Update: Meffert indictment is here

Gotta love that big bold "FELONY" dominating the page.


Meffert Indictment

Federal Charges, Brah

Mef lab goes down. US Attorney Jim Letten will be holding a press conference at 12:30.

It is starting earlier than one might expect because it will take so much time to read off the counts. Don't they normally do these things starting at 1:30 or 2?


The Times-Pic is reporting that it isn't just Greg Meffert and Mark St. Pierre who will face a rap sheet. His wife Linda Meffert will also be indicted for accounting work that she did for the St. Pierre syndicate.

David Hammer describes the charges for Linda as "a surprise," which I think is accurate.

It tells you something that Letten is going after Mrs. Muppet.

--

This bit is unadulterated speculation but nonetheless, the charges against Lady Mef indicate to me that Greg Meffert has refused to cooperate or turned down generous plea agreements. I imagine that Letten and his people used the threat of charges against his wife to get him to talk and now they're making good on the threat.

Greg Meffert, as AZ, as pointed out earlier in the week, has seemed in denial about what was coming down the tracks.

I hope for the sake of their young kids that Greg and/or Linda Meffert capitulate to inquiry from prosecutors.

What combination of fraud, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy counts are we going to see on the rap sheet?

--

Because this has been anticipated for so long, it is perhaps easy to lose track of just how disgusting this is.

Greg Meffert wasn't just in charge of the Office of Technology. This guy was Deputy Mayor. He was almost Recovery Director. He was the Mayor's right hand man. It's not just the millions of dollars lost to the Russian nesting doll contract schemes these people were facilitating, it's also the unquantifiable corruption of the city decision-making engine and the cynical truth that our city's recovery effort rested in hands that dropped us to satiate the impulsive desires of their own sticky fingers.

Mefstimony turns out to have been...

...bullshit

Complete Bullshit

I wonder if Meffert will be called back to the stand for a more hostile examination.

Sworn Mefstimony

I walked into Judge Ledet's courtroom this morning at ten past eleven right as Greg Meffert was getting up to walk out.

"I gotta pee," he whispered way too loudly at no one in particular.

And so I found myself in Orleans Parish Civil District Court to check out the latest chapter in the ongoing crime camera saga.

I ended up feeling ill and going home to rest at the first recess so please check out David Hammer's reporting from the courtroom for the T-P, but I will add a couple of my own observations.

Hammer says Meffert "exuded confidence on the stand."

That's not an unfair characterization of how he conducted himself as testimony began. But watching him fidget in his seat beforehand makes me more inclined to consider his cute joke about talking to Drew Brees about his fantasy team to be a nervous defense mechanism. He seems to be a confident-sounding guy naturally. I remember when he went on Garland's show to defend himself. He sounded just as confident then, though he was also extremely agitated.

He was much calmer in court, and seemed to grow more comfortable and confident as the Jim Garner, the plaintiffs' attorney, established a pace to the questioning.

I suppose the big story is that Meffert even testified in the first place, or more specifically, that he didn't plead the Fifth at every opportunity, but someone must have tipped everyone off beforehand.

I really wanted to hear some audible gasps but none came.

So why didn't Meffert invoke the Fifth Amendment?

Isn't he worried about incriminating himself?

I'm just speculating here, but he wouldn't have to worry about incriminating himself if he'd inked a deal to cooperate with the Department of Justice in the swirling federal investigation of City Hall. If a plea agreement is already in place, Meffert may be assured immunity from additional charges stemming from his testimony in the crime camera civil case.

Meffert seemed primed to throw former employee Chris Drake under the bus. Meffert constantly reiterated how much he had on his plate and how he had trusted Drake and delegated the crime camera project to him.

Also from the T-P write-up:

"Good, bad or indifferent, Hawaii definitely had nothing to do with crime cameras, nothing to do with the city of New Orleans," Meffert said. "I had this buisiness. I had the opportunity to give him (Nagin) a break. We went up there as friends. We barbecued. That was when he broke his ankle, if you remember that."

Meffert said he paid out of his own pocket for a "house" in Hawaii and had the mayor and his family stay there with him. He said he was there to meet with economic development officials in Waikiki, but was also there "for pleasure."

Meffert also used the NetMethods credit card to send the Nagins on first-class flights to Jamaica after Hurricane Katrina, but he hasn't fielded any questions about that today.

Meffert said the credit card was a way to supplement his $150,000 annual City Hall income, which amounted to a "50 percent pay cut" for him after some success in the private sector. He likened it to extra-duty pay for a police officer and said the card had nothing to do with crime cameras or work for Dell.

"My relationship with NetMethods was contemplated from the get-go of my coming on with the city," Meffert said, although he started at City Hall in 2002 and NetMethods wasn't created by St. Pierre until 2004. He said he needed the extra income to justify taking the city job because he had enjoyed an income of "a few hundred thousand dollars a year" at the time.

Meffert said the work he did for NetMethods had to do with kiosks and Web solutions the company developed, not crime cameras.

"I saw no conflict in what I endeavored to do," Meffert said.

Kudos to Hammer for contextualizing Meffert's testimony with the truth. Meffert said that the side pot credit card was part of the deal that allowed him to leave the private sector even though he didn't get a credit card from NetMethods until a few years later since NetMethods didn't yet exist when Meffert moved into City Hall.

For reasons I don't understand, the plaitiffs' attorney Jim Garner didn't press Mr. Meffert on that, didn't follow up with any questions seeking to clarify when Mr. Meffert began receiving payments from NetMethods.

I caught another really interesting quote that Hammer omitted from the T-P article from that same string of dialogue highlighted above.

Referencing the credit card he received from NetMethods, Meffert was explaining how he didn't think having this side account made a difference. He compared it to how NOPD officers have moonlighting gigs on the side of their regular hours on the force.

"When I decided to take a job with the city, the concept [of having a credit card paid for by NetMethods] was introduced to me."

(That quote might not be exactly verbatim, the part that caught my ear was "the concept was introduced to me," so I admit that I might not have the opening clause exactly word-for-word.)

That, to me, begs the question: Who, Mr. Meffert, was it that first introduced you to the concept of maintaining secret expense accounts with private contractors with whom the city does business?

When the court broke for lunch, I had to go home.

Hopefully this won't be the last time I make it in to watch this case

What are your thoughts? Does Meffert's decision to waive his right not to incriminate himself indicate a deal? Or do you think Meffert believes he's at no risk of incriminating himself?

Dell stall tactics fall flat

I've obtained some court documents from the crime camera civil case.

In the article about Meffert's hilarious change-of-venue motion, there was another late breaking item hidden toward the end of the piece.

In a strange twist Friday, a previously absent company sought to intervene on the side of the plaintiffs, Southern Electronics and Active Solutions.

More than two years after the two companies filed the lawsuit, Camsoft Data Systems Inc., appeared in court Friday, claiming its right to a third of anything Southern and Active might win at trial.

Camsoft was initially a subcontractor to Southern Electronics, and helped put up networked crime cameras for a pilot project for City Hall in 2004 and 2005. The Baton Rouge company claims it helped develop a special network system for the crime cameras, and therefore deserves to have an equal share of the plaintiffs' pie.

Ironically, even though Camsoft's attorney Jason Melancon said Friday he agrees with the gist of the plaintiffs' case, his basis for intervening is a claim that Southern Electronics owes Camsoft money for work it did on the New Orleans camera project.

The unexpected intervention sent the courtroom into a tizzy.

I only had vaguest recollection of Camsoft but it didn't seem to me to be relevant to the case that they had some sort of payment issue with Southern Electronics. That ought to be handled in a separate case. It would seem to be quite suspicious that such an intervention would suddenly surface at the eleventh hour. Anyway, these documents should shed some more light on this.

The first is a motion to appoint special process server filed by the lawyers for Dell, who also filed to stay the trial to subpoena and depose the folks from Camsoft.

SCAN6724_000


The second document is the response from the Plaintiffs' lawyers. This is a good read. Essentially, Dell asserted that they'd been kept unaware of the relationship between the Plaintiffs and Camsoft and claimed that in their depositions, Plaintiffs had failed to disclose Camsoft under questioning.

The lawyers for the Plaintiffs document in detail the numerous times Camsoft or its employees came up during discovery.

"A search of the documents produced by Plaintiffs in this litigation reveals Carlo MacDonald of Camsoft was referenced at least 1,613 times and Camsoft itself was referenced at least 410 times."

Lawyers also pointed to another stunning example, when Dell's lead council, Phil Whittman, the same guy who filed the motion to stay, asked Brian Fitzpatrick of Active Solutions during a deposition:

"Did you have anything to do with the camsoft data systems verbiage wire portion?"

So when Plaintiff attorneys excoriate Dell lawyers within the document for "feigned ignorance," this is what they're talking about. They then follow that up with another 130 pages of supporting evidence including emails included as trial exhibits and depositions.

PDF of Letter to Counel Enc Opp to Dell's Emerg Motion for s (00040822)

I don't think I've ever seen some of the emails before but I don't have time for a close read. If you have a chance to browse through these and find anything interesting that we haven't seen before, please please post away in the comments.

A Nor' E-mailster?

Not sure if that nickname will catch but...

Boston--

Mayoral hopeful Michael F. Flaherty is accusing the Menino administration of a cover-up after the mayor’s top aide admitted deleting public e-mails even as the FBI subpoenaed his documents - a bombshell that has all three challengers calling for a criminal probe.

“They’ve been operating under a system they know violates the law,” said Flaherty, a city councilor at-large, who alleges the mass deletion of e-mails by Michael Kineavy potentially destroyed evidence in the public corruption probe against former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson last year.

Flaherty is planning to ask state Attorney General Martha Coakley and Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley to probe the missing documents. Forging a rare unified front, fellow mayoral hopefuls Sam Yoon and Kevin McCrea asked to join Flaherty at a press conference scheduled for today.

“If you’re deleting e-mails methodically . . . you have something to hide,” said Yoon, councilor-at-large.

The Boston Globe requested six months of Kineavy’s e-mails starting Oct. 1, 2008 - but received just 18 messages and an admission that Kineavy was routinely deleting public e-mails potentially in violation of open records laws, the paper reported yesterday.

Meanwhile, our very own e-maelstrom crime camera civil suit begins today. First, Judge Ledet will have do deny one of the more hilariously written change-of-venue motions I've seen during my inconsequential career as someone who reads the news.

"It is indeed a rare and tragic occasion when a litigant must state that the tide of public opinion in his home parish has so turned against him that he cannot seek refuge in the hallowed halls of justice in that parish."

-

Smith said Meffert's shot at a fair trial has been compromised by media coverage, specifically two years' worth of Times-Picayune articles about gratuities Meffert collected from city vendor Mark St. Pierre -- including access to a boat, a corporate credit card and exotic vacations for himself, his family and the family of his boss, Mayor Ray Nagin.

He even contends that future jurors have been prejudiced by the newspaper's coverage of Smith's own statement in open court that Meffert is a target of a federal criminal investigation.

He cited comments posted by readers on the paper's affiliated Web site, NOLA.com, to argue that potential jurors have already formed an opinion against his client.

Someone should really live-blog this trial. Someone really should hire me to live-blog this trial.

With Baited Breath

Right now in Judge Rosemary Ledet's courtroom at Orleans Parish Civil District Court, lawyers for Active Solutions and Southern Electronics are laying out a narrative describing a wide-ranging conspiracy by city officials including Greg Meffert and Mayor Nagin and Dell Computers to steal technology from the two plaintiff companies while they held city contractors.

There should be some interesting material unsealed for the first time. Keep an eye on the internets for fresh docs and reports from the courtroom.

Deal or no deal ctnd

I wondered on Friday whether or not an immunity deal would include some sort of gag order that might lead to the kind of categorical denial we heard from Anthony Jones' attorneys last week. Indeed that is a possibility but it doesn't totally explain why Jones' defense team would go so far as to issue such a strong push back.

In fact, there may be no explicit or implied immunity. There may yet be, however, implied leniency in exchange for grand jury testimony and perhaps explicit leniency down the road in exchange for testimony in potential future criminal cases. I'm not certain the DOJ is as liberal with the use of immunity as I was considering in different scenarios on Friday.

For immunity from the DOJ, I imagine you'd have to do a lot more than just testify. You'd have to come forward in the midst of the criminal activity, guide the investigation, and maybe wear a wire.

I'm not convinced that Jones is the keystone witness in the case. I've heard nothing to indicate he came forward at any point before it became obvious that Jones himself was likely to catch a charge.

Therefore, I think the deal for Jones is more likely to be a sliding scale implied leniency (in which the more helpful he is, the more likely charges will be plead down) and not immunity of any kind.

I know that there are attorneys out there who read this blog. I'd love if you'd weigh in with your thoughts on how this all works.

That's it. I find this all very interesting obviously.

Beautiful weekend.

Update: I haven't whined about it enough lately but this is another example of why I should have a daily talk radio show. I'd invite two lawyers on and we'd talk this out. Tens of people would listen. Tens!

Deal or no deal

From WWLTV on Anthony Jones and the grand jury, emphasis theirs:

Former federal prosecutor Chic Foret said Jones makes the perfect witness in a case like this. He said Jones was in the perfect place to know and observe what may have been going on at City Hall.

“For him to be on the frontlines, it would appear he was testifying with great confidence and that would indicate perhaps he has immunity,” Foret said.

Burns said his client Jones has never been offered immunity.

“Anthony Jones does not have immunity and has never been offered immunity by anyone nor has it ever been discussed or mentioned by any federal agent or AU,” Burns said.

The logical follow-up question that I'd like to know the answer to is, and maybe this is for Mr. Chic Foret and not Mr. Lon Burns:

Would an immunity deal prohibit disclosure or otherwise gag speaking about any contact regarding immunity?

Thoughts, Background on Anthony Jones, Lon Burns

Dambala has a post up questioning Anthony Jones' rationale for holding a press conference today to discuss his appearance before a federal grand jury and the allegations swirling around him.

I think the reason for the appearance is to create just enough space for himself so that he can keep his job and salary at City Hall so that he can pay for the legal representation of Lionel "Lon" Burns.

FYI:

I've heard Burns does not have a whole lot of white collar criminal defense experience. Also recall that he was forced to resign from Harry Connick's office back in the day after he was caught planting evidence. See this, this, and this:

In January 2001, the state appeals court held that George Lee III's charges for sexual battery and kidnapping could not stand because New Orleans prosecutor Lionel Burns withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense and jury. In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Lee also alleged that Burns planted inculpatory evidence.

During Lee's October 2000 trial, Judge Arthur Hunter declared a mistrial and held Burns in contempt of the court after he asked a testifying officer to pull a wad of napkins out of the pants Lee was supposedly wearing during the assault. The state's evidence showed that Lee would use napkins to clean himself after an assault; finding napkins in Lee's pants helped the prosecution's case. Yet Burns had not disclosed the napkins' existence to the defense. Hunter sentenced Burns to six months in prison for contempt, which was reduced to a $500 fine on appeal.

Backtracking

It's been very interesting to observe the way that the Times-Picayune and other traditional media have covered the unfolding E-Maelstrom. The focus has shifted away from the various email-specific issues involving Veronica White, City Council, and the Mayor's Office of Technology to a seemingly singular fixation on a Nagin family vacation to Hawaii that was funded by a contractor with ties to the MOT and to former Chief Technology Officer and Administrative Executive to the Mayor, Gregory Meffert.

Though American Zombie wrote about this improper trip back in 2006, the mainstream media only recently got the confirmation necessary to go to print with the allegation. Of course, the release of Greg Meffert's deposition from a related lawsuit confirms that in fact, the Nagin trip was financed by city contractor Mark St. Pierre.

But is taking a contractor-funded vacation so outrageous or uncharacteristic for a Louisiana politician? Someone following this peripherally might question why the T-P has it's top investigative reporters chasing down a story about $2000 vacation.

It's because this isn't about an unethical and possibly illegal vacation to Hawaii. Rather, this is about trying to establish the facts around what might prove to be an enormous criminal conspiracy at City Hall revolving around the Mayor's Office of Technology. When you start to add up the dollars that exchanged hands between the municipal government and the various contractors with ties to Mr. Meffert, Mr. St. Pierre, and their cronies, you're talking about tens of millions of dollars. Maybe hundreds of millions. It's years of a failed crime cameras, yes. But it's also years of a failed 311 system. It's customer service kiosks at City Hall. It's all sorts of various municipal websites. It's the no longer available city wi-fi service. It's all sorts of technology purchases. All of that stuff (and unfortunately more) is in question.

It's not just about tax dollars wasted, it's also about what would have instead been invested in more plentiful and efficient city services that weren't there when we've needed them the most.

The recent series of articles in the Times-Picayune, I presume, is laying the groundwork for future reporting detailing the scope of corruption. That's why it has seemed like many of the articles that they've published since the end of March haven't yet provided anything particularly earth-shattering. The T-P needs to reestablish a lot of the background data that many internet insiders already understood before they can credibly start publishing new revealing details.

Ray Nagin's media availability yesterday was remarkable because it seemed to lend credibility to the inquiry at hand. Last week, Ray Nagin offhandedly dismissed reporter questions about the trip to Hawaii as a personal attack. This has been his typical response to most all tough questions about his record as Mayor. We know the tone well. Yesterday, however, Mayor Nagin's answers were delivered with a slight touch of basic humility that I thought was noticeable and notable, particularly when questions turned to his own low approval ratings, etc. (some video here, more detailed description here).

Certainly, he continued to deny any wrongdoing in the Hawaii matter and had his own interpretation of the approval ratings that absolve him of any real responsibility for anything, but the fact that he held stood outside of City Hall and held a question and answer session with the press indicates that the facts and allegations swirling around his administration can no longer be avoided and/or defiantly cast as a media conspiracy against him. I think that there is some implicit acknowledgment that the Mayor is in trouble - that this isn't just a game.


UPDATE: Here's full video of Nagin's media availability from yesterday afternoon. On seeing it in entirety, I think I was basically right; there's a little more furrow to his brow. He's taking this a little bit more seriously than he seemed to last week.

Mayor Ray Nagin Addresses Ethics Questions

UPDATE II:

It's also quite hilarious that Mayor Nagin decided to give Jim Letten unsolicited advice about how to select a jury. What would he need a jury for Ray?

Deposition Depot (updated)

I spent too much time yesterday trying to figure out how to upload large deposition files to blogger. Thankfully, WDSU has done a lot of that work for me. They have large portions of Greg Meffert's deposition online and available.

These links are to 'dsu's pdf downloads...

Pages 1-100 are here.
Pages 101-200 are here.
Pages 201-332 are here.

There are other loose bits floating around. As I'm able to corral them in a linkable fashion, I'll be aggregating them here on this post so that everything's all in one place.

And if you find something interesting reading through the deposition, please do drop us a line at WCBF.

Also, if you'd like to sneakily print out a big copy for me on your giant office machine, I will totally not reimburse your company. But I will buy you a beer. Deposition kegger anyone?

UPDATE: Meffert's lawyers have dropped their attempt to reseal the deposition. It is now all completely public and should be available for our reading pleasure shortly.

UPDATE 04/08:

When I started this blog, I always dreamed I'd get reader comments like this:

It's 3:55am and I just completed reading each pdf and started looking for the 1000 page download because I'm a masochist. Summary and observations following.

You have to hand it to the attorney, those suckers can drum on you forever until you're about ready to admit to whatever they want to hear.

In these downloads every once in awhile Greg would have several clever comebacks and really get under the attorneys skin - the comment about the refrigerator was priceless; Greg's a scumball but even I have to admit that was funny.

In short, Greg came off at best as utterly incompetent. He tried to push the image of that he was so overworked and got 300 emails a day I don't remember these things, etc.

The attorney really raked him over the coals of his website reporting his accomplishments with the cameras and made him admit it was BS.

The attorney did try to trap him multiple times into having him explain what other people thought/meant/said without him being there - this didn't work out for the attorney very well.

Greg needs to learn to pause for his attorneys to object, he was far to fast with his answers which I could see him getting himself into further trouble.

As far as Gregs skills as a manager in IT, let me explain no one is this friggin clueless. Greg also shows in several instances he understand budgets, he understands some key technology aspects, etc. But this was one of his pet projects, no one in his position wouldn't brush themselves up on these things due to the cost, the questions they would get asked and the eventual notoriety if it worked.

He practically admitted to writing the RFP for the original vendor of the cameras, which is not a best practice and then for him not to have an email trail about modifications to the RFP and those that need to sign off on the RFP like the City Attorney and other approving authorities/stakeholders for that kind of money and cross department initiative, is ridiculous.

Meffert is using the same old tired politician game, I don't know, I don't recall, I didn't read the entire email, etc. He did have some good counter points about Drake and the budgets, I have my team provide the same info and it has nothing to do with budgets, the are just giving me projections.

There is alot he is hiding, that is for sure and you can tell that by the timing of the contract and the players involved.

Full disclosure: I knew Chris Drake and others at the City Hall IT dept personally during this period and Chris is a heck of a guy. I can assure you Chris was at best a pawn which pretty much is proven in the depo - Chris did what he was told, he's not the brains behind this - that would be Meffert and St. Pierre.

Good stuff. There's nothing like combing through depositions at 4 in the morning... Jury is still out on Mr. Drake though. We'll see how things turn up. It does look to me like Meffert was one of the kingpins, but then again, that's who they were deposing so of course questions are going to be geared toward illuminating his role.

Visions

Man oh man. I'm starting to collect bits and pieces of Greg Meffert's deposition in the ongoing lawsuit at Orleans Civil District Court , which was released today. The T-P now has confirmation that City Contractor Netmethods, owned by Mark St. Pierre, paid for a Nagin family vacation to Hawaii. They've also posted a bit of the deposition. I'm going to put as much of the deposition online as I can over the course of the day during my free time.

But the part available from nola.com in the link above, I thought everyone might like this line of questioning where Meffert basically cops to getting an unknown number of strip club adventures picked up by the Imagine tab.




"Sometimes they'd pay."

It's all part of the e-maelstrom. A nice wink toward Mr. Gordon Russell and Mr. Frank Donze for this line in today's writeup about the deposition release:

The new court filing raises new questions about the already-controversial business dealings between the city and its technology vendors, dealings that have attracted keen interest from federal investigators. The motion also brings Nagin deeper into the maelstrom, which so far has mainly swirled around St. Pierre and Meffert, one of the mayor's top aides and most trusted advisers until he left City Hall in 2006.

I'll take it! Yes!

UPDATE: A recently married man found the myspace page for Visions. Might be a good place for Rising Tide IV.

There is no escaping the E-Maelstrom

Well some 'lost' emails have apparently made their way to the press.

Gordon Russell stirs the seas:

A review of Meffert's e-mails from his last year at City Hall casts further doubt on his record. The correspondence shows that he was deeply enmeshed in the business dealings of a group of former associates at the same time he steered multimillion-dollar, no-bid city contracts, including the camera deals, to companies they owned.

Meffert's exact role in the companies remains unclear, but the e-mails show that he often participated in and directed decisions that had nothing to do with the firms' work in New Orleans. And he traveled with company members to drum up business in other cities, including Baton Rouge, Houston and Chicago, using his public position to open doors.

Do not miss this article. It will only continue to unravel from here.

Certainly takes all of the innuendo out of this WWL piece from yesterday, though I'm sure you didn't have much trouble making the connection yourself.

Meffert is already speaking through an attorney who promises that his client will be completely vindicated, which I think is some fancy lawyerin' mumbo jumbo signifying something no better than a plea deal with an agreement to testify.

**UPDATE: Clancy has confirmed that in fact, the feds have already had a little sit down with Meffert. The visit was "threatening" and "ugly," and Meffert is "scared."

This is what it's all about. The White to Washington leak of Council emails opened an entry path for the feds to do more work around the IT dept but never was the primary focus, though there will probably be some fallout on that front as well.

An Hour With C. Ray Nagin

If you're parsing today's interview and find a statement to be particularly silly, dishonest, or interesting please flag it in the comments below with either a time or some transcription.




And part II is available within the player.

If Charges Result?

City of NO press release, February, 2007:

NEW ORLEANS, LA (February 14, 2007) — An information technology expert with 20 years of leadership experience in the banking, healthcare and governmental sectors has been named Acting Chief Technology Officer for the City of New Orleans.


Anthony Jones, the current Management Information System (MIS) Director, will assume his new position immediately. He has worked for the City since August 2005.


“I am thrilled that Anthony has agreed to serve in this interim role,” said Chief Administrative Officer Brenda G. Hatfield. “He brings decades of experience and can help us move toward achieving some of our many important goals.”

CityBusiness, June, 2008:

“The Crime Commission received some information that brings into question some of the academic credentials that (Jones) has asserted that he has,” said Crime Commission director Rafael Goyeneche. “We have asked the city to review his application forms and resume to determine if he has the qualifications he alleged when he was given that promotion.”

The city promoted Jones in February 2007 from director of management information systems, for which he earned $99,000 a year, to interim chief technology officer and a salary of $160,000.

On May 16, Goyeneche met with Brenda Hatfield, the city’s chief administrative officer, to discuss the reports. Hatfield said the city would launch its own internal review and provide the NOMCC with a copy of its report upon completion, Goyeneche said.

As we know, Jones was demoted back to his old job around two and a half months later.

Times-Picayune, yesterday:

In response to the new findings, city Chief Administrative Officer Brenda Hatfield said the city has ensured that Jones is no longer handling any crime-camera work. She also said the findings were sent to authorities, and said city officials would consider further disciplinary action against Jones if charges result.

--

Now I don't mean to imply that Dr. Brenda Hatfield has established pattern of failure when it comes to holding people accountable for their actions because I don't have to imply it.

It's a fact that Dr. Hatfield refuses to hold people accountable.

Is it really necessary to wait for Jones to be criminally charged to fire him? This is a guy that lied repeatedly about his qualifications. He lied to his employers. He lied to Dr. Brenda Hatfield. And the city's own audit of the crime camera situation (to say nothing of the IG report) alleges specific and consistent criminal behavior.

The most troubling findings by PFM Group of Philadelphia were that Jones filed false invoices to hide the camera project's costs, and accepted plane tickets to a conference in Colorado from a contractor that earned millions on the camera project in a no-bid arrangement. The report called those actions, which Jones denies, "potential misconduct and unlawful activity" and recommended that the city inform law enforcement.

What more would someone need to do to get fired? Have you ever heard of someone remaining employed after falsifying their resume to get a promotion? Have you ever heard of someone remaining employed after falsifying their resume, falsifying invoices, and accepting plane tickets from a contractor that scammed the employer?

For her to suggest that the city is adequately and responsibly handling the matter because Jones no longer oversees the crime camera program is absolutely ludicrous. Ludicrous!!! The guy is still in charge of management information systems, responsible for the new email leak controversy. He still draws a generous five figure salary, too.

At the very least, wouldn't he be placed on leave?

I mean even the Knicks eventually fired Isiah Thomas.

--

WWLTV, August, 2008:

On Thursday Nagin said WWL-TV’s initial report on July 21 was the first time he was aware of any problems with NOAH.

“It's amazing to me that some people have been working on this quietly and supposedly knew some things and didn't bring them to light, and I don't appreciate it.”

However, council member Stacy Head's office provided WWL-TV with a copy of an e-mail sent April 1 to housing director Tony Faciane, in which Head wrote, “NOAH appears to be a mess.”

Another e-mail from July 3 to city chief administrative officer Brenda Hatfield also addressed NOAH's problems. The mayor was carbon copied on much of that exchange.

Still Nagin told the council on Thursday he never had any evidence of problems at NOAH.

That Brenda runs a real tight ship doesn't she?

No wonder the Mayor delegates all of the tough decisions the good doctor.

In his interview last week to Fox 8, Ray Nagin was asked point blank if he thought Veronica White needed to be disciplined for (at minimum) breaching city protocol by leaking City Council's emails to Tracie White without passing them through the City Attorney's office.

His answer:

Uh, I...I'm, that's... she reports to the Chief Administration Officer Dr. Brenda Hatfield. And I've asked Dr. Brenda Hatfield to look into this a little further and if there's any, you know, thing we need to do from a disciplinary standpoint, we will do that. . .

Chicago's Daley Likes Our Cameras? Nope.

Below, I flagged an interesting portion of Mayor Nagin's interview with Fox 8 news.

Holden: - That came up this week. The IG report blasting your office for basically failing to hold the contractors accountable for the work they did, way too much money being spent on this, and the fact that maintenance costs are going to be astronomical from this point on. At some point do you say let's just abandon this whole project?

Nagin: I wouldn't do that. I mean, you know, one of the things I want to remind the public is that this is something that we pioneered. This was a research and development kind of project that the city of New Orleans really hadn't done. And when you do research and development and you pioneer things, you know, you're going to have some issues. I want to tell you I was just in Washington and Mayor Daley came up to me and he said, "look, I like these crime cameras that you guys are doing in New Orleans. They're cheaper than hiring more police officers and we're going to do them in a big way in Chicago."

The truth is that Chicago has already done cameras in a big way and has been implementing one of the world's most advanced surveillance systems since 2004.

If you're on that believes that crime cameras can act as deterrents of crime, you'll notice that Chicago's system is operational and integrated into crime enforcement procedures.

For the record, I don't believe crime cameras actually deter crime. I think the risks to our civil liberties are too troubling so I generally oppose them on principle.

Either way, let's take a look at Chicago's experience. It ain't quite like our own.

New York Times, 2004:

A highly advanced system of video surveillance that Chicago officials plan to install by 2006 will make people here some of the most closely observed in the world. Mayor Richard M. Daley says it will also make them much safer.

"Cameras are the equivalent of hundreds of sets of eyes," Mr. Daley said when he unveiled the new project this month. "They're the next best thing to having police officers stationed at every potential trouble spot."

Police specialists here can already monitor live footage from about 2,000 surveillance cameras around the city, so the addition of 250 cameras under the mayor's new plan is not a great jump. The way these cameras will be used, however, is an extraordinary technological leap.

Sophisticated new computer programs will immediately alert the police whenever anyone viewed by any of the cameras placed at buildings and other structures considered terrorist targets wanders aimlessly in circles, lingers outside a public building, pulls a car onto the shoulder of a highway, or leaves a package and walks away from it. Images of those people will be highlighted in color at the city's central monitoring station, allowing dispatchers to send police officers to the scene immediately.

San Fransisco Chronicle, 2007:

Earl Gardner lounged on the street near his home just west of downtown Chicago, a 24-ounce can of Crazy Stallion beer in his hand.

A mile away, police Officer Al Garbauski slid a computer mouse to maneuver a camera that was perched a block from Gardner. Zooming in tight, Garbauski saw malt liquor meet mouth and sent an officer to arrest Gardner for drinking in public.

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. . . San Francisco differs from Chicago in one significant respect: In San Francisco, no one watches the action as the cameras record it. Police track down the footage later if they find out that a camera may have recorded a serious crime such as a homicide. No one shifts San Francisco's 70 cameras into better position in an emergency.

In Chicago, police use the cameras every day, all day. The monitors are watched in 25 district stations, and a dozen police cars are being outfitted to view feeds.

New York Times, 2009:

At first glance, Chicago’s latest crime-fighting strategy seems to be plucked from a Hollywood screenplay. Someone sees a thief dipping into a Salvation Army kettle in a crowd of shoppers on State Street and dials 911 from a cellphone. Within seconds, a video image of the caller’s location is beamed onto a dispatcher’s computer screen. An officer arrives and by police radio is directed to the suspect, whose description and precise location are conveyed by the dispatcher watching the video, leading to a quick arrest.

The cameras were linked to the 911 system with a grant from the Department of Homeland Security.

That chain of events actually happened in the Loop in December, said Ray Orozco, the executive director of the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

“We can now immediately take a look at the crime scene if the 911 caller is in a location within 150 feet of one of our surveillance cameras, even before the first responders arrive,” Mr. Orozco said.

I don't believe this city is or ever was in any kind of position to develop that kind of comprehensive system.

We were swindled when this sorry project was conceived and we've been getting swindled every step of the way since.

Who knows what Mayor Daley really said to Mayor Nagin, but he certainly wasn't holding New Orleans up as a model. Chicago is on a totally different playing field, perhaps only London is more advanced.

Snowball

I'd love to put this Mayor Nagin interview side by side with some of the other he's given over the last few months.

So many contradictory statements, such denial. It's incredible. Another classic.




(Props to Fox 8 for making their video embeddable. More of our local stations should do this.)

The best part (if one can even choose) is toward the end when he discusses the crime camera investigation.

Kim Holden: Let's switch gears a little bit -

Ray Nagin: (interrupting): Really?

Holden: Another controversy involving the crime cameras -

Nagin: (agitated interruption): Controversy?

Holden: - That came up this week. The IG report blasting your office for basically failing to hold the contractors accountable for the work they did, way too much money being spent on this, and the fact that maintenance costs are going to be astronomical from this point on. At some point do you say let's just abandon this whole project?

Nagin: I wouldn't do that. I mean, you know, one of the things I want to remind the public is that this is something that we pioneered. This was a research and development kind of project that the city of New Orleans really hadn't done. And when you do research and development and you pioneer things, you know, you're going to have some issues. I want to tell you I was just in Washington and Mayor Daley came up to me and he said, "look, I like these crime cameras that you guys are doing in New Orleans. They're cheaper than hiring more police officers and we're going to do them in a big way in Chicago."

Now, have we had issues? Absolutely. It's been well documented. We started to look at it back in August and make some changes. The gentleman who was in running the department is no longer in charge of that, no longer in charge of contracting, and we're cleaning this up. We have had some issues and we are going to do better.

Jonathan Carter: Well right now there have been a reported three prosecutions coming off of the crime cameras. With a cost of $6.6 million, Raphael Goyaneche of the Metro Crime Commission, I mean, he said that's basically $2 million for a prosecution and... and... in his words, he says, "that's not much bang for your buck."

Nagin: Well, Raphael is not really a crime expert so, I mean, you have to take what he says with a grain of salt. I will tell you that three number I don't think is accurate. I know for a fact the US Attorney's office has used the crime cameras to solve cases. The Police Department has many more cases than three that they've used. Now, whether one case where you prevent a murder or you solve a murder is worth $6 million dollars, I mean, we're going to have that debate for a long time.

Holden: How do you feel about the US Attorney looking into this whole issue and the IG's report reviewing it -

Nagin: The IG? I mean, I'm happy to see that the IG has produced another report. It's the second one in eighteen months, so that's a good thing. The first one we thought was, um, not well written but this one is better. It confirms our forensic audit. As far as the US Attorney, I, I welcome it. We've always said if there's something wrong that we have done or one of our employees [has] done and if there's anything that crosses the line of the law, we were going to turn it over and that's what we're doing here; and we'll get to the bottom of it.

But, my read of this is that I'm not sure what criminal violations happened. But I'm not an attorney so we'll see.

Another interesting exchange came as Nagin tried to downplay the insufficiently nicknamed email controversy.

Carter: Do you have any plans to talk to Veronica White about what happened?

Nagin: Uh, I...I'm, that's... she reports to the Chief Administration Officer Dr. Brenda Hatfield. And I've asked Dr. Brenda Hatfield to look into this a little further and if there's any, you know, thing we need to do from a disciplinary standpoint, we will do that. . .

Very interesting defensive posture to take to a very basic, non confrontational question. He won't even discuss the matter with his own Sanitation Director. That's how isolated this guy is. He won't even directly "talk" to his own sanitation director, who controls one of the city's largest and most consequential service departments and who controls a budget of tens of millions of dollars. Is Brenda Hatfield the only person the Mayor talks to on his own staff?

Not one of the questions he was asked was particularly probing. They're all open-ended. They just ask "well what about this thing" and give him a platform to get out his message Imagine if a reporter actually pegged him with some tough questions that ask him about specific names and dates or specifically confront some of the bogus claims he makes.

For instance, he got angry during the interview when Holden asked him if it was "fishy" that all of council's emails had been leaked when he himself has been subject to a records lawsuit because his administration had refused to hand over his own emails before it was revealed that they had been deleted. He went on some long explanation about how the council and mayor's emails are stored on different servers (which doesn't really appear to be true) and how all of his emails are now available for public consumption (which almost certainly isn't true).

Overall, it's gotten to the point that even the mere suggestion that one of these issues be labeled a "controversy" is out of bounds.

And this is pretty much the only media outlet that Ray Nagin still talks to at this point.

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At onset, I thought Nagin would be able to once again out maneuver Council in terms of political tactic but there are just too many 'fishy controversies' confronting his administration at the same time. It's really looking disorganized over there and there's too much bad press coming all at once. This Mayor was and is deeply unpopular. Council isn't fighting itself over the emails matter. He needed that in order to "win" on the transparency/emails kerfuffle and by proxy, obscure the crime camera disaster and now this new expenditure issue.

It's too much at once.

The Mayor is on very shaky ground right now. He might have been better off just staying in the bunker.

WTF?!?

So much is happening in the world of municipal politics this week it's hard to keep track of it all.

We've got HANO whistle blowers coming forward in advance of new HUD chief Shaun Donovan's visit.

New DHS Chief Janet Napolitano also comes to town for the first time this week as new allegations swirl around the New Orleans FEMA office.

The Office of the Inspector General has released its report on the perpetually wasteful crime camera program and criminal prosecutions seem likely.

Then there is this email clusterf#ck.

WWL has been suing the city for access to public records that the Office of Technology says were deleted, while simultaneously our old friend Sanitation Director Veronica White was somehow granted access to the City Council's email archives, which she promptly turned over (without checking for privileged material potentially related to ongoing lawsuits against the city or FBI investigations) to civil rights attorney Tracie Washington. City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields claims to have been unaware of this until last week, after the emails had been delivered to Washington.

White is on vacation somewhere.

Talk about inside baseball! There are many layers to this onion.

And these last few items, as Oyster says, are probably related.

Helluva week, huh?

Please submit your theories as to how the email kerfuffle went down. What do you think happens next? Do you believe that Moses-Fields didn't know? Is Veronica White going to be held accountable? Or do they circle the wagons once again? What's the most sensitive item hidden in those emails? I know I'd love to take a look for myself.

Transparency, right?

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I know Tracie Washington is probably going to take some heat for only requesting emails from the white members of City Council. But let's put this in context. Only three Councilors actually answer emails anyway. So the real question is what the hell she possibly hoped to get out of Jackie Clarkson's virgin email account. Jackie has always struck me as a rotary phone kind of gal.

Camera Ca-Ca

The executive summary of the OIG's report on the city's horrendous crime camera contracting process via WWLTV (the whole report is available via the Gamblog):

The City of New Orleans Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a review of a project to deploy a city-wide system of neighborhood surveillance cameras to help the police in their battle against crime. The project originated in 2003 when Mayor C. Ray Nagin announced a plan to install up to 1,000 video surveillance cameras as part of a crime fighting initiative. The OIG review determined that the Mayor's Office of Technology (MOT), which was charged with implementing the project, did not conduct an orderly planning process, comply with prudent procurement practices, or exercise effective contract oversight at any stage of the project. The City's surveillance camera project was undertaken without a realistic budget or a funding plan. After conducting a flawed request for proposals process, the MOT awarded a contract for the deployment of 240 cameras to Southern Electronic Supply, Inc. (Southern) in 2004. With the project less than 25 percent complete after two years, the MOT abandoned Southern‟s contract. Over the following two years, the MOT went through a series of three more contractors before the project was completed on July 31, 2008 with 214 cameras deployed. The MOT‟s internal cost estimate for the 240 camera project was approximately $2.6 million. After vendors submitted initial project proposals, it became apparent that the MOT had seriously underestimated the likely cost. The MOT also failed to control expenditures and allowed costs to mount to more than $6.6 million, exceeding the amount appropriated for the project by a wide margin. Despite its cost, the completed project is not designed or built to operate reliably and will be expensive to maintain. None of the four contractors on this project was held accountable for the quality of work or the performance of the camera system. When the final contractor deemed the project complete on July 31, 2008, it reported that 205 of the 214 cameras were operational, but an OIG inspection determined that only 114 of the cameras were working on September 18, 2008. The City blamed Hurricane Gustav, which struck on September 1, 2008, for most of the camera failures observed by the OIG. The high rate of failure may be partly attributable to the architecture of the communications network, in which the movement of a single antenna can disrupt the operation of an entire series of cameras. The OIG found that many installations were highly vulnerable to wind events, as camera equipment and plate antennas were often installed in a makeshift manner that would not meet the standards for a traditional public works project such as traffic signals or signage. The findings in this report describe problems that contributed to the project‟s failure to meet the City‟s expectations. Major findings include the following:

The organizational structure of the MOT, which relied on subcontractors to manage its operations, undermined accountability.

The MOT lacked the expertise to successfully plan the surveillance camera project and relied on assistance from one vendor to the detriment of fair competition.

Installation of Crime Surveillance Cameras 2003-2008 Office of the Inspector General, City of New Orleans 10 of 50.

The MOT's request for proposals process did not ensure that the City received the benefit of competitive prices for equipment and materials for the project.

The contract with Southern did not hold the contractor accountable for system performance or provide a meaningful warranty for the work.

The MOT failed to control expenditures and made $286,423.85 in overpayments to Southern, based on records provided to the OIG.

The MOT tacitly approved an improper lease agreement that allowed a subcontractor to profit from self-dealing.

The City made payments totaling $770,624.52 to Dell, Inc., without documentation to show what was purchased.

The MOT failed to either maintain project records to document work performed or inspections done of contractors‟ work.

In 2008, the MOT entered into a no-bid, open-ended agreement with Ciber Inc. to enhance the City's communications network without determining the likely cost.

The MOT's agreement with Ciber provided no warranty or performance standards and the network Ciber built does not meet the MOT‟s expectations for reliability.

The MOT incurred charges for the surveillance camera project that exceeded its budget for 2008 by $2.5 million.

The management problems detailed in this report pre-date the tenure of the City‟s current Interim CTO, who began work in August 2008. In his first few months, the current Interim CTO has taken steps to address some of the problems identified in this report, but more changes are needed to guard against performance failures and cost overruns in future projects. The report concludes with the following recommendations for change:

1. The City should reduce its excessive reliance on contractors for information technology services.

2. The City should procure all services using a competitive process based on a clearly defined scope of work and a maximum contract cost.

3. The City should adopt contract terms and contract oversight procedures that hold contractors accountable for the quality of their work.

4. The City should correct weaknesses in its fiscal oversight procedures that threaten the integrity of its budget.

5. The City should develop a plan and budget before undertaking any future project.

What does it mean that our city's government just had to be told that it "should develop a plan and a budget" before it proceeds with initiatives?

It means our city government is pathetic. But everyone that lives here knows that. How sad.

It's very nice of the OIG to release this report as the Mayor moves to hand out a professional service contract for the maintenance of our crime camera portfolio. As you'll recall, two weeks ago, Mayor Nagin abolished the advisory board that would have acted as third party to the award of that contract after City Council attempted to make the entire proceeding open to the public.

Executive orders have consequences.

I urge City Council to work together to unanimously and unequivocally end the crime camera program forever.

The cameras have been largely inoperable. They have not aided in the prosecution of any criminals. They have cost us millions of dollars over several years.

All of that money should go toward repairing street lights around the city. Properly functioning street lights can deter crime and allow people to feel more secure in their own neighborhoods.

How do we work this out in a unified way?

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Meanwhile, interim Inspector General Len Odom and US Attorney Jim Letten will have to decide whether or not to pursue prosecutions related to the crime camera investigation. I urge them to proceed. White collar crime is the most harmful kind of crime. Individuals that have broken the law should be held accountable.