11wbshepherd4Susan Poag / The Times-PicayuneAs his attorney John Reed, his mother Margie H. Richardson and father Eddie Shepherd stand by his side,State Sen. Derrick Shepherd,second from right, apologizes to his family and constituents after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering at the federal courthouse on October 10, 2008. His bond was revoked Friday and he was jailed after being arrested on outstanding warrants. A federal judge ordered former state Sen. Derrick Shepherd to jail on Friday, where he will remain until his February sentencing on corruption charges.

The decision by U.S. Judge Carl Barbier included revoking Shepherd’s bond, which had allowed him to remain free on bond after he pleaded guilty in a federal money laundering conspiracy.

Jim Letten.JPGThe Times-PicayuneJim Letten

The judge’s actions come on the heels of Shepherd’s arrest earlier this week on outstanding warrants, including one in New Orleans for domestic violence. According to New Orleans Municipal Court documents, Shepherd last February hit a woman and bit her. He is scheduled to stand trial in that case next week.

“One of the warrants is from last February and arose from a disagreement with a woman friend, ” Shepherd’s lawyer, John Reed, is reported as telling the Associated Press earlier this week.

Shepherd was arrested in Jefferson Parish in 2008 after he broke into his ex-girlfriend Thaise Ashford’s home, punched her in the stomach and took her cell phone and $100.

Those are seperate charges and are pending, according to court records.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said that until Shepherd’s arrest, federal prosecutors did not know he had any outstanding warrants.

“When we found this out, we brought this to the attention of the court,” Letten said.

A minute entry filed in the federal court record shows that a federal prosecutor filed two documents under seal before the judge ordered Shepherd to be remanded into custody.

Jefferson Parish authorities arrested a two men and a woman for allegedly running a pair of Metairie motels as “houses of ill repute.”

Manhesh Mistry.jpgJPSOManhesh MistryManhesh Mistry, 41; Bharat Parikh, 57; and Zandra Davis, 31; all of Metairie, were arrested Monday by detectives with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office Vice Squad after an investigation that began in August, according to arrest and incident reports.

Mistry, owner of the Travel Inn Plaza, 5733 Airline Drive, and Parikh, a clerk at the motel, are accused of renting rooms to undercover detectives who posed as a pimp and a prostitute, the reports said. On at least three occasions, they allegedly rented the “pimp” a room at a rate of $45 for two hours for the pimp’s “girl” who would be working out of the parking lot, according to the reports.

Bharatkumar Parikh.jpgJPSOBharatkumar ParikhThe investigators even staged a fake solicitation in full view of the front office using other detectives.

Davis is accused of doing the same in her capacity as a clerk at La Village Motel, 100 Manson Ave., incident report said. Detectives used the same ruse at the business on at least two occasions.

Mistry and Parikh, both of 5733 Airline Drive, Metairie, were booked with three counts of letting premises for prostitution, three counts of running a house of ill repute and renting a motel room for an hourly rate.

Zandra[1].Davis.jpgJPSOZandra DavisDavis, of 100 Manson Ave., Metairie, was booked with two counts of letting premises for prostitution, three counts of running a house of ill repute and renting a motel room for an hourly rate.

The Sturgis woman who prosecutors say was arrested with a blood-alcohol level almost nine times the legal driving limit, has pleaded not guilty in Sturgis to driving under the influence.

Marguerite Engle, 45, entered the plea Tuesday in Meade County Magistrate Court in Sturgis. Engle was arrested Dec. 1 when she was found passed out behind the wheel of a stolen delivery van along Interstate 90.

Meade County State’s Attorney Jesse Sondreal said Wednesday that other charges against Engle will be presented to a grand jury on Thursday, Jan. 14. Those include driving under the influence, misdemeanor marijuana possession, possession of drug paraphernalia and not having a valid driver’s license.

Sondreal earlier said Engle had a blood-alcohol level of .708 percent, possibly a state record, when she was found behind the wheel of the vehicle parked on I-90.

A South Dakota Highway Patrol trooper discovered Engle passed out behind the wheel of a delivery truck reported stolen from Rapid City.

Her blood-alcohol level was almost nine times South Dakota’s legal limit of .08 percent.

Engle’s reading may be the highest ever recorded in South Dakota, Sondreal said.

Sondreal said a state chemist recalled a sample that tested .53, but nothing higher, in his more than 30 years on the job.

Dr. Robert Looyenga, who recently retired from the Rapid City Police Department’s forensic laboratory, told Sondreal that the highest blood-alcohol sample he tested measured .56 percent.

Sondreal’s research indicates that a blood-alcohol level of .40 is considered a lethal dose for about 50 percent of the population.

“Engle’s was almost double that,” Sondreal said.

After she was found, Engle was hospitalized and freed on bond.

She failed to appear in court on Dec. 15, but Sturgis police located her Jan. 4 in another stolen car sitting in a ditch along S.D. Highway 34 near Fort Meade.

Engle was arrested for second offense driving under the influence and taken to jail. She is being held without bond.

Sondreal said Engle has been living in a hotel after recently moving here from Minnesota.

Engle is most likely facing charges in Pennington County since both vehicles were stolen in Rapid City, Sondreal said.

Without offering evidence, Riley alleged Wednesday on an interview on WBOK-AM that the message from Head referred to him as a “n—–.” The allegations are the latest in a long-simmering feud between the police chief and the councilwoman.

Head called Riley’s assertion, for which he has yet to offer any proof, “absolutely, wholeheartedly, unequivocally not true. It’s against my grain; it’s against my core.”

“I don’t know the genesis of this, but it’s a shame he has stooped to that level,” said Head, who is running for re-election to her District B seat. “It’s below the belt and personal. But I don’t see any need to try and disprove an untruth. I don’t see at this point any need to engage, since our professional relationship is shortly coming to an end.”

Riley’s office did not respond to e-mail messages and telephone requests for comment Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, police spokesman Bob Young said Riley suggested that reporters look through Head’s e-mail messages themselves. Young would not confirm whether Riley actually saw the alleged message or when it was sent. Young declined further comment.

With a closely contested mayoral primary on tap Feb. 6, race - always a hot-button issue in New Orleans politics - has become a dominant theme on the airwaves and on the campaign trail. One mayoral candidate cited it as a reason for dropping out, while another held a news conference to blast the media for focusing on race. Just months ago, recently departed recovery czar Ed Blakely declared that “everyone’s a racist” in New Orleans.

stacy_head.JPGChris Granger/The Times-Picayune archive’It’s below the belt and personal,’ City Councilwoman Stacy Head said.

Riley’s recent comments came in a wide-ranging interview in which the chief, who has said he will leave office in May when Mayor Ray Nagin’s term ends, blasted his critics. He decried the local media, some politicians, business leaders and a “shadow government” — all of whom, he said, have joined forces to make him and Nagin appear incompetent.

“There are certainly people in city government and leadership positions who are incompetent, who are blatantly racists, who have done everything they could to make this administration fail,” Riley said.

Riley said that unnamed “powerful” people have launched a campaign to downplay his and Nagin’s successes as city leaders.

The allegations about Head’s e-mail came up when a radio station caller, who went by the name Malcolm, mentioned the alleged message.

The caller said: “I hear some of our council members are sending e-mails out — one in particular, Ms. Head, sent an e-mail saying she hopes you fail and let’s not approve your budget. But anyway, she’s the failure in all of this anyway.

Riley responded: “You forgot the N-word that was in that e-mail, from what I understand.”

“Well, yeah, you heard about it,” the caller responded. “She said ‘Let’s make this Negro, not Negro, but she used that other one.”

The caller then lambasted the media for ignoring the message. “The news (media) did not, nobody else put that out, nobody else interviewed, nobody made a big story about that. And if it was somebody of color that sat on the City Council who had that kind of behavior, would have been asked to step down.”

Head’s e-mail messages, including some about Riley, have come under intense public scrutiny since a trove of her city electronic messages were released last year. While many were intemperate or embarrassing, none used racial slurs.

In one message, Head wrote of Riley that she was “twisting his balls.”

In others, she called colleague Jackie Clarkson “an ASSS” and “a disaster” and ridiculed the purchases of a woman using food stamps in line ahead of her.

Head responded by saying the messages were released by critics using “tired, old political antics” to gain power.

In the radio interview Wednesday, Riley said there is a “takeover” in the city.

“We have talked about a shadow government. You can decide in your own mind who the shadow government is, and so can your listeners. Has there been an organized effort to make certain leaders in this city look incompetent? Absolutely. With an attempt to ensure that even African-Americans were fed up with African-American leadership,” he said.

Riley said the recent release of a poll - showing that only 33 percent of citizens are satisfied with the NOPD - was timed to dissuade him from entering politics. The poll was unveiled by business leaders shortly before the political qualifying period. Riley also alleged The Times-Picayune chose that week to release several negative stories about him.

“There’s a revolution going on, and we are missing it,” he said.

Riley also criticized the slate of mayoral candidates and promoted his tenure as police chief.

“You know, I listen to the mayoral candidates,” he said. “I run a bigger organization, and have had bigger budgets than any of these individuals. And I’m not knocking any of them. I’m just saying, I have had the ultimate challenge. The only person … there are two people who have bigger challenges than I. And that’s Mayor Nagin and President Obama.”

Riley added that, although several agencies have expressed interest hiring him, he is not going to be a police chief elsewhere.

“I’m looking at a public venture … with a couple people here in the city that I think would be profound and lucrative,” he said. “I also am looking at another position that I will absolutely not talk about. Regardless, I am going to do well no matter what. As I stated, my future is bright. If I don’t work another day in my life I’ll be OK. I’m not just a police chief.”

Brendan McCarthy can be reached at bmccarthy@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3301.

Prosecutors have dropped a criminal case against an investigator for the Orleans Parish Public Defenders Office, months after a dramatic court hearing in which she was led away in handcuffs and accused of kidnapping the alleged victims in a child rape case in order to get an interview.

Emily Beasley, 22, was facing a simple kidnapping charge and a contempt of court conviction on July 15. But by Dec. 16, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro’s office refused charges after all.

“Cooler heads prevailed, ” said Chief Public Defender Derwyn Bunton. “She was doing her job. Emily continues to work for us and she has been fully reinstated.”

Judge Frank Marullo had earlier dismissed the contempt of court charge against Beasley for speaking with the two girls at the center of the rape case outside their home.

Troy Harris, 40, is due to stand trial on aggravated rape, kidnapping and indecent behavior with a juvenile under age 13 on Feb. 24 at Criminal District Court. He remains jailed without bond.

Harris is accused of raping a 12-year-old girl two years ago while her younger sister watched.

Beasley visited the two girls on July 9 after their mother told the defenders office not to speak to her or her children, the mother testified in July.

Beasley spent at least one hour talking to the girls on the steps of a church across the street from their apartment building, prosecutors said.

What prosecutors and Marullo called a violation of Louisiana law protecting victims of crime, the public defenders program called fair representation of indigent defendants that the New Orleans system hadn’t seen since Hurricane Katrina dismantled the office and a new wave of defense lawyers arrived.

If convicted of the rape charge, Harris will receive mandatory life in prison.

Two months after the July hearing, public defender Kendall Green, who was found in contempt of court in the matter but by September the case was reversed by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal, withdrew his office from representing Harris.

Marullo appointed Arthur “Buddy” Lemann III to defend Harris.

“Passions run high when children are involved, ” Bunton said, explaining the initial kidnapping arrest for Beasley. “The right call was made.”