The comments I’m receiving via email about Ray Nagin’s lawyer Robert Jenkins entering Federal court to try a major criminal case tomorrow are pretty amusing, especially since Jenkins, when he isn’t doing the legal pundit thing for WDSU is known mainly for his practice in New Orleans state courts. The consensus of the emails is the guy is in over his head but that Judge Berrigan will cut him some slack to compensate.
It is against that backdrop of private thoughts being shared with Slabbed about tomorrow’s criminal trial of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin that I viewed the media stories building up to the trial. One, by NOLA.com’s Rich Rainey and Juliet Linderman relied on interviews with ol’ reliables like the BGR’s Janet Howard along with legal pundits Dane Ciolino and Grey Sexton, who both ran on at the mouth spouting tired legal cliches that bore absolutely no resemblance to what the highly accomplished, successful lawyers that I speak with were sharing with me.
Meantime over at the Advocate Gordon Russell, who covered and helped expose major facets of the public corruption at the heart of the Nagin Indictment, wrote a great piece on the topic. Gordon didn’t have to rely on any interviews since he literally lived the events from a front row seat so there are no interviews or tired cliches in his piece no sir, just Joe Friday which is exactly how old school guys like me appreciate it.
All that said there is something tangentially related to the two stories that I was immediately drawn to in the number of people commenting to each. As I write this Gordon’s piece, at the Facebook only Advocate, has one Facebook comment while Rainey and Linderman’s piece has sixty, including mainstays like Muspench and company who are folks that I term ‘high quality’ commenters. This situation is part traffic but is is also undeniably part commenting platform. Large swaths of the media runs in herds folks which is why business statisticians have the bottom 2 quartiles (or 3 quintiles) when quantifying business sector financial analysis. The following video explains:
In any event like everyone else we’ll be following the Nagin trial. Besides Gordon I’ll be looking to Jason over at AZ for context. This week ought to fun for the muckraking community down here.
Nobody worry as Nagin will be lead by Jenkins to a last second plea deal courtesy of U.S. Attorney.
I have thought all along that Jenkins will not try this case. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow. Anybody know why Nagin chose Jenkins?
Muspench is definitely a “high quality” commenter. I think most of these “advancer” stories have been on ice for the past couple of months, due to the trial’s delay. Hammertime had one, too. http://www.wwltv.com/news/nagin-trial/Nagin-corruption-trial-241900671.html
If “GOVFORSALE” is wrong, then NaGOON’s strategy may be “jury nullification” or one or more “holdout” jurors. But for this strategy to “work”, he needs at least one CORRUPT sable-colored juror, which isn’t guaranteed, given the fact that jurors from the Eastern District come from many Parishes other than Orleans. At least NaGOON was indicted and is going to trial. Sherman Coplein, Mark Morial, Cleo Fields and many other CORRUPT NEGRO POLITICIANS were all given “passes” by the Federal Government. Ashton O’Dwyer.
My prediction is that Ray Nagin is convicted but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns convictions in 24 months after Nagin serves part of his sentence. Looking forward to hearing all the revelations exposed which haven’t been made public before.
Fox 8’s coverage of the Ray Nagin trial is the real show. Lee Zurik is a witness for the defense.
Zurik is a witness for the defense because he was Letten’s favorite leak outlet….not because he knew much of what was going on with Nagin. Jenkins is going to try and show that Letten was using the media to influence negative opinion on Nagin. If Heebe’s team is working with Nagin in any way, it’s going to get interesting.
Keep in mind that they’ve sealed some of the witness testimony and I am betting that will be Zurik and anything to do with the “ongoing” commenting investigation. If Heebe and team are helping Jenkins this could put the DOJ over a barrel but it will all happen behind closed doors.
I’m not as convinced as the all the expert legal analysts that Nagin’s goose is cooked. I think they’re probably right but if Team Heebe is involved don’t count anything out. Doug, you know as well as anyone the pain they could bring down on the DOJ.
I think, quite possibly, there will be a conviction with an unusually light sentence…2 to 3 years. Shortly after that you may say St. Pierre’s sentence drastically reduced (he may testify) and Meffert, Bennett and Fradella may get virtual slaps on the wrist. I think Ray is prepared to do 3 years but in order to justify that sentence they would have to drop St. Pierre’s down significantly…as in less than half of the 17 1/2 years.
I’m just speculating here….I hope I’m wrong but I think Heebe has good reason to help Nagin in this trial.
Team Heebe’s MO has been to throw away their used up politicians (see Derrick Shepherd). Then again Zurik has ties to them too so there are all sorts of triangulation possibilities.
That said I think if the Feds felt there was any chance at a prosecutorial misconduct exposure, based on what the DoJ did previously with Heebe, they’d punt rather than take that chance, especially with a Judge like Berrigan hearing it.
Hopefully you get a seat, you’ve hung more skins on this than most of the Yahoos running around at the Courthouse.
Yes, but I am pretty sure Nagin took a significant bribe from Heebe when he flip-flopped on the landfill issue in the N.O. east along with CWL. I think Heebe may have a debt of gratitude to pay C. Ray. But they are a a pit of Vipers. Who knows if there is honor among thieves here?
Fradella already was slapped on the wrist as he was never charged for bank fraud in Texas that was in the tens of millions. Fradella re-dated old, worthless A/R to borrow on a revolver. This fraud just disappeared (who says justice is blind). ….. I suspect the reason Aaron Bennett is not on the list is due to his limited mental capacity. The real dud on the list is Mike Mc Grath who is currently doing 14 years for stealing from Fannie Mae. Yes, some of the money paid in bribes to Nagin was stolen from Fannie Mae. Mc Grath is about as stupid as they come. Looking at some of these dolts on the Gov’t witness list must give Nagin some hope. It is amazing how dumb the entire cast of characters is: Nagin is a dumb ass. Nagin has zero intellectual curiosity. He re-tweets Joel Osteen without trying to be ironic. As anyone who has ever met Greg Mefertt knows the guy is a complete goofball.
On the subject of Letten versus Lee Zurik, which NaGOON and Jenkins hope may lead to claims of “prosecutorial misconduct” and “abuse of power” by the Federal Government and the U.S Attorney’s Office, and to a new trial or dismissal of the indictment, a la “The Henry Glover” case, I believe this to be be a LO-O-O-O-NG “stretch”. The way this issue is “supposed” to work is as follows: The jury convicts, but the defense then learns that prosecutorial misconduct or abuse of power by the Government “tainted”, “polluted”, and “prejudiced” the jurors to convict rather than decide the case fairly and impartially based solely on the evidence. Obviously, in such a situation, the defendant’s rights would have been PREJUDICED by virtue of the prosecutorial misconduct and abuse of power that PROVED that jurors were ACTUALLY PREJUDICED AGAINST THE DEFENDANT as a result. But here, pre-trial prosecutorial “leaks” were already the subject of at least one pre-trial Motion by the defense, which was DENIED, and Berrigan seems to be going to great pains NOT to allow coverage of the jury selection process, ie. what questions they are asked, what prejudices are revealed during questioning, etc., to be played out in the Media. The Glover case was “different”, because THERE the alleged prejudice was not discovered until AFTER the convictions, and it was pervasive, involving Perricone, Maselli-Mann, the DOJ prosecutor from D.C., and even “more”, causing Engelhardt to conclude that it was SO BAD that the defendants did NOT even have to PROVE that one or more jurors had ACTUALLY BEEN PREJUDICED, and that the pervasiveness itself deprived the defendants of their right to due process of law. Here, with the “publicity” being the subject of motion practice before the trial even began, Berrigan can address whether any prospective juror may have been influenced by pre-trial publicity which was wrongly “planted” by the prosecutors. This can be addressed in any number of ways, by striking prospective jurors who may have been prejudiced, investigating whether the pre-trial publicity warrants a change of venue, or mistrial, or a new jury pool, etc. All of this is probably on everyone’s mind, especially Berrigan’s, during jury selection. I just don’t see it going anywhere, since it is playing out entirely differently than in the Henry Glover case, even if damaging information about Nagin WAS INDEED WRONGFULLY “leaked” to Lee Zurik by anyone in Letten’s office. Ashton O’Dwyer.