Congressman William Jefferson's Laughable Defenses

First there was ignorant Stan "Pampy" Barre trying to get the government to believe that he received money as consulting fees when everyone knows that an intellectually deficient human being as Mr. Barre could not possibly consult anybody on anything. Now we have Jefferson trying to get us to believe that he did not receive bribes. He and Barre are examples of educated and uneducated fools.
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Make up your mind Congressman Jefferson. First, you wanted to go free because they would not let you pee. Now you are saying they lied because you did not take a bribe.

The judge in the federal case against U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, expressed skepticism Friday at the congressman's central defense that despite evidence that he and his family received nearly $400,000 in payments from companies seeking his influence in business deals, it doesn't amount to bribery.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III issued no rulings after the first round of oral arguments in the 16-count public bribery case. But he did raise questions when Jefferson's attorneys argued that the congressman's actions -- writing letters, traveling to West Africa and meeting with federal officials for paying clients -- can't be considered bribery.

"Using a congressman's influence is not a bribe?" Ellis asked defense attorney Amy Jackson.

Jackson conceded that Jefferson's actions might look bad and defy the "walking-around understanding" of bribery. But, she argued, Jefferson's actions don't violate the bribery statute as spelled out by Congress, which she said talks about "official acts," not every action performed by a congressman while in office.

"That may be people's walking-around understanding, but that is not the statute," Jackson said. "When Congress wants to be specific, it is."

The argument is critical to Jefferson's defense. He contends that he was carrying out a private business deal, not an official act of Congress, when he tried to help Kentucky-based telecommunications firm iGate Inc. land lucrative Internet service contracts in Nigeria and Ghana. IGate paid nearly $400,000 to the ANJ Group, a Louisiana corporation controlled by Jefferson's wife, Andrea, in addition to millions of shares of company stock.

If Jefferson is successful in getting the bribery counts dismissed, much of the government's
2 1/2-year-old case would unravel.

New Orleans former school employees Convicted in Scam

It never ceases to amaze me when I read the newspaper these days. There is always a news story about someone committing bribes, fraud, theft and scams. People should realize that there is no such thing as a free ride. There seems to be no concern for others. Scamming the school system hurt the children as well as the state.

After five hours of deliberations, a federal jury Thursday convicted three former Orleans Parish school employees of doctoring payroll records in order to scam extra cash.

Debra Harrison and Drena Clay were convicted of violating the Hobbs Act by falsifying payroll records in order to beef up their paychecks, while Walter Tardy was convicted of lying to the FBI during a sweeping investigation of corruption in the public school system, pre-Katrina.

U.S. District Court Judge Stanwood Duval will sentence them in February. Violation of the Hobbs Act alone carries up to 20 years.

Harrison was the assistant secretary at Fannie C. Williams Middle School, while Clay taught special education there.

The same jury acquitted teacher's aide Lillie Carmouche, and special education teachers Willie Morris and Noble Garner of all charges in connection with the payroll scheme.

The players all worked at Fannie C. Williams Middle School in eastern New Orleans during December 2002 and January 2003, during which a group of teachers, secretaries and aides padded paychecks by making it appear that they covered for absentee teachers during the seven-period day.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office said originally that some $35,000 was siphoned away from the failing school system dependant on millions of dollars in federal funds to stay afloat before Hurricane Katrina delivered the final blow.

During the seven-day trial, prosecutors Carter Guice, Richard Rose and Dan Friel presented jurors with original payroll documents that still bore the white-out that the school employees used to blot out their correct number of hours worked. Also, teacher Trynitha Fulton and aide John Baker, Jr., pleaded guilty before the trial and agreed to testify against their former colleagues at Fannie C. Williams.

Since launching an investigation into the public schools in 2004, Letten's team has obtained 26 convictions out of 29 invidividual indictments.

Thursday's verdict doesn't end the federal probe into public school corruption, Letten said Thursday.

"Our investigation of individuals within the school system is still alive," Letten said.

Federal Prosecutors Issue Subpoena to Terry Lisotta

When will the theft and fraud end in Louisiana? US Attorney Jim Letten is extremely busy these days.

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Federal prosecutors have issued a subpoena to the former chief of Louisiana's taxpayer-backed insurance company, who's been accused of theft, fraud and malfeasance.

Terry Lisotta, CEO of Citizens Property Insurance Corp. until early this year, will comply with the grand jury subpoena for documents, his lawyer, David Courcelle, told The Times-Picayune.

Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot, in an audit released early this month, found Lisotta might have illegally spent over $1 million on travel, meals, and other expenses. The audit suggested Lisotta broke state laws in his use of the firm's money.

SUNO students protests the university's slow recovery

More than two years after Hurricane Katrina, SUNO students are still being housed in temporary buildings. John Georges was the only gubernatorial candidate who took time out to voice his concerns over the university's plight. Would UNO have been neglected by the State? I doubt it very seriously.
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Massed in front of a campus building that has not been touched since Hurricane Katrina two years ago, about 200 placard-waving demonstrators today cheered a procession of speakers who called for immediate action to restore the Southern University at New Orleans campus.

For the past 20 months, SUNO has been housed in temporary buildings about a half-mile away. It is the only local institution of higher education that hasn't returned to its campus.

At the midday rally, participants vented their frustration as they brandished blue-and-yellow posters with slogans such as "Katrina Victim Victimized Once Again."

"We need classrooms, not trailers," said Raynika Gougis, a freshman majoring in criminal justice.

Plans originally had called for demonstrators to help clean out a building. Instead, a few dozen people stood outside the Education Building and cheered workers in hazmat suits and respirators as they brought out smelly garbage from the dark, mold-infested building.

Shavonda Chambers, a senior, stuck her cell-phone camera inside and took a picture.

"I smell negligence," she said.

"I smell embarrassment," said Thaddeus Petit, a fellow senior who stood nearby.

Although SUNO personnel pressed the case for quick action to the crowd, the hour-long demonstration was dominated by a host of office holders and candidates who took turns at the microphone echoing the demand for speedy restoration of the Pontchartrain Park campus. Despite muddy sound and a speaker system that died frequently, they whipped up the emotions of the spectators, who stood beneath a cloudless sky in temperatures around 90 degrees.

"I don't have the slightest idea why the state is treating you like this," said former state Sen. Jon Johnson, who is seeking a return to that chamber. "Why do we have to stand out here in the hot sun and get people to do the right thing? We're supposed to be living in 2007, not 1807."

The only gubernatorial candidate to appear was John Georges, who not only spoke and worked the crowd but also provided 3,000 chilled bottles of water bearing his red, white and blue campaign logo.

"I am the man with a plan, and my plan includes rebuilding SUNO," he said to cheers. "It's the last university to be rebuilt; it should have been the first."

Congressman William Jefferson's "bathroom break" defense

It seems that Congressman William Jefferson and his attorneys are grasping at straws in the case against him. Can you hold your piss, Congressman Jefferson?
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In a case already fraught with precedent-setting legal questions, attorneys for Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, are seeking perhaps another first in judicial opinions.

Is it reasonable, the lawyers ask a federal judge, to believe that a 58-year-old man could wait more than two hours after awakening in the morning before taking a bathroom break?

The issue is raised in motions intended to cast doubt on the Justice Department's contention that FBI agents did not restrict Jefferson's movements until they began a court-authorized search of his home, about 2 1/2 hours after they knocked on his door and awakened him from a night's sleep.

The timing is important because Jefferson's attorneys say a person who believes he is being restricted in his actions must be read the Miranda rights before he can be questioned by law enforcement agents.

In an earlier motion, Jefferson, now 60, said he answered a knock on his door at 7 a.m. on Aug. 3, 2005, barefoot, wearing an undershirt and a pair of pants he had quickly put on, to find the waiting agents. At one point, according to Jefferson, the lead agent told him this would "be the worst day of his life."

Jefferson's attorneys are asking federal Judge T.S. Ellis III not to allow Jefferson's statements, which the Justice Department describes as "incriminating," to be used in the upcoming trial in which the congressman is accused of bribery, racketeering and other charges. In the motion filed last month, defense attorneys said Jefferson was accompanied to the bathroom by an armed FBI agent who insisted that the nine-term congressman keep the door open.

Bad marriage can increase risk of heart attack

I thought about "BB", in New Orleans, when I read this article. I guess she doesn't mind that she has a bad marriage with her cheating husband. Maybe she can ignore the fact that he bought his girlfriend a new Mercedes. Poor "BB". Well she won't be seeing him, in person, in a few years anyway.


BY JORDAN LITE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER



A lousy marriage can be a real heartbreaker.

Unhappy couples are more likely to have a heart attack or chest pains than those who have healthy marriages, a study in today's Archives of Internal Medicine says.

"There is evidence that people are more likely to mentally replay negative events compared to positive ones, and this might trigger biological reactions that can lead to a heart attack and angina," said Roberto DeVogli, a lecturer in epidemiology at University College London.

DeVogli polled 9,011 British civil servants about how often their spouse, close relative or friend gave them "worries, problems and stress."

Those in bad relationships were 34% more likely to experience heart problems over the 12 years DeVogli followed them. Sixty-two percent of those in the study were married.

Previous research has also linked bad marriages to heart attack and congestive heart failure.

One study found that unhappily married women were three times more likely to have metabolic syndrome, a collection of symptoms that can lead to heart disease and diabetes.

A study published in July in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine found that women who silenced themselves during spats with their husband were four times more likely to die than those who spoke up.

Although other research has found that being married has protective effects on a person's health, DeVogli stressed, "It's not only important to have a partner, but what kind of partner you have."

Louisiana Citizens board taken to task

Another example of some type of corruption in Louisiana: Fraud at the Louisiana property Insurance Corporation. It will take more than public outrage to end this type of behavior in Louisiana.

As public outrage spread over audit findings of fraud at the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp., elected officials questioned the role of the Louisiana Department of Insurance in the debacle and called for the state-sponsored insurer of last resort to be overhauled, privatized or scrapped.

Last week Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot released a long-awaited audit of Louisiana Citizens that found evidence of fraud and abuse by former chief executive Terry Lisotta. The report detailed false billing or inappropriate expenditures on fishing excursions, quail hunts, football tickets, golf outings, cigars and trips to Bermuda, New York and Florida.

Lisotta has been mum on the audit findings. He opted not to comment in the audit, and has not responded to queries from The Times-Picayune.

Louisiana residents battling Citizens in court, or stung by high insurance bills and the special assessments to help Citizens pay its claims, demanded to know why public officials didn't protect them.

"The Legislature created this monster, and no one sat on it and looked at what went on, and now we have to pay for it," said Uptown resident Lurana Hahna, who's been firing off angry letters all week. "It just floors me."

Citizens is governed by a board that's roughly half public appointees and half insurance industry appointees, though the board's composition will shift next year because of changes made by the Legislature.

The board has substantial overlap with the Property Insurance Association of Louisiana, a fire rating agency that did the work for Citizens, and the Louisiana Automobile Insurance Plan, an obscure state-run auto insurer of last resort, which handled Lisotta's contract and much of the bills. The result is an entangled morass with little delineation of responsibility.

Whether Lisotta's expenditures are criminal or merely indicative of shoddy management will depend greatly on whether Citizens, PIAL and LAIP are found to be public entities, as Theriot believes. PIAL filed a lawsuit in a Baton Rouge court challenging that designation.

By law, the Citizens board includes the commissioner of insurance, state treasurer, and the chairmen of the House and Senate insurance committees, all of whom are up for election this fall.

Several of those board members sought to distance themselves from the Citizens debacle. While they credited Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon for replacing top management at Citizens, PIAL and LAIP, they blamed him for systemic problems at the agency, questioning the role of the insurance department in creating and monitoring Citizens.

State Treasurer John Kennedy, a newly declared Republican who is thought to be eyeing a run for the U.S. Senate next year, said he wasn't able to attend board meetings before the storm because of a scheduling conflict with the bond commission. He said the insurance department under former Commissioner Robert Wooley set up Citizens so that it relied upon the insurance-industry-dominated PIAL, which Wooley's wife, lawyer Julie Fusilier, now represents.

Rep. Karen Carter, D-New Orleans, said that "a lot of times, you can't detect these things until audits come out," and ultimately "the buck stops" with Donelon.

Sen. James David Cain, R-Dry Creek, said he's been screaming about problems at Citizens for years and couldn't get anyone to listen. He said he got so frustrated he stopped going to the meetings and gave his seat to someone else.

Spreading the blame

The Legislative Audit Advisory Council has scheduled a hearing on the audit Oct. 15, and has subpoenaed the management of Citizens and related groups to testify.

Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Schedler, R-Mandeville, blames both the board and the insurance department.

He said the insurance department bears some culpability for the Citizens problems because Donelon and Chief of Staff Chad Brown worked in Wooley's insurance department when Citizens was formed. Donelon's insurance department also had appointees on Citizens and related boards, including Brown, the Citizens chairman until earlier this year.

Schedler questioned how the board didn't catch the expense account problems. "Where was the board of directors?" Schedler asked. "No one was asking any questions? I find it unbelievable that here was two legislators, State Treasurer John Kennedy and Donelon and no one heard about these trips to Destin? Somebody had to have known."

Not to be upstaged by Schedler's Oct. 15 meeting, Kennedy has called for a special meeting of the Citizens board on Oct. 11 to address the findings of the audit report in a public hearing, saying he believes that Lisotta couldn't have acted alone.

"Somebody approved these expenses. I do not believe Mr. Lisotta spent this money by himself," Kennedy said. "It's hard to be taking care of your business when you're at a spa in Bermuda smoking a cigar. All of those costs were passed on. These costs were passed on to not only Citizens policyholders, but to every policyholder in Louisiana."

Realm of responsibility

The finger pointing is likely to create new challenges for Donelon, who successfully kept legislative changes to a minimum. Donelon is an ardent proponent of solving Louisiana's insurance woes through private competition, and is loath to see the Legislature follow Florida in giving the state a bigger role in the insurance industry.

"The structure itself is not broken," Donelon said.

Donelon defends his handling of problems at Citizens, saying that he replaced top management at Citizens the moment he learned that Citizens was unable to produce audited financial statements because of a massive computer crash -- even though it wasn't clear that he had the authority to do so.

The law that created Citizens gives the insurance department the power to review and approve Citizens rate filings, and to require audited financial statements, but it does not say that the insurance commissioner has the power to hire and fire administrators. Donelon realized he could do it only when a Citizens attorney advised him that he had that authority through a plan of operation adopted by the board.

Donelon said he accepted responsibility for problems at Citizens "to the extent that the commissioner's designee is chairman of the board," because Brown sat on the board, but Donelon points out that one individual does not make a controlling majority. "That's only one member of the board," he said.

The insurance commissioner said he originally sought to bring in new management around Lisotta because he thought the problem was incompetence, not malfeasance. "He had been on that job for years. I did not want to ruin the man; I merely wanted to fix the problem."

Donelon later fired him, and as soon as he was briefed on Theriot's early audit findings, he worked to get Lisotta removed from the Louisiana insurance plans, which Donelon now wants to disband and hand over their operations to the New Jersey company ISO and the Rhode Island nonprofit AIPSO.

Donelon said the unfolding tale of Lisotta's expense account excess is unsettling. "Now I'm angry, because this is certainly a betrayal of the policyholders who pay the price of this largess," he said. "Ultimately, the policyholder pays the bill for this abuse."

Major overhaul?

But other public officials say the early results of the Citizens audit makes them think the group should be overhauled, disbanded or privatized.

Kennedy further called upon the Legislature to revisit the structure of Citizens and how it handles cost overruns. Under the old system of the FAIR and Coastal plans, insurance companies would pay for any cost overruns in proportion to how much business they did in the state. Under the Citizens plan created in 2003, the insurance companies pay nothing and cost overruns get billed to owners of insured property across the state.

"Under the old law, any surcharges need to be paid by the industry. This legislation moved that surcharge from the backs of the industry to the backs of the people of Louisiana. I think it's time to revisit that," Kennedy said.

But Donelon said the old Fair and Coastal plans drove insurers out of the state and worked to raise consumer rates. Under the old system, State Farm, which has about one third of the insurance business in Louisiana, would have been handed a bill for $500 million for Citizens costs after the 2005 hurricanes.

Insurance companies tried to reduce their exposure to sudden whopping bills by reducing the amount of business they did in the state, Donelon said. And because rates for the following year are based on a company's loss experience, companies would raise rates to recoup their money, making rate-setting volatile and unpleasant for everyone.

"I truly believe the new system serves us much better, despite the abuses that the legislative audit made public. That abuse could have been done under the old system. The structure had nothing to do with the integrity and the morality of the people in charge," Donelon said.

More explaining to do

He urged other elected officials to let the new management at Citizens straighten things out. The new board will include professionals such as accountants, bankers and district attorneys. Citizens is also separating itself from PIAL and LAIP, and will have its own employees.

Schedler said the insurance department has more explaining to do about the structure and oversight of Citizens.

"Jim's my friend, but he's coming out astounded and horrified and dejected," Schedler said. "If you go back and look, Mr. Donelon or his designee was not only a board member of Citizens, but a board chairman of Citizens. It's hard for me to understand why he can be so astounded.""

Former New Orleans' Mayor Uncle released from prison early

Glenn Haydel, uncle of former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial has been released from a federal prison camp in Pensacola, Fla., to a halfway house in Lafayette.

Haydel, 62, who pleaded guilty to bilking the Regional Transit Authority of $550,000, is scheduled to be discharged for good March 25, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons. Once moved to halfway houses, inmates are often released well ahead of their scheduled release dates, meaning Haydel could be free by the end of the year.

Ironically, Haydel's wife, Lillian Smith Haydel, could be headed to prison just as her husband is released. Smith Haydel, who pleaded guilty more than two years ago to bribing a New Orleans public schools official in exchange for insurance contracts, is set to be sentenced for that crime Oct. 31.
However, she is likely to receive lenient treatment because she agreed to testify against other insurance brokers who made similar payments.

Glenn Haydel had a lucrative consulting contract with the RTA during Morial's eight-year tenure as mayor. He pleaded guilty to transferring $350,000 of the agency's money into a personal bank account. Another $200,000 was paid in six checks to unnamed individuals and businesses "to facilitate the illusion of legitimacy," according to his indictment.

Haydel paid the stolen money back shortly before turning himself in to federal prison officials in November.

Haydel's release date was moved up mainly because he completed a drug treatment program at the Pensacola camp that allows inmates to shave up to 12 months off their sentences, according to Felicia Ponce, a Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman.

Haydel also received credit for "good time," which can reduce a well-behaved inmate's sentence by about two months per year, Ponce said.

The federal records show that Haydel is in the custody of the community corrections management office of New Orleans. He is staying at the City of Faith facility in Lafayette, according to an employee who answered the phone there.

The essence of Marc Morial: He has relatives either being released from prison or going to prison. He has friends and associates going to prison. His administration was filled with corrupt individuals. Does former Mayor Marc Morial deal with anyone who is a law abiding citizen?

Domestic violence can affect the workplace

"Domestic violence may seem like a concern of the home rather than the office, but chances are it affects your workplace.

One in four women employees has been the target of domestic violence, according to a recent survey by Liz Claiborne Inc., victim assistance agency Safe Horizon and the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence.

Corporate executives, however, estimated that only 6 percent of their full-time employees were victims of domestic violence. While they often recognized the effects of domestic violence the workplace, only 13 percent of executives thought their company should address the problem.

Violence in the home has ramifications in the office, such as increased absenteeism, tardiness and diminished performance, said Scott Millstein, interim CEO of Safe Horizon." |Read more|