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.

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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?

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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?

Similar storm, different city

More from the Nor' Emailster:

Computer forensics specialists will probably be able to retrieve at least some of the e-mails deleted, in an apparent violation of state public records law, by the top policy aide to Mayor Thomas M. Menino, according to several specialists who provide such services.

Yesterday, responding to an order by Secretary of State William F. Galvin, the city hired a computer forensics firm, StoneTurn Group, to scour City Hall computers for the missing e-mail of Michael J. Kineavy, Menino’s chief of policy and planning. The issue came to light after the Globe filed a public records request for the messages.

So far behind, we're six months ahead of Boston's emerging email scandal. Seriously, if I'd omitted the names of the players, wouldn't you have just assumed this was a T-P lede from earlier in the summer?

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."

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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.

Signals

Today, the Department of Justice confirmed an ongoing federal probe targeting Greg Meffert. It has long been assumed that he was a primary target of what everyone can boost my ego by calling the e-maelstrom.

First, it's comforting to finally see this confirmed.

Second, let's speculate:

Though announced on a Friday, to see this come out on Katrina Anniversary weekend (also known as the Great National Media Flashback of 2009) would indicate to me that US Attorney Jim Letten is making a strong commitment in regard to pursuing this case and others closely related to it.

Keep in mind that with the closure of the Bill and Mose Jefferson trials (especially Mose, since he was tried locally), the local DOJ office's labor resources diverted to those cases are now available to be deployed to work on other investigations.

Thus, starting this weekend and over the next 4-6 weeks, I would advise keeping a close eye on the papers and the blogs.

Not that you don't already.

What a subpoena letter looks like

City Email Docs080409-1
The non-disclosure suggestion is worded so non-threateningly.

Cliff added a great comment to the last post that's worth repeating:

Here's a question I need someone to answer for me. Why don't the feds just get a subpoena to take the entire server and do their own data extraction? Is it normal for the feds to let someone they are building a case on hire private firms to retrieve information? To me this says they are still looking for a smoking gun to make a case with. In the meantime we keep spending city money for all of this.

Maybe just tacking on additional counts?

That would seem kind of like spinning the wheel when you've already solved the puzzle.

Sunburn

1. We know that all the work LTC did for the city technology office has been subpoenaed by the Feds.

2. We know that the city fired LTC and hired "SunBlock" to do the same work in a less public way.

Question: Aren't the Feds just going to immediately subpoena whatever it is that SunBlock produces?

"You Gangsta Dawg"

On WBOK this morning, there was a surprise appearance by City tech chief M. Harrison Boyd and Communications chief Ceeon Quiett. They were there to field softballs from the morning team about how Louisiana Technology Council is an incompetent organization with some yet undefined political agenda.

I do have to say, however, that I can't quite wrap my mind around what Mr. Boyd's interests in all this lie. He doesn't, to my knowledge, have any deep roots here. I don't really understand - if in fact there's all kinds of nefarious activity going on in the tech office at City Hall - why Boyd, hired relatively late in the game, would have anything to do with it. So I'm just not sure how something like this would really play. There'd have to be some explanation for why Boyd would stick his neck out like that.

The best part of the interview though was when Gerod decided to 'get tough' on Boyd about an apparent attempt to intimidate LTC's Mark Lewis by sealing his home shut.

"If you jammin' locks - you gangsta, dawg."

I was putting my socks on while seated on the floor when he said that and I just started laughing hysterically. I had to give up. I'm wearing flip-flops today.

Listening to some of the questions posted by the host, ABC's Michael Hill, and a couple of callers, I think it's clear that public opinion on the whole matter is very much influenced by a perceived double-standard when it comes to the Mayor's emails and City Council's emails.

That perception might not be fair but I think that the delays in releasing all of Council's emails make for avoidably bad optics. Just redact what needs to be redacted and get 'em all out.

Quick Hits

I'm back in New Orleans after some R&R with friends and family in Philadelphia.

My glasses fogged up for ten minutes after I exited baggage claim into the night.

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1. Mitch Landrieu says he's not running for Mayor.

Interesting but not all-together unsurprising. He said in a recent WBOK interview that he was going to give it some thought at the end of the legislative session. There was significant downside to running for Mayor. If he lost again this time - that might be the end of the road for him politically. It's not as if the last race was a particularly good experience. Plus being Mayor of New Orleans has got to be one of the most impossible jobs in the country right now.

This does, however, give us an opportunity to start thinking more seriously about rumors he was angling for a federal appointment of some sort.

2. Revenge vandalism at Mark Lewis' house.

Really, really, really hard to believe this wasn't a coordinated hit. Very typical move from the intimidation playbook - only it's too late in the game. Very familiar to stuff corrupt union boss Johnny Doc used to have the boys do up in Philly.

That the incident occurred the day before Lewis held a press conference insinuating the Nagin administration had deliberately deleted certain potentially incriminating emails indicates that the directive came from someone who knew the publication of Lewis' findings was imminent.

The only things that give me the slightest pause are the disclosures that political consultant Cheron Brylski dealt with the same tactic in January and that Christopher Reeves' office was burglarized this past Sunday. Seems they caught the burglerer - that one could be a coincidence - but the Brylski thing can't possibly be...

I wonder if the vandalism occurred at Ms. Brylski's place in January had less to do with her being Lewis' PR consultant and more to do with one of Ms. Brylski's other numerous high-profile clients.

Freshman year in college, we "pennied" the door of our RA to punish him for... I dunno, telling us to be quiet or something. Essentially you can squeeze pennies into the small crack between the door and the frame. This prevents the door from opening, locking the person inside.

3. Mary Landrieu seems to have indicated she's considering filibustering the public option with Senate Rumpublicans. That would be, I think, unforgiveable. I don't want to throw her under the bus yet because I think that statement needs some clarification. I'd like to see it in context.

A local MoveOn member is organizing a protest of her office for tomorrow (Thursday June 9th) at noon. Mary Landrieu's office is at 550 Poydras St.

In other public option news, conservative Senator Blanche Lincoln (D - AR) seems to be moving in a favorable direction.

Segmented Circle

American Zombie is navigating the e-maelstrom once again. Here, here, and here.

Timing is going to be increasingly sensitive with everything as the race to the punchline heats up after hurricane season moves to past its peak. If we're going to get something good, we'll start to have a pretty good idea by the time September rolls around. Otherwise, it might have to wait until next summer. The DOJ is likely to be exceptionally careful about indictments near election time, probably more so now after Alberto Gonzales' DOJ violated so many standards.

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.

re: e-maelstrom

From a T-P editorial I largely agree with:

[O]ne thing is clear: The council and its attorneys are trying to keep legitimate public records under wraps simply because they may be embarrassing or offensive. Saving public officials from their own words, however, is not one of the exceptions in the open records law. If the council truly favors transparency, it should stop fighting the release of records to which all Louisianians are clearly entitled.

Get 'em out. Leaks of selective emails make the whole thing just into a political hit on Head. While I'm sure some will say that that's precisely what the request was about in the first place, I'm not sure that remains relevant to the question regarding whether the rest of the emails - which include those belonging to three other Councilors - should be released.

Also I think adrastros' take on this is spot-on.

Jeffersontext

There are a million sides to every story. Be back with more later.

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It's later.

As things get sticky for Councilwoman Head around these emails let's me make sure that I'm telling the whole story.

We'll ultimately get many of these emails released but if what was leaked to me and others yesterday by LJI is the worst of the worst, count me as mostly unimpressed.

The Councilor is going to have to answer some questions about this for sure.

But...

Let us not forget the unusual circumstances around the early off-the-books release of the emails to LJI through Veronica White.

Connections to the Jefferson machine are quite transparent.

I actually have grown to have a lot of respect for what Head has brought to District B after ages of careless representation. Those changes have been good and I would hate for a sensationalized feud between Washington and Head to lead to the undoing of what I would say has been largely progress.

What really makes me angry and uncomfortable with the whole thing is that in my heart, I think that the LJI world and the Stacy Head world ought to be allied instead of feuding. I would say that 80% of their substantive interests align but that personal beefs around mostly inconsequential BS have distracted both sides from doing some really important things.

I have occasional email contact with both camps.

It's amazing how often they're on the same side of an issue but think they're working against one another. It's almost funny but it's mostly distracting. And I hate feeling like I have to pick a side.

Caontext

Councilor Stacy Head's elitist checkout commentary aside, there's a much more comprehensive picture that puts those comments into an even more unfortunate context.

Though I've often vehemently criticized certain comments she's made and more importantly, policies that she's championed, Councilor Head earned a lot of respect from yours truly because of her work ethic and the lengths she goes to provide effective constituent representation. More respect than I ever thought I could possibly give her after the stances she took on housing.

But there's not much excuse for all this.

Ya know, when you hold yourself to a higher standard...

I received these early yesterday afternoon.

UPDATE:

Publishing items with personal email addresses of people I don't know without permission violates my own personal comfort level. I was too hasty earlier so I've decided to take down those emails. Essentially, Stacy Head was receiving extremely detailed communications on the mechanics of the Cao campaign. She was not responding to them in a particularly substantive way and was redirecting them away from her official council email account. But there may have been some questionable activity involved.

UPDATE II:

ABC26 actually already published the same emails minus the addresses. You can go check 'em out there. Link! And here I'd thought I may have broken one... ha ha on me.