recording, and while that’s very bad it’s limited in nature… but the idea is that prosecutors and local FBI worked together to cover all that up. Would that do? I certainly hope so (wwl.com/More-prosecutorial-misconduct-behind-DOJ-River-Bir/15752356). 🙂

      I was staggered yesterday, and I’m doubly so today. It’s one thing to surmise that sort of thing was going on, and quite another to read confirmation.

      1. Hello, Mus. I feel the same way, still pretty speechless. I read those Lemann comments too. Could be the smoking gun especially with the timing of the dismissal. I’m still thinking there may be something on Letten too.

        As for Jan Mann and Periconne, speaking with a defendant without his lawyer present is a major ethical violation. There is a rarely used procedure if a defendant wants to cooperate but can’t let his lawyer know (usually when the lawyer is being paid for by a drug cartel or other organized crime situation) The AUSA needs to seek a sealed court order appointing an independent lawyer to represent the defendant. Lawyer #2 speaks to the defendant and brings him in. Eventualy the defendant needs to fire lawyer #1 and at that point everyone knows he’s cooperating (and is usually in witness protection at that point). I did it twice in 17 years. These AUSAs knew the drill, they just acted as if no rules applied to them.

        Whiting out the names on the visitor log? Looks bad too of course—and now we know why Mr. Mann resigned. But, I’m stunned an FBI agent would create a record by signing a security guard’s log especially with 2 cooperating defendants names.

        And the microphone pen–as Steed said, you just can’t make this stuff up!

    1. Doug, even under totally legitimate circumstances, a federal agent would not want to create a record that could identify or endanger cooperating witnesses or confidential informants. That’s why I’m surprised the FBI would list them on the log in the first place. They could have taken them to FBI offices without having to do that.

    2. The existence of the clique giving support to the twiin-bill conclusion of prosecutors wheeling about in utter disregard of the law AND perhaps receiving some largesse to derail a prosecution? We’ve seen hereabouts comparables, Doug.

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