Tag: New Orleans DA Leon Cannizzaro

Jim Letten resignation fallout: “Hold on to your wallets. The crime families are back in business”

“Be careful not to mistake insecurity and inadequacy for humility!
Humility has nothing to do with the insecure and inadequate!
Just like arrogance has nothing to do with greatness!” ~ C. JoyBell C.

“Arrogance diminishes wisdom” ~ Arabian proverb

OK folks I know some of y’all must be scratching your heads at the post title and my choice of quotes that frame this post but bear with me.  First off for all my peeps in the TeeVee media I watched most of the coverage last night.  Lee Zurik over at Fox 8 and Chick Foret at Channel 4 get attaboys, Zurik because it looks like he is trying to think outside the box on Letten’s replacement and Chick Foret for his brutal, yet accurate assessment of how the axe came down on Jim Letten.  I viewed this as a business decision and once people began to say, accurately IMHO, that Letten did not know about the online activities of Jan Mann, Sal Perricone and a rumored 2 other DoJ employees such was a clear sign he was a figurative dead man walking.  And while I’m certain feelings are running high at Team Letten right now I think Mr. Letten would be the first person to say that entering the chop shop is the proper last act in these circumstances.

So if Letten is penitent then we must look elsewhere for the arrogance so now we examine a small snippet from Gordon Russell and John Simerman’s comprehensive Jim Letten resignation story for NOLA.com:

Because of civil service protection afforded to federal prosecutors, neither Letten nor his superiors was likely able to fire Mann immediately, according to lawyers familiar with federal rules. “If she wants to hunker down, she can,” said former U.S. Attorney Harry Rosenberg. “He cannot summarily fire her.”

This is a clear reference to the local rumor mill on Mann. Unlike Sal Perricone, who fell on his sword quickly, Jan Mann stayed on refusing to resign until yesterday when the issue was forced via the forced resignation of her boss. Rumor holds the big guy himself asked Mann to man up and leave. The same rumor said Mann made like Nancy Reagan and just said no.  If that is true and I think there is at least a kernel of truth in the rumor so everyone should now understand the lead off quotes I chose this morning.

This brings me to former US Attorney Harry Rosenberg’s last quote in the story I linked above: Continue reading “Jim Letten resignation fallout: “Hold on to your wallets. The crime families are back in business””

Miss Dixie covers the topic of denial and the Sherry murders as Slabbed explores the evolution of the vice trade on the coast.

Yesterday, Sun Herald reporter Anita Lee did a “subsequent event” update of those still living that were involved in the murder conspiracy involving Circuit Court Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret way back in 1987.  The echos of this Dixie Mafia inspired hit still reverberate across the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans to this day. For those of you with an interest in this subject, which inspired several books and at least one documentary, Anita’s story is a must read along with the reader comments as the descendants of the felons involved remain firmly in denial.  This comment sums the whole deal up save for Margaret Sherry IMHO, who paid with her life for her husband’s prior legal associations. That said, with the descendants of Pete Halet proclaiming his innocence in the story’s comments, I thought this comment was most appropriate to highlight here on Slabbed:

The Sherry’s had children too…

Indeed they did and daughter Lynne Sposito’s son Thomas commented on my last post on this topic taking umbrage with me terming his granddad “dirty as the day is long”. While it was not my intent to inflict emotional pain on the family of the victim I stand by my assessment. The story is out there and by “story” I don’t mean Mississippi Mud, the Sherry family sourced book which unfairly IMHO impugned former Biloxi Mayor Gerald Blessey due to his prior history of locking horns politically with Margaret Sherry when she was on the city council. In hindsight Mississippi Mud is the literary equivalent of a blog as it was published when events were still unfolding and before everything became known.  Locals that remember the events real time such as myself often wonder why it was never updated.  I think I figured that one out after my last post.

Back to the story being out there, one of Anita commenters posted a link to an extensive account of the murders and history of the Dixie Mafiosos that felt free to greenlit a sitting Circuit Court Judge written for TRU TV and for those with some time to kill is also a must read. Here are a few snippets: Continue reading “Miss Dixie covers the topic of denial and the Sherry murders as Slabbed explores the evolution of the vice trade on the coast.”

Criminal District Court Judge Calvin Johnson would like a word….

For those that read us from afar there has been a spat ongoing between the criminal district court judges in New Orleans and NOLA DA/former criminal district court Judge Leon Cannizzaro over the use of the judicial expense fund (JEF) at the court.  The judges were receiving employment bennies not authorized under the Louisiana Code paid for by JEF.  There has been lots of coverage locally of this controversy including Cannizzaro’s involvement of Louisiana AG Buddy Caldwell and indeed I even chimed in a couple of times on the topic.  James Gill at the T-P has written extensively on the topic as well and Judge Johnson took exception with this Gill column from early November.  Feeling he did not get any satisfaction from his email to Sir James, Judge Johnson’s peeps contacted my peeps and the end result is the following email Judge Johnson sent to Sir James. Click the pic to get the entire 2 page pdf. ~ sop Continue reading “Criminal District Court Judge Calvin Johnson would like a word….”

Tuesday Links

God bless him an AP reporter managed to make a story out of yesterday’s legislative audit report on the sand berms. Folks, a reader was kind enough to alert me about the 12 page report yesterday, I read it and found it marginally interesting but not enough to make a post out of it.  In a way it is an interim report to the Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration as Shaw and the OCPR are still working to resolve the remaining cost items. The amount of money in question ($500K) is miniscule to the total $251MM spent on Bermdoggle by Jindy and his political lap dogs Nunny, Mini-me etc.

Speaking of Mini-me wouldn’t a similar cost audit provision been nice in the (non)Performing Arts fiasco. Gambitman Clancy DuBos thinks something criminal may have occurred but remains off in the weeds with the focus on Wiznia IMHO. We agree on the need for a federal investigation though. 😉

Today is general election day here in Mississippi. I like the fact the Sun Herald did not make endorsements in every race. I’m most interested in the state senate race in Long Beach and the house district 122 race in Bay-Waveland. In Long Beach the GOP ran a series of highly misleading ads that ended up being pulled against incumbent Deborah Dawkins. That race is a rematch of the 2007 election featuring the daughter of the mayor of Long Beach. In House district 122 David Baria managed to out-fundraise Dorothy Wilcox by $20K. Continue reading “Tuesday Links”

Leon Cannizzaro: Yep I did it too but the rest of ’em need prosecution

All I can tell you folks is the backstabbing involved with NOLA DA Leon Cannizzaro and the NOLA Criminal District Court judges is stunning as John Simerman reports today for the T-P.  I’ve been hearing rumors about discord in both the NOLA civil and criminal district courts for well over a year and that does not count the expense funds both courts maintain that are alleged to be slush funds. Worth noting is DA Cannizzaro evidently admitted that he also partook of the forbidden fruit during his time as a criminal district court judge but that is also water long under the bridge.  Judge Frank Marullo is shit outta luck though.

This animal has lots of heads and there has been some high quality work done on various subtopics such as the computer crash at Mortgages and Conveyances by folks like Dambala at American Zombie via Humid Beings.  For my part I think Slabbed will be a net beneficiary of the strife and discord as Louisiana Attorney General Buddy ‘Tickle my ass with a feather” Caldwell enters the fray. Stay tuned folks.

sop

From the two dogs fighting over the same piece of meat files….

I present today’s column by James Gill, which I found curious.  While Sir James stops well short of outright extolling the virtues of blind Judge Frank Marullo, the fact that brown paper bags have always been part of the local prostitution scene leaves me wondering why anyone is worried about the cost of room and board at parish prison for 30 street whores when the associated graft is likely staggering by comparison.

Back in the day whenever someone new took over vice at NOPD all the clubs would be raided so the proprietors understood who they needed to pay.  I wonder if something like that is in play here beyond the fine and forfeits.  All this is a fancy way of saying my instincts tell me there is a back story here worth knowing.

sop

The original title for this post was "The grass is always greener" but then I saw today's T-P editorial and can't stop laughing…

NMC tackled the latest Connick v Thompson related case in a post that ended up placing wet kisses on NOLA DA Leon Cannizzaro in comments as Cannizzaro was evidently able to bullshit an out of town lawyer/commenter on his blog and I was amused to the point where I had the post title concepetualized in a “Grass is always greener” type of theme. Like Mitch Landrieu and Ray Nagin, Cannizzaro is a vast improvement on his predecessor Harry Connick but in ways that also doesn’t mean much. The crooks in the political classes now have some limits to their pilfering like the good old days but make no mistake the NOLA power structure is as crooked as it ever was Cannizzaro included.

So I got a great belly laugh at the T-P fawning over Cannizzaro for making an example of out of towner Jim Bridger of Public Belt infamy in today’s editorial page. Bridger will make a nice easy target for the grand standing DA.  Noticably absent has been any editorials on Paul Connick for not doing his job on public corruption in Jefferson Parish.

Give me a C, give me an A, give me an N……

sop