How Team Letten could f*ck up the Jefferson Parish investigation defies the imagination as it was literally shooting fish in a barrel with in your face corruption. That said Slabbed has been detailing former Parish Councilman Byron Lee’s double dealing since 2010 so nothing in Hammerman’s report detailing Fred Heebe and Dominick Fazzio stuffing his pocket’s full of illicit campaign ca$h surprises me:
Hammerman mentions the Concrete Busters lawsuit I do not see it going anywhere. All eye on the Waste Management suit.
The reader comments sum things up nicely. I’ll add I contacted the FCC after the T-P put all the meat on the bones of a story Slabbed broke in December 2010 (on the down low) in the Robinette Federal grand jury subpoena as it is very clear the people at Entercom Communication’s WWL AM/FM are not to be trusted to report news in the public interest.
Garlandfill’s microphone cost a man of Fred Heebe’s wealth a relative pittance and at scandals end it is the briefcase boy that ended up with a lifelong case of the mookie stinks. It is a recurring theme in the human condition.
“And now with Broussard and company doing what they’re doing they don’t need Fazzio anymore,” Titus said, according to the transcript. “Cause Broussard’s gonna … he’s gonna be the man on the inside. He gonna be f–king doing whatever the f–k he can to save his own soul.”
BrousStar must be hogging the limelight eh? And what of Ed Garner??
Garner, who was supposed to testify in the hearing Wednesday, did not show up. His attorney, Eric Hessler, said Garner was in Brazil on a business trip. But Hessler revealed that, had he been present, Garner would have invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and that he plans to do so in any future proceedings in this case…..
“When you have poisonous snakes to your right and poisonous snakes to your left, it’s better to move slowly,” Hessler said.
Manuel Torres at NOLA Media Group has the latest on Titus:
Aiming to stay on the offensive in the River Birch probe, federal prosecutors are preparing a new indictment to pile on additional charges – and perhaps add new defendants – as early as Thursday, according to court testimony and sources close to the probe.
Mark Titus, who was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison on a conspiracy charge, is likely to be charged in the superseding indictment, said his attorney, Jimmy Ardoin. In court, Ardoin revealed that prosecutors have given him notice of their plans to file a new indictment soon.
Presario had the worst news for Team Landfill the other day in a comment left on Slabbed in the extra national resources the Department of Justice is putting in this area as the show down with former George Bush US Attorney Nominee Fred Heebe and his step dad Jim Ward draws closer. Dominick Fazzio, Chief Financial Officer of all things landfill and reputed mafia capo is up next for his alleged role conspiring with Titus to steal more than a cool million from Garner Services, a company Titus co-owned. Continue reading “Jefferson Parish Corruption Miscellany: The crushing of Mark Titus begins with “Big D” on deck. Henry Mouton gets a cookie”
A billboard featuring Garland Robinette off the Pontchartrain Expressway in late 2011. Photo by Michael DeMocker, The Times-Picayune
Lifers here know the deal but for you newbies I’ll point out that Slabbed broke Garland Robinette’s subpoena to the federal grand jury investigating political corruption way back in November, 2010 with a tease and straight out in March, 2011 (if memory serves). The gang over at the Times Picayune picked up the ball and did some excellent reporting on same as Garland Robinette’s opinions are evidently for sale to the highest bidder.
A few nights ago Fox 8 carried the latest developments with a 100% Team Garlandfill sourced report that rankled some of my readers. In the interest of presenting a complete picture I’d like to present yesterday’s story from the new NOLA Media Group on the same topic by Manuel Torres.
I’m not sure why Robinette wants to continue fleshing this topic out frankly because all the gyrations about there being a “loan” between him and Heebe are based solely on his unsupported assertions and I personally don’t believe a word the man says, especially since St Tammany Parish land and mortgage records did not indicate a mortgage was ever officially filed.
Finally Robinette’s self-serving rationalization about taking the money to build an art studio smacks of the exact type of self-entitled, pompous mindset we regularly skewer here at Slabbed. In Robinette’s case he violated the public’s trust.
If you’re a newbie I’d encourage you to run Garland Robinette’s name through the search box on the right sidebar to access Slabbed’s prior coverage of this portion of the massive political corruption scandal in metro New Orleans.
The Slabbed community has been all over Team River Birch’s use of straw man political campaign contributions to exceed the statutory limits since literally since day 1 when we broke it. Yesterday evening, Paul Rioux filed a story for the T-P updating this portion of the sprawling political corruption saga as Big D wants a stay in the Louisiana Ethics Board case against him since he would have to take the 5th amendment, the theory being he can’t ‘splain without admitting to what the campaign cash money trail clearly says he did.
Fazzio’s lawyer for the Ethics investigation, the River Birch paid Stephen London surfaces again as Big D evidently is trying to make use of that agreement he signed in River Birch’s best interest to score free legal help. If this is indeed the case London is as conflicted as he was trying to defend Fazzio before Judge Ginger, who tossed him after the US Attorney’s office sought his DQ because of that agreement which I again mention today.
In any event today Rioux again spells out for his audience something we already knew: Bobby Jindal and Aaron Broussard were the biggest beneficiaries of the Fazzio campaign money train.
The suit, filed a year later on May 18, does not list who received the allegedly illegal contributions or the amounts. But a Times-Picayune review of campaign finance reports indicates that 24 candidates have received donations totaling $90,500 from the seven firms named in the suit since 2009, the cutoff date for the three-year statute of limitations.
On a completely related note the recent postponement of Dominick Fazzio’s brother in law’s sentencing to October is raising speculation that Dominick Fazzio has decided to cooperate with the DOJ.
Let the speculation begin. If Dominick Fazzio has indeed seen the light it puts that recent Mark Moseley column at the Lens in a whole new light folks.
Late last week Judge Ginger made it official folks, Dominick Fazzio’s legal fee agreement with Team Heebe/Ward/River Birch Landfill made it impossible for him to get unconflicted legal representation. The good news is Big D gets federal public defender Sam Scillitani as his new lawyer, at least for the time being. The federal public defenders office did a great job with our own AROD against USA Letten’s trumped-up threat charges against him so Big D is in competent legal hands for now.
This one has all the signs of a first class crushing. I’ll note sentences like the one I think Big D will end up with qualify such felons for places like the prison in Marion Illinois where solitary confinement is the rule more so than the exception. The deleterious mental impacts of solitary have been well documented:
In addition, solitary confinement often resulted in severe exacerbation of a previously existing mental condition. Even among inmates who did not develop overt psychiatric illness as a result of solitary confinement, such confinement almost inevitably imposed significant psychological pain during the period of isolated confinement and often significantly impaired the inmate’s capacity to adapt successfully to the broader prison environment.
It is both tragic and highly disturbing that the lessons of the nineteenth century experience with solitary confinement are today being so completely ignored by those responsible for addressing the housing and the mental health needs in the prison setting. For, indeed, the psychiatric harm caused by solitary confinement had become exceedingly apparent well over one hundred years ago.
I hear even the Dapper Don, John Gotti ended up smearing his own feces on himself from the bad mental impacts of solitary before he died at Marion Illinois. File that one from the penthouse to the shithouse files.
I’m literally going to be from one end of South Mississippi to the other today so I have little to no time for blogging but here is a post for everyone so moved to comment. Here are a couple of items I know are floating about:
Dominick Fazzio’s lawyer has a serious conflict of interest and all the BS about River Birch not paying for Fazzio’s legal team has been exposed as just that, bullshit.
Garlandfill Robinette being a payola fueled whore on Entercom Communications remains in the news as we receive word he gave Fred Heebe the lot he claims secured the nonexistent $250,000 loan he got from Heebe in exchange for shilling for River Birch after Katrina. We know from the wiretap transcripts Fazzio never issued a 1099 to tax report the payments to Henry Mouton and I bet Garlandfill was both written off as an expense on the River Birch side and also not tax reported. Predictably when it smells extra bad and there is publicity to be had, legal apologist Dane Ciolino will be about like a fly on shit pretending to be an ethics expert. The self serving rationalization he posits on Robinette’s role in the River Birch saga are stunningly dishonest folks as I’ll note Ciolino was one of Tim Whitmer’s early legal shills. I think Dane and Garland must certainly get on well.
Jason over at American Zombie has rolled out an excellent post on the Camsoft suit in Baton Rouge. Sometimes you have to travel to another state to find out what is going on in your own but Chip Reno over at the Jackson Mississippi based Talon Group has come up a time or two dating back to Mark St Pierre’s trial. I’m going to have something on the same pleading with some luck but I’ll note for now that Reno and our own Gov elect Phildo Bryant are joined at the hip. I understand Reno is a former Jackson City Councilman but what interest me the most is the cross-pollination he has going with Phildo. Make no mistake the role Reno played in the techno fleecing of the City of New Orleans is major deal. Here is a snippet from the Zombie:
How…for the love of Dambala…..how….the fuck…..is Ed Burns not in jail? How did Ciber completely skate out of this bullshit? They hired Reno and The Talon Group to pimp their private services but instead of paying for it…they bundled the cost of the Talon Group’s services into the City of New Orleans tab….the 56 million dollar tab. Continue reading “We have several items of interest floating about….”
