By New Orleans Times-Picayune Editorial NEW ORLEANS — The Justice Department’s investigation into possible criminal and civil violations related to BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is an important and necessary step. The more Americans learn about the decisions and missteps that may have contributed to the disaster, the more it seems that…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com As expected, the Justice Department is going after those involved in the ugliest oil spill in U.S. history. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Jr. announced Tuesday in New Orleans that the Justice Department was launching a criminal and civil probe into the Gulf spill that continues to kill wildlife and livelihoods and…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Four conservative activists including political prankster James O’Keefe, pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to misdemeanor charges stemming from their prank in January to tamper with Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office phones in New Orleans, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported. O’Keefe, the group leader and the most prominent of the four, was…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The ugliness of the post-Katrina police shootings in New Orleans that left two unarmed citizens dead and four wounded in 2005 on the infamous Danziger Bridge continued to unravel in U.S. District Court. New Orleans cop Michael Hunter,33, became the third cop –and the first to actually witness the shootings —…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — It comes as no surprise that U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous of New Orleans is in big big trouble. The U.S. House of Representatives voted unanimously Thursday to impeach him, the Associated Press reported. The news service reported that lawmakers felt he avoided criminal charges only because the…
Udate: Thursday 11:40 a.m. — The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Ex-Cop Jeffrey Lehrmann pleaded guilty this morning to misprision of a felony (a charge for concealing a known felony), for failing to report a conspiracy to obstruct justice in the investigation of a police-involved shooting on the Danziger Bridge in New Orleans. To read press…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The FBI in New Orleans appears to making headway in its probe into the shootings of six people on Danziger Bridge just after Hurricane Katrina hit. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that recently retired New Orleans police Lt. Michael Lohman, who helped investigate the shootings, but was not involved with them,…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Sometimes public corruption — particularly in Louisiana — has a way of making you snicker — at least for a moment. The sentencing in U.S. District Court in New Orleans of ex-State Sen. Derrick Shepherd on Thursday to 37 months in prison for money laundering made me think of the rich…
