Posts Tagged ‘Louisiana’

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ACORN ‘gotcha’ man arrested in attempt to tamper with Mary Landrieu’s office phones

January 27th, 2010 | Posted in Local Issues by bloom | No Comments »

By David Hammer, The Times-Picayune
January 26, 2010, 6:23PM
okeefe-landrieu.JPGPatrick Semansky / The Associated PressJames O’Keefe, left, and Stan Dai walk out of the St. Bernard Parish jail in Chalmette on Tuesday. O’Keefe, a conservative activist who last year posed as a pimp to target the community-organizing group ACORN, is one of four people arrested by the FBI and accused of trying to interfere with phones at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans.

Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group’s credibility.

Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana. All four men were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.
basel-landrieu.JPGThe Associated PressJoseph Basel, 24, is one of four men arrested at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s offices in New Orleans.

An official close to the investigation said one of the four was arrested with a listening device in a car blocks from the senator’s offices. He spoke on condition of anonymity because that information was not included in official arresting documents.

According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street on Monday about 11 a.m., dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts and hard hats. When they arrived at Landrieu’s 10th-floor office, O’Keefe was already in the office and had told a staffer he was waiting for someone to arrive.
When Flanagan and Basel entered the office, they told the staffer they were there to fix phone problems. At that time, the staffer, referred to only as Witness 1 in the affidavit, observed O’Keefe positioning his cell phone in his hand to videotape the operation. O’Keefe later admitted to agents that he recorded the event.

After being asked, the staffer gave Basel access to the main phone at the reception desk. The staffer told investigators that Basel manipulated the handset. He also tried to call the main office phone using his cell phone, and said the main line wasn’t working. Flanagan did the same.

They then told the staffer they needed to perform repair work on the main phone system and asked where the telephone closet was located. The staffer showed the men to the main General Services Administration office on the 10th floor, and Flanagan and Basel went in. There, a GSA employee asked for the men’s credentials. They said they left them in their vehicle.

The U.S. Marshal’s Service apprehended all four men shortly thereafter.

Landrieu said: “This is a very unusual situation and somewhat unsettling for me and my staff. The individuals responsible have been charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purposes of committing a felony. I am as interested as everyone else about their motives and purpose, which I hope will become clear as the investigation moves forward.”

Landrieu’s Republican counterpart, Sen. David Vitter, called for a racketeering investigation against New Orleans-founded ACORN last year in the wake of O’Keefe’s videos.

“I’ve seen the news reports and it’s obvious this is a very serious matter. We’re blessed with an extremely competent U.S. attorney’s office in New Orleans, and I know they’ll handle this as aggressively as they have other serious cases,” Vitter said in a statement.

ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said the arrest calls O’Keefe’s credibility into question, and used the opportunity to point out that he “edited (ACORN videos) to make things look as bad as possible.” He said, for instance, that O’Keefe actually wore a normal dress shirt when he was in the ACORN offices, but spliced in shots of him dressed as a pimp in the final videos.
But he also acknowledged that O’Keefe’s undercover ACORN footage showed truly improper conduct by ACORN staff.

“ACORN’s leadership and grassroots leaders have taken a whole series of steps, including commissioning an independent report that shows actually there wasn’t illegal conduct by any of the ACORN employees involved, although we fired people involved for improper conduct,” Whelan said.

O’Keefe on Thursday gave a speech to the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, a libertarian group in New Orleans.

20Acornside01YouTubeFilmmaker James O’Keefe dressed as a pimp before entering ACORN offices last year. O’Keefe was arrested Monday after allegedly attempting to tamper with U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office phones in New Orleans.

Last fall, O’Keefe was hailed as a conservative hero for dressing as a pimp and taping ACORN employees offering advice on how he and a partner could get away with running an international underage prostitution scheme.
The New Orleans event was promoted with this glowing statement about O’Keefe by the Pelican Institute: “James has been a pioneer in the use of new media to drive these kinds of important stories. He will discuss the role of new media and show examples of effective investigative reporting.”

The four men appeared in federal magistrate court Tuesday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Louis Moore wearing red inmate jumpsuits from St. Bernard Parish Prison. Moore is allowing the men to be released on $10,000 bond each.

The men have to go to pretrial services, a federal agency, tomorrow morning. Moore allowed three of the men to stay together Tuesday night, but ordered them to not talk about the case.

Eddie Castaing is the lawyer representing O’Keefe, Basel and Dai, all of whom are from out of town. He said Tuesday that he was not prepared to comment on the case and would know more Wednesday. He also said he gave one of his clients $60 to take a taxicab from St. Bernard Parish Prison back to wherever they are staying.

According to the Phillips Foundation’s Web site, Dai was the editor-in-chief of the GW Patriot, an alternative conservative student newspaper, when he attended The George Washington University in 2006. According to information Dai posted in September 2007 on the university’s online alumni directory, he lived in Naperville, Ill., helped run a “Defense Deparment regional defense counterterrorism/irregular warfare program” and then became assistant director of the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at Trinity Washington University, which prepares undergraduates for careers in intelligence.
On Tuesday at 4:40 p.m., O’Keefe, Dai and Basel were released from the jail and were waiting for a cab. Asked to comment, O’Keefe said only, “Veritas,” which is Latin for “truth.” O’Keefe’s biography on the blog site www.BigGovernment.com says he works at VeritasVisuals.com, although that site does not appear to be functioning.

O’Keefe spent most of the time in the men’s room off the jail’s lobby, then hustled to the cab when it arrived. As he ran into the back seat, he called out, “The truth shall set me free.”

Robert Flanagan’s attorney, J. Garrison Jordan, said he believes his client works for the Pelican Institute. Asked the motivation for the alleged wiretap plot, he said: “I think it was poor judgment. I don’t think there was any intent or motive to commit a crime.”

DWI law changes weighed by governor’s task force

January 26th, 2010 | Posted in DUI/DWI, Legislation, Local Issues by bloom | No Comments »

By Ed Anderson, The Times-Picayune
January 25, 2010, 7:14PM

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Task Force on Driving While Intoxicated and Vehicular Homicide agreed Monday to look into the possibility of increasing fines and penalties for drunken driving, but delayed a vote on specific proposals until more research is done.

The task force will examine the laws and fines in states with lower fatality rates, and possibly make its recommendations to the Legislature based on that information, said John LeBlanc, executive director of the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission and a member of the task force.

norma_broussard.JPG’We don’t want children to be driven by someone who just rolled out of jail,’ said Norma Broussard, an assistant district attorney in Jefferson Parish who handles DWI cases.

“I am not opposed to additional fines,” LeBlanc said, “but before we proceed, we should do the study.”

* In July, Gov. Bobby Jindal signed three bills changing drunk drivng laws.

Louisiana recorded 451 alcohol-related highway fatalities in 2008 and 427 in 2009, although not all data has been compiled, commission spokeswoman Jamie Ainsworth said.

“The fines and costs have not been increased in a while,” said Norma Broussard, an assistant district attorney in Jefferson Parish who handles DWI cases. “It needs to be looked at. Hitting people in the pocketbook is a good way” to reduce drunk driving.

Recommendations could be adopted at the task force’s Feb. 22 meeting.

LeBlanc said he also will look at possibly increasing the criminal penalties for DWIs if lawmakers don’t want to increase fines. “We don’t want to propose anything that would not be successful,” LeBlanc said.

Murphy Painter, chairman of the task force and director of the state Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control, cautioned the task force to focus on a handful of issues for the legislative session, possibly three to five recommendations that have a good chance of passing.

Painter said the panel will probably zero in on changes on how the state monitors the use of ignition interlock devices for those convicted of DWIs. He said that sometimes a person gets the device and pays for six months of service then lets the payments lapse or uses another car.

The devices require drivers to blow into them before turning the ignition; if the device detects alcohol on the driver’s breath, it bars the vehicle from starting.

The task force also is looking at legislation to require school bus drivers who have been cited for a DWI to “self-report” the incident before picking up kids again.

“This would prevent someone getting a DWI at 1, 2, 3 o’clock in the morning and getting on a school bus with 50 kids” later in the day, Painter said.

Rep. Jonathan Perry, R-Kaplan, a member of the task force, said the panel may want to require the driver to self-report to the local school board and leave it up to the school board to assess a possible administrative penalty such as suspending the driver.

“We don’t want children to be driven by someone who just rolled out of jail,” Broussard said.

Broussard also suggested a change in the law that now requires judges to order the seizure and sale of vehicles of drivers convicted for third and subsequent DWIs. “I have not spoken to any district attorneys in the state that have implemented this,” Broussard said, conceding the law requires the judges to order it as a part of sentencing.

She said that district attorneys and police should be cut in on some of the proceeds of the sale of seized vehicles, possibly encouraging more stringent enforcement and use of the seizure and sale provisions of existing law.

Broussard suggested that 60 percent of the proceeds go to local police agencies, 20 percent to district attorneys and the other 20 percent to a special insurance commission that studies auto insurance rates and law changes.

Committee members agreed that if police, who must pay storage and auction costs of vehicles seized, are paid, judges may be more likely to enforce that portion of the DWI law for repeat offenders.

A vote on the measure was deferred until next month to give task force members a chance to see how often judges use the seizure and sale segment in sentencing.

Ed Anderson can be reached at eanderson@timespicayune.com or 225.342.5810.

Florida domestic dispute ends with mother of six shot dead in Kenner

January 22nd, 2010 | Posted in Local Issues by bloom | No Comments »


By Mary Sparacello, The Times-Picayune
January 21, 2010, 6:40PM
lanell_darden_scene_kenner.JPGBrett Duke/The Times-PicayuneAuthorities investigate the shooting of Lanell Darden near Granville T. Woods Elementary School in Kenner.

A mother of six, Lanell Darden moved back to her hometown of Kenner to escape an abusive ex-boyfriend. But he wouldn’t let her leave.

Police said Readus Williams drove 10 hours from his Florida home to shoot Darden dead Thursday morning in a parking lot, just steps from the elementary school where she had walked two children to class.

Officers chased Williams in a vehicle on Interstate 10 until he stopped and was arrested in St. James Parish. They booked him with second-degree murder.
kenkill.jpgBrett Duke / The Times-PicayunePolice investigate the scene where Lanell Darden was shot dead Thursday morning in Kenner.

The victim’s sister said Darden, 28, moved from Kenner to Orlando, Fla., after Hurricane Katrina and recently dated Williams for seven to eight months.

But the relationship soured, and Darden took out a restraining order on Williams after he “put his hands on her,” said Yolanda Darden, relating what she said her sister told her. The order didn’t seem to have any effect because Williams still stalked Darden, her sister said.
KENKILL012210.jpg

Yolanda Darden said she tried to reassure her sister that the woman would be safe in Kenner. “I didn’t think he would travel all the way here,” she said.

So Darden and five of her children moved back just a few weeks ago, into a Kenner Housing Authority apartment at 1013 31st St. The sixth child already was living with another relative in Kenner.
lanell_darden_crop.JPGLanell Darden

Still Williams called. As recently as Tuesday, Yolanda Darden said, he told her sister, “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want you to come back.”

Thursday morning, Darden walked her son and her sister’s son to Granville T. Woods Elementary School, 1037 31st. Returning about 8:15 a.m., she saw Williams, 49, in her apartment complex’s parking lot.

She ran behind another man in the lot, but Williams pushed him away and shot her as other students and parents were arriving at school, police said.

Numerous callers dialed 911. As officers rushed to the scene, witnesses described a man in a red Dodge Durango with Florida license plates speeding away. Officers quickly found the vehicle on 30th Street, but it sped off toward I-10 and headed west.

Williams stopped about 40 miles away in St. James Parish and surrendered without incident, said Lt. Wayne McInnis, a Kenner police spokesman. He had a map and directions from Orlando to the parking lot where Darden was killed, Police Chief Steve Caraway said.
readus_williams_crop.JPGReadus Williams

He did not, however, possess a gun, McInnis said. Detectives think he pitched a gun off I-10 into Lake Pontchartrain as he crossed the Bonnet Carre Spillway. Divers combed the waters there Thursday afternoon, McInnis said.

The shooting had rattled Woods Elementary.

“The school immediately implemented lockdown procedures including gathering students who were still outside of the school building,” said Beth Branley, a Jefferson Parish public school system spokeswoman. In addition, the school system’s crisis team was dispatched to the school to work with students and staff.

“Since it’s elementary, many of the students were confused and upset about what was going on,” Branley said.

Yolanda Darden said her sister had planned to obtain a Graduate Equivalency Degree and had an application to work with her at Wal-Mart. She leaves behind six children ages 3 to 10, all of them now with their father, a former companion who lives in Kenner, Yolanda Darden said.

The family has set up a fund at Omni Bank to pay for funeral and help the children.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office discovers homicide victim in empty Montford Street parking lot

January 21st, 2010 | Posted in Local Issues by bloom | No Comments »


By The Times-Picayune
January 21, 2010, 6:52AM

jpso-badge.jpgJefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies found a young man dead from a gunshot wound to his head in an empty parking lot in the 2800 block of Montford Street late Wednesday, according to officials.

Deputies first responded to a 10:20 p.m. 911 call about a 22-year-old lying down in the lot, apparently suffering from a head injury, said Col. John Fortunato, a spokesman. Paramedics pronounced him dead on the scene, and his death was initially unclassified.

Later, a Jefferson Parish Coroner’s Office investigator determined the wound to the back of the man’s head was due to a gunshot. His death was then ruled a homicide, Fortunato said.

The man’s name was not released early Thursday. He lived in Jefferson, Fortunato said.

No other details are immediately available. Deputies ask anyone with information to call homicide investigators at 504.364.5300 or Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111.

Shooting near West Banks’ MLK parade; suspects in custody

January 19th, 2010 | Posted in Local Issues, NOPD by bloom | No Comments »


By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch
January 18, 2010, 5:29PM

A suspect has been apprehended in the afternoon shooting of two teenagers found near the West Bank’s Martin Luther King Jr. parade.

About 2:15 p.m., parade goers heard gunshots near West Bank Expressway, between Ames Boulevard and Eiseman Avenue in Marrero, authorities said. Jefferson Parish sheriff’s officials subsequently found a 14-year-old boy shot in the leg and a 19-year-old man shot in both the leg and an unspecified part of his body, at 523 Ames Blvd., a couple blocks from the expressway.

University Hospital physicians are treating the two men, and their wounds are not considered life threatening, according to Col. John Fortunato, a sheriff’s spokesman.

After arriving at the scene, sheriff’s officials quickly apprehended a man, who had a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol in his possession near Eiseman and Expressway, according to Fortunato, who added that he does not yet have additional details on the suspect. Authorities found .45-caliber casings near the expressway and believe that while the wounded men were found at the 500 block of Ames, they likely were dragged or walked there.

“There was a blood trail leading from another direction,” said Fortunato, who explained the shooting either occurred at the tail end of the parade or immediately after its conclusion. “We have no idea if anyone of them were participants in the parade.”

He said that while they have a suspect in custody, they are not yet certain he was the shooter.

About 5 p.m., additional shots were fired around Betty Street, about a mile south of the original location. An additional suspect was apprehended for that incident, Fortunato said.

“There’s a lot of people out there, and we are trying to make determinations of where the incidents occurred, and we’re encouraging people to call with additional information,” he said.

Anyone with information may call the Sheriff’s Office at 504.364.5300 or Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111

Shooting near West Banks’ MLK parade; suspects in custody

January 18th, 2010 | Posted in Local Issues by bloom | No Comments »

By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch
January 18, 2010, 5:29PM

A suspect has been apprehended in the afternoon shooting of two teenagers found near the West Bank’s Martin Luther King Jr. parade.

About 2:15 p.m., parade goers heard gunshots near West Bank Expressway, between Ames Boulevard and Eiseman Avenue in Marrero, authorities said. Jefferson Parish sheriff’s officials subsequently found a 14-year-old boy shot in the leg and a 19-year-old man shot in both the leg and an unspecified part of his body, at 523 Ames Blvd., a couple blocks from the expressway.

University Hospital physicians are treating the two men, and their wounds are not considered life threatening, according to Col. John Fortunato, a sheriff’s spokesman.

After arriving at the scene, sheriff’s officials quickly apprehended a man, who had a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol in his possession near Eiseman and Expressway, according to Fortunato, who added that he does not yet have additional details on the suspect. Authorities found .45-caliber casings near the expressway and believe that while the wounded men were found at the 500 block of Ames, they likely were dragged or walked there.

“There was a blood trail leading from another direction,” said Fortunato, who explained the shooting either occurred at the tail end of the parade or immediately after its conclusion. “We have no idea if anyone of them were participants in the parade.”

He said that while they have a suspect in custody, they are not yet certain he was the shooter.

About 5 p.m., additional shots were fired around Betty Street, about a mile south of the original location. An additional suspect was apprehended for that incident, Fortunato said.

“There’s a lot of people out there, and we are trying to make determinations of where the incidents occurred, and we’re encouraging people to call with additional information,” he said.

Anyone with information may call the Sheriff’s Office at 504.364.5300 or Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111

Metairie title agent imprisoned for $777,000 wire fraud

January 17th, 2010 | Posted in Local Issues by bloom | No Comments »

By The Times-Picayune
January 14, 2010, 6:40PM

Hubert Ellzey Jr. secretly bilked clients out of $777,000 before Hurricane Katrina put an end to his scheme.

When the storm hit Aug. 29, 2005, all real estate closings in the New Orleans area halted for a time, upsetting the Metairie title agent’s practice of converting clients’ mortgage money to his personal use then covering the misappropriation with money from future mortgage payments.

As a result, he pleaded guilty Sept. 23 to wire fraud, and U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon sentenced him Thursday to almost three years in prison.

Ellzey, 68, worked nine years as an independent agent for Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Co. His job called for using his escrow account and wire transfers to move money among financial institutions as they granted and paid off loans.

But sometime before June 2005, he started diverting money into his own accounts then covering his tracks with money from later mortgage payments, according to court records. That happened on six real estate closings in Avondale, Gretna, New Orleans and Metairie, involving lenders in Georgia, Illinois, New York and Texas.

“The scheme was discovered when, after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans … all closings came to a halt and Ellzey was unable to cover some of the funds converted to his own use and to close the pending mortgages,” said a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.

The case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Juan Masini.

Fallon, whom President Clinton nominated for the judgeship, sentenced Ellzey to 35 months in prison, followed by three years’ probation. He also ordered restitution to Commonwealth.

Former state Sen. Derrick Shepherd jailed after his bond is revoked

January 15th, 2010 | Posted in Legislation, Local Issues by bloom | 1 Comment »

By Laura Maggi, The Times-Picayune
January 15, 2010, 4:00PM

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.

Execution today will be first in Louisiana since 2002

January 7th, 2010 | Posted in Courts, Local Issues by bloom | No Comments »

By The Associated Press
January 07, 2010, 6:50AM

Louisiana will conduct its first execution since 2002 when convicted killer Gerald Bordelon is put to death today by injection for murdering his 12-year-old stepdaughter.

State prison officials say they don’t expect any last-minute disruption to the execution plans at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Bordelon waived his right to appeal his death sentence, and his lawyer has pushed to proceed on schedule.

“He’s expressed no intention to stop it whatsoever and has told me in no uncertain terms to oppose any attempts by anyone else to stop his execution,” said attorney Jill Craft.

Bordelon, 47, a convicted sex offender out on parole, strangled Courtney LeBlanc after kidnapping her from her Livingston Parish home at knifepoint and forcing her to perform oral sex on him.

LeBlanc disappeared on Nov. 15, 2002, and was found 11 days later when Bordelon led police to her body in a wooded area by the Amite River in Livingston Parish, about 20 miles from Baton Rouge. He gave a taped confession and was convicted of the murder in 2006.

He is scheduled to be executed between 6 and 9 p.m. Craft said that Bordelon will meet this morning with his mother, sisters and other family members, who won’t be present for the execution. He has asked Craft to read a statement after his death.

LeBlanc family members are expected to be among the execution’s witnesses, which also will include the prison warden, the coroner, a doctor, three media representatives and a minister if Bordelon requests one.

Other inmates have been on death row for more years than Bordelon but still remain in court disputes over their cases. Bordelon refused to appeal his death sentence. Craft said Bordelon is the first person in Louisiana to successfully waive a death sentence appeal since the death penalty was reinstated in the state.

“He has told me repeatedly that he made that decision because he has a right to an appeal and he has a right not to appeal. He felt very strongly about the issue. He spent greater than half his life in prison for rape. He admits freely that he’s guilty of killing Courtney and the sex crimes he was accused of and accepts the punishment from the state of Louisiana,” Craft said.

Gov. Bobby Jindal said he has no plans to intervene.

“In Louisiana, as across this country, the death penalty is reserved for only the most heinous, the most violent, the most atrocious crimes. I think justice will be done Thursday night,” Jindal said.

In his videotaped confession, Bordelon said he abducted LeBlanc from his estranged wife’s trailer with a knife he grabbed from the kitchen, took her by car to Mississippi, where he forced her to have oral sex, then drove her back to Louisiana and strangled her. When LeBlanc’s body was found, she was wearing only a pair of shorts and one tennis shoe.

“I took Courtney and told her if she screamed or hollered or tried to get away, I was going to kill her,” Bordelon said on the tape, which was played to jurors at his trial.

According to court documents, Bordelon had two prior felony convictions for sexual assault in 1982 and 1990 and was sent to psychiatric treatment in 1979 after being accused of rape and kidnapping. He pleaded guilty to sexual battery in 1982, and he was convicted of rape and two counts of crimes against nature in 1990.

He was out on parole when he met LeBlanc’s mother, Jennifer Kocke, over the Internet and married her a year later. They separated after LeBlanc and her sister told their mother that Bordelon touched them inappropriately, but Kocke remained in contact with Bordelon after the split, according to documents filed with the state Supreme Court.

Louisiana Parole Board officials said an officer spoke with Kocke before the marriage, notifying her that Bordelon was a convicted sex offender. Kocke was convicted of child abuse by a Mississippi jury for failing to keep Bordelon away from her children. Kocke received a suspended five-year sentence, with five years of probation.

The documents say that when LeBlanc asked to waive his appeal, he said he would “commit the same crime again if ever given the chance.”

Eighty-three other people are on death row in Louisiana — 81 men and two women, according to the state Department of Corrections. No other executions have been scheduled. The last person executed in Louisiana was Leslie Dale Martin, convicted of raping and killing a 19-year-old college student in 1991. Martin was put to death in May 2002.

Big News! On September 1, a big change in the Louisiana DWI law went into effect. From the Times-Pic:

September 8th, 2009 | Posted in DUI/DWI, Legislation, Local Issues, Traffic by bloom | No Comments »

House Bill 445 by Rep. Damon Baldone, D-Houma, went into effect at midnight, doubling from six months to a year the length of time drivers can lose their license for refusing a first-time test. Subsequent refusals within five years of the first could mean a two-year suspension, up from the 18 months the old law provided.
This is an important change to the law. If you are pulled over for suspicion of drunk driving, you have the right to refuse a breathalyzer test. To refuse this test is not a crime. However, before this law went into effect, you would only receive a six-month penalty for refusing the test. Now, that penalty goes up to a year. Note that you still have the right to refuse the breathalyzer, and that refusing the test gives you more leverage against prosecutors as you and your attorney negotiate your case. If you take a breathalyzer test when you’re pulled over, prosecutors have that solid piece of evidence to use to convict you of DWI. If they don’t have any results from a breathalyzer test, you have more leverage to negotiate for a lesser charge. But since this new law has gone into effect, the immediate penalties for refusing a breathalyzer test in Louisiana have become more severe. While refusing the test gives you a better chance to avoid that Louisiana felony DWI conviction, it will also mean that you will have to go for a full year without your driver’s license, so you have to weigh the pros and cons of each option. It’s important to note that if you choose to refuse the breathalyzer test, losing your license, you may be able to apply for a “hardship license” that will allow you to drive to certain places, like work or religious services. You will only get the hardship license, however, if you install an ignition interlock device that you have to blow into to confirm that your BAC is 0%. Whether you refused to take the breathalyzer test or agreed to blow, if you have been arrested for DWI in Louisiana it’s crucial that you retain a DWI lawyer as soon as possible. At Bloom Legal, we have one of New Orleans’ top certified DWI lawyers here to help you. As always, if you need a talented, committed DWI Louisiana lawyer, call us today at 504.599.9997.

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