Judge overturns guilty verdicts based on sock-puppet antics of Jim Letten’s lawyers. The judge issues a blistering ruling (.pdf) including significant criticism of DoJ in Washington. This blog has covered this issue before and the ruling will merit more time and attention when I am less slammed at work. (Now you know why the blogging pace has been slower in recent days.)

Lee Stranahan: Duping The Idiots: The Left’s Frankfurt School Denialism.

Robert Stacy McCain: “Perhaps you should ask Patterico what manner of mischief Neal Rauhauser has perpetrated over the years . . .” from Mopery with Intent to Lurk.

The following comes to us from Charles C. Johnson, the “good Charles Johnson” (not to be confused with the guy at Little Green Footballs who bans anyone who disagrees with him even slightly.) Back in July, Charles spoke to former U.S. Attorney Jim Letten about the video of Jim Letten’s angry confrontation with James O’Keefe, in which Letten called O’Keefe a “hobbit” and a “spud” and an “asshole” and threw O’Keefe’s book at him.

Charles has allowed me to publish the interview exclusively here at patterico.com. Mr. Letten is welcome to respond with his side. Indeed, I specifically extended that invitation to Letten by email upon the publication of this post. Here is Charles’s interview:

My conversation in mid-July with former U.S. Attorney and Tulane Law School Dean Jim Letten

I reached out to Letten on his Tulane email address and gave him my number. He called me and we spoke for twenty-five minutes. Letten kept asking for the conversation to be off the record, something I never agreed to.

In any event, Letten did not respect his own off the record request and went to another journalist, John Simerman, a writer for the New Orleans Advocate who has written positively about Letten in the past, including a very sympathetic portrait of the former U.S. Attorney only days after he resigned in disgrace.

Using information he could only have obtained from me, Letten talked to Simerman about O’Keefe. Simerman then wrote an article trashing O’Keefe. Letten, who is unnamed as a source in the article but most likely “a source with knowledge of the incident,” admitted in an email to having spoken with Simerman. By contrast Simerman reported that Letten “declined to comment on the incidents.” Simerman did not return a request for comment.

When asked if his own comments were appropriate, Letten attacked O’Keefe’s credibility and called him an “extreme right-winger partisan who does these kind of stunts.”

When I said that I had seen the videotape of O’Keefe offering his wife a copy of the book and that he seemed pleasant, Letten insisted that O’Keefe had “terrorized” his wife and “threatened” his family, an assertion he repeated throughout the conversation.

Letten, who had been the longest serving U.S. Attorney, resigned in December 2012 after his two top lieutenants, including first assistant Jan Mann who prosecuted O’Keefe, were caught posting anonymous comments on a major Louisiana newspaper site mocking the defense during a high-profile trial. When confronted by a federal judge about it, Letten’s top staffers lied. Letten, along with two others, including Mann, resigned in disgrace.

At the time of O’Keefe’s trial Mann refused to comment on the charges brought against O’Keefe. Mann told Fox News.com that the U.S. Attorney’s office “[doesn’t] try cases in the press.”

Letten refused to answer whether O’Keefe’s case wasn’t subject to similar online sock puppetry, maintaining that O’Keefe was “appropriately prosecuted.” He did not answer questions as to how he could have known that if he recused himself from the prosecution.

O’Keefe has maintained that someone from the U.S. Attorney’s office leaked his privileged attorney-client emails, a subject he discusses at length in his book. Letten insists that he had nothing to do with it, if it indeed happened at all. “He’s just very deceitful and deceptive,” Letten said, who again said he had recused himself.

Letten wouldn’t say why he recused himself, but it is most likely because one of the defendants, including Robert Flagan, who is the son of the then acting U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of Louisiana. Letten and Flagan are social acquaintances.

Letten insisted that he recused himself from the case, but after prodding acknowledged that it was “my office who continued to make the decision.” “When someone recuses themselves it isn’t done lightly,” Letten insisted.

The decision to prosecute O’Keefe and to accept Letten’s recusal was made at “the very highest levels of the Justice Department.” “[O’Keefe] was appropriately convicted.”

Letten declined to answer if his office worked with Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute O’Keefe.

There’s reason to think that he may have. Last month, J. Christian Adams, a voting rights expert, revealed documents that showed coordination by Holder’s Justice Department with Attorney General Richard Head of New Hampshire after O’Keefe’s successful voter fraud investigations. [Editor’s note: Richard Head has worked directly with Brett Kimberlin associate and professional harasser Neal Rauhauser.]

Insisting that O’Keefe wasn’t a “journalist,” Letten did not answer a question about whether O’Keefe should have been given the same protections as the so-called McConnell buggers, who were given First Amendment protections by the Justice Department. He persisted in refusing to answer the question.

Letten was indignant when asked why he took O’Keefe’s book only to throw it back at him. “Oh come on! I tossed it at him!”

Finally, I asked him if he felt his behavior was in keeping with the code of conduct that Tulane has for all its students and faculty. He declined to answer.

Bug Mitch McConnell, get treated like a journalist. Be James O’Keefe, get the book thrown at you.

That’s our Justice Department these days. Aren’t you proud?

UPDATE: Ken from Popehat makes the sound point that we can’t necessarily infer that McConnell’s bugger won’t be prosecuted just because he confessed in writing at Salon.com months ago and has yet to be prosecuted. The Feds have a way of delaying action to such a degree that is mystifying to mere mortals.

UPDATE x2: Thanks very much to Instapundit for the link.

Literally.

The headline just writes itself. This is comedy gold.

You have to watch the video, as descriptions don’t do it justice. Basically, the guy in charge of the U.S. Attorney’s Office that prosecuted O’Keefe for a B.S. petty violation screams at O’Keefe, calls him a “hobbit” and a “spud” (racism against the Irish?!) and an “asshole.” Then he grabs O’Keefe’s book from him just so he can throw it at O’Keefe.

My. It would be fine to have this guy in charge of your future, wouldn’t it?

Letten, it should be remembered, resigned in disgrace after his top assistants were caught sock-puppeting comments about a case they were prosecuting and lying to a judge about it. One of those sock-puppeting assistants had haughtily proclaimed about O’Keefe: “We don’t try cases in the press.”

Ha.

P.S. I have been dying to write this post ever since I first saw the video of Letten’s antics back in early July, and teased it on Twitter (note the dates of the tweets):

That prosecutor really threw the book at James O'Keefe. #literaltweet

— Patterico (@Patterico) July 13, 2013

I mean, he literally threw the book at him! #literally

— Patterico (@Patterico) July 13, 2013

P.P.S. More exclusive information about Letten and O’Keefe in the morning. I have a feeling you’ll be interested.

Under questioning from Sen. John Cornyn, Eric Holder recently said that the Aaron Swartz case was a good example of prosecutorial discretion. He makes the case, in part, by lying:

Holder insisted the media had misrepresented the government’s position. “A plea offer was made to him of three months before the indictment,” Holder said. The attorney general said the government never intended for Swartz to serve more than six months in jail.

Oh yeah? That’s not what Elliot Peters, Swartz’s attorney, told me in January. While it may be the case that they offered Swartz a few months in prison, they also said they would seek a much higher sentence if they went to trial:

They told Peters that if the case went to trial and Swartz were convicted, they would seek a prison sentence of 7 to 8 years. They told Peters that they thought the judge would impose that sentence.

If John Cornyn read my blog, he would have been armed with the information necessary to take on Holder. I don’t think he was.

While Holder was busy lying to Congress, his prosecutors were busy dismissing cases that they had aggressively prosecuted in the past, making people wonder whether they hope to forestall investigations into prosecutorial misconduct. Remember that case I told you about in November, in which a federal judge excoriated New Orleans federal prosecutors for leaving anonymous comments on the local newspaper’s web site, and then lying about it?

That judge ordered DoJ to investigate the alleged improprieties, but also expressed skepticism about their willingness to do so thoroughly:

“It is difficult to imagine how this could have possibly been missed by OPR. . .”

Well, now news breaks that the case that first exposed these prosecutors’ sock puppeting is being dismissed:

River Birch landfill owner Fred Heebe, the target of a years-long federal probe into his efforts to monopolize the disposal business in southeastern Louisiana, issued a statement Friday afternoon saying that federal prosecutors had informed him he won’t be charged in the probe. On Friday morning, prosecutors dismissed charges against Dominick Fazzio, the landfill’s chief financial officer, and Mark Titus, Fazzio’s brother-in-law — both of whom investigators had hoped to turn into cooperating witnesses against Heebe.

A related article explains the relevance:

The judge has on several occasions referred to the “troubled history” of the prosecution in the case.

That history includes former prosecutors Sal Perricone and Jan Mann leaving the U.S. attorney’s office last year, after Heebe’s legal team outed them separately as the authors of numerous online posts on NOLA.com. Many of those posts made disparaging comments about federal targets.

Letten put Mann in charge of an initial probe after Perricone — whose comments were revealed first — left the office in the spring. But when Mann’s own anonymous comments were also revealed in the fall, U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt issued a scathing order calling for the Department of Justice to investigate the postings and other misconduct in Letten’s office.

I have checked the docket on the case in which the order to investigate the sock puppeteering was issued (USA v. Bowen et al.), and everything appears to be under seal since November, which is more than a little frustrating when it comes to an issue of the public integrity of the DoJ. The dismissal of the River Birch case makes one wonder if the Government will apply the same sweep-it-under-the-rug tactic in the Bowen case.

We’ll be right here watching.

His office prosecuted James O’Keefe. Now Jim Letten is resigning amid a scandal involving his office:

Letten’s move follows an ongoing scandal over anonymous Internet comments made by two of Letten’s top aides on a website for the newspaper concerning matters related to their work. One top prosecutor resigned earlier this year after a subject of the comments hired a skilled investigator, identified him and filed a defamation suit. The other top prosecutor was demoted as an investigation by the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility continues.

Meanwhile, at the end of last month, as an earlier Times-Picayune article details, a federal judge issued what the newspaper describes as a “tartly worded” order calling for investigation of possible leaks by Letten’s office concerning its prosecution of law enforcement officers over a fatal shooting of apparently unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

If it’s an effort to avoid further investigation, I hope it fails.

[Guest post by DRJ]

Fox News reports U.S. Attorney Jim Letten of the Eastern District of Louisiana, the prosecutor in the O’Keefe criminal matter, recused himself on the same day Andrew Breitbart claimed O’Keefe was jailed without counsel for over a day:

“The same day the man who first published James O’Keefe’s explosive videos exposing wrongdoing at community organizer ACORN came to his defense Monday, claiming the conservative filmmaker “sat in jail for 28 hours without access to an attorney” while the prosecutor made his case to the media, the U.S. attorney involved stepped down.”

The article added that O’Keefe “declined to talk about Breitbart’s allegations on Fox News [presumably in his Hannity interview] Monday night” but he was “pleased with the way the U.S. attorney was handling the case.” Breitbart claimed the Justice Department was using O’Keefe to get even because of the ACORN scandal:

“Breitbart said he though the U.S. attorney’s effort was part of a payback scheme against O’Keefe, who posed as a pimp and prostitute with another citizen journalist to enter ACORN offices around the country and get advice on how to apply for federal housing grants for a brothel.

“It’s tied to the Justice Department. And we’ve been very aggressive in asking (Attorney General) Eric Holder to investigate what’s seen on these ACORN tapes and he’s ignored it,” Breitbart said of the media ploy.”

FWIW, I don’t think Letten’s recusal has anything to do with Breitbart, his claims, or even O’Keefe. Letten recused himself, not his office, and the first assistant Jan Maselli Mann will take over the prosecution. My guess is Letten’s recusal is related to the fact that one of the suspects is the son of the U.S. Attorney in Shreveport, who is likely a Letten acquaintance and the basis for his recusal.

— DRJ

PS — Heh. Patterico posts on this at Hot Air.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports:

A federal judge has denied alleged embezzler Jamie Perdigao’s request that U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s office be recused from prosecuting his case because of alleged conflicts.

In a sensational motion filed in April, Perdigao — who is accused of stealing $30 million from the Adams and Reese law firm, where he was once a partner — claimed that federal prosecutors were uninterested in pursuing a series of juicy leads he provided them after his arrest. The reason, he said, was that some of the tips implicated members of Letten’s office.

In addition, Perdigao noted that his leads, if verified, could have tarnished or even overturned the verdict against former Gov. Edwin Edwards, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence. Letten’s office did not want to run that risk, Perdigao argued.

In a status conference held Friday, U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon, who had been weighing Perdigao’s request for an evidentiary hearing on his claims, ruled that no hearing was necessary. Fallon also denied the request to recuse Letten’s office at the status conference.

I guess those of us looking for some entertainment from the hearing will have to wait until Perdigao’s criminal trial, or further developments on his civil suit. That could take a while:

Perdigao’s trial on the criminal charges is scheduled to begin Dec. 1. His civil suit has not been scheduled for trial yet.

Bummer, dude.

Federal crimes: they’re a family affair:

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten announced this afternoon that 4th District Assessor Betty Jefferson, an elder sister of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, has been indicted on a host of fraud-related charges by a federal grand jury. Also indicted were Jefferson’s daughter, Angela Coleman, and her brother, the previously indicted Mose Jefferson.

According to Yahoo News, the three relatives of the indicted Congressman

were charged via a 31 count-indictment by a federal grand jury today with conspiracy to commit mail fraud; federal program fraud; aggravated identity theft; substantive program fraud; mail fraud; and conspiracy to commit money laundering, announced U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana Jim Letten.

The press release is here.

Thanks to Lynn.

[This is a joint post by Patterico and DRJ. DRJ’s contributions to the post cannot possibly be overstated. — Patterico]

Did a prosecutor in the New Orleans U.S. Attorney’s Office commit misconduct which could jeopardize the conviction of former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards? Did a defendant who turned state’s evidence against Edwards bribe Congressman William Jefferson to influence the former U.S. Attorney to get a better deal for himself? Did the Department of Justice ignore evidence of these claims?

These are the allegations made by James G. Perdigao, a Louisiana attorney indicted in 2004 on theft and fraud charges, when he filed a motion to recuse the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Louisiana from prosecuting his criminal case. Perdigao’s motion contains detailed allegations of corruption by members of the U.S. Attorney’s office. Perdigao claims he brought these allegations to the attention of higher level prosecutors in the Bush administration, who ignored them.

Perdigao’s allegations include numerous facts that should be easily verified or disproved. In this post, patterico.com exclusively reveals that one of Perdigao’s claims is at least partially verified by a public records search.

Specifically, Perdigao claims that an Assistant U.S. Attorney handling part of the case against Governor Edwards “had acquired joint ownership of property in Alabama with Guidry’s defense counsel while the Edwards case was still in litigation.” As set forth in detail below, this particular allegation appears to be confirmed by property records available at an Alabama local government website.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says DoJ has already looked into Perdigao’s allegations and determined them to be without merit. However, the U.S. Attorney’s office has filed the proof under seal — and has sought without success to convince the judge to seal Perdigao’s allegations.

Either Perdigao and his lawyer are making very serious allegations without sufficient proof, or DoJ did an inadequate investigation as to possible corruption by a local U.S. Attorney’s office . . . or, perhaps, willingly overlooked an apparent conflict of interest.

Only time will tell whether Perdigao’s allegations are true and are as serious as the motion makes them out to be, or whether they are simply the maneuverings of an attorney trying to avoid entering a guilty plea.

In the meantime, here are some details of the allegations.

Overview

Let’s start with this introduction from the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

A man charged with stealing roughly $30 million from the large New Orleans law firm that employed him asked in a court motion filed Thursday that U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s office be recused from his case because of alleged conflicts.

The filing by Jamie Perdigao claims that after he was arrested in 2004, the former Adams and Reese partner provided federal authorities with juicy leads about other criminal activity he knew of — some of it involving key players in the case against former Gov. Edwards.

The feds didn’t pursue any of it, Perdigao’s motion claims, because Letten’s office has a conflict in the Edwards case.

Letten’s office responded by filing a strongly worded motion Monday pointing out that, despite serious doubts about the validity of Perdigao’s claims, the office already recused itself in 2006 from investigating the leads. The tips were referred to the Department of Justice in Washington, which agreed to handle the investigation.

The Perdigao story has its roots in the May 2000 conviction of Governor Edwin Edwards for accepting bribes in return for influencing or controlling who was awarded riverboat gaming casino licenses in Louisiana.

Edwin Edwards

One of the people who turned state’s evidence against Edwards was Robert Guidry, a Louisiana tugboat operator who testified he paid bribes to Edwards in return for a casino license. The Louisiana legislature limited the number of riverboat casino licenses issued to 15, so they were very valuable. Perdigao “represented Guidry in civil matters at the time of the Edwards trial,” according to the Times-Picayune.

Edwards filed several appeals of his conviction to the 5th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court that resulted in opinions in 2002 and 2006. In the latter appeal, Edwards unsuccessfully argued that the U.S. Attorney failed to provide Edwards’s defense with all exculpatory evidence of Guidry’s deal with the U.S. Attorney. There were also concerns that the U.S. Attorney’s office let Guidry escape with a minimal punishment (5 months in a halfway house) and retain significant funds from his brief tenure in the casino business.

Property Transactions by an AUSA

One of Perdigao’s allegations can be checked out, in part, by reference to property records. Perdigao alleges:

That the AUSA had acquired joint ownership of property in Alabama with Guidry’s defense counsel while the Edwards case was still in litigation. The AUSA also failed to make proper disclosures on his Public Disclosure Forms with the Department of Justice.

Perdigao does not name the AUSA or Guidry’s defense counsel. However, he does state that the AUSA “became the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division.” The Times-Picayune article linked above indicates that the AUSA in question is Fred Harper:

Perdigao’s motion alleges that Letten’s office, too, is riddled with conflicts and corruption. It says that, at some point during the Edwards case, Guidry bribed the prosecutor who is now deputy chief of the office’s criminal division in hopes of getting leniency.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Harper, a veteran prosecutor, holds that position now.

Perdigao also declines to name Guidry’s defense counsel — the one who supposedly “acquired joint ownership of property in Alabama” with the AUSA (whom the Times-Picayune suggests is Fred Harper). However, a published court decision tells us that one of Guidry’s defense lawyers was a man named Ralph Capitelli.

Ralph Capitelli

So, did Fred Harper acquire joint ownership of property in Alabama with Ralph Capitelli? Public records suggest that he did.

Property records for Baldwin County, Alabama, reveal that a Fred Harper, sometimes referred to as Fred Harper Jr., owns or has owned at least two pieces of property jointly with a Ralph Capitelli. Those records show that on May 10, 2005, four individuals, Fred P. Harper, Laura Jean Todaro, and Ralph and Linda Capitelli, purchased a piece of property in Baldwin County. On the same date, those same 4 people jointly took out a mortgage in the amount of $355,500. The records also show that those same 4 people bought what appears to be a second piece of land on July 15, 2005, with a down payment of $280,000.

At the time of those property purchases (May and July 2005), litigation over a petition for habeas corpus filed by Edwards was still pending. Edwards’ habeas filing was not resolved until this ruling of the U.S. Fifth Circuit dated March 1, 2006. That appeal must have been filed some time shortly after December 14, 2004, when, according to sources cited at White Collar Crime Prof Blog, a district court judge ruled on a motion to clear the way for the appeal.

It is not clear whether Harper played any role in opposing the habeas petition filed by Edwards. The Fifth Circuit opinion lists only a Stephen Higginson representing the United States in the appeal. A DoJ press release indicates that Higginson is an Assistant U.S. Attorney in New Orleans who was on the team, with Fred Harper, that prosecuted Edwards. It was not until September 13, 2006 that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Orleans recused itself from handling the allegations made by Perdigao, according to a letter filed along with U.S. Attorney Letten’s response to Perdigao’s motion.

Was the “Fred Harper” whose name appears on the property records the same Fred Harper who worked for the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Louisiana? It would appear so. The key fact here is that one of the names listed on the deed with Harper was Laura Jean Todaro. It turns out that Laura Jean Todaro was Harper’s girlfriend.

Similarly, the “Ralph Capitelli” whose name appears on the property documents with Harper and Todaro appears to be the same Ralph Capitelli who represented Robert Guidry. In the case of U.S. v. Robert Guidry, the court docket in PACER shows that the defendant was represented by Ralph Capitelli, of the law firm Capitelli & Wicker, 1100 Poydras St., New Orleans. The Ralph Capitelli listed on the decision linked above is based in New Orleans. This 8-K SEC filing, from October 20, 2004, sets forth a stock purchase agreement to which Ralph Capitelli and T. Carey Wicker III are among the parties. The filing lists both Capitelli and Wicker as having the same address: “1100 Poydras St., Suite 2950, New Orleans, LA 70163” — the address of the Capitelli & Wicker law firm, according to the Capitelli & Wicker firm’s web site.

The SEC filing further states that Ralph Capitelli and Linda Capitelli are husband and wife, and Louisiana residents. The couple were also notables at a New Orleans event in November 2007. Further evidence comes in the form of campaign finance records showing that Linda Capitelli lists her address care of the Capitelli & Wicker firm for the purposes of her campaign contributions.

From all of this, we know that Ralph Capitelli, the New Orleans criminal defense lawyer who represented Robert Guidry, is married to Linda Capitelli. And Ralph and Linda Capitelli are the people whose names are listed on the deed with Fred Harper and Laura Jean Todaro.

This evidence appears to strongly indicate that AUSA Fred Harper and Guidry defense attorney Ralph Capitelli jointly purchased land during the pendency of Edwards’s habeas matters, just as Perdigao alleged.

(Interestingly, Capitelli apparently was still representing Guidry, in connection with obtaining controversial liquor licenses, as recently as March 2008.)

Allegations against Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)

William Jefferson

In his motion to recuse, Perdigao also raises claims that involve Congressman William Jefferson, his elder brother Mose Jefferson, and former US Attorney Eddie Jordan — the predecessor to Jim Letter, the current U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana. From the Times-Picayune report:

Among the wide-ranging claims, Perdigao’s motion claims that he told federal investigators that former riverboat casino owner Bobby Guidry, whose testimony helped convict Edwards, paid more than $1 million in bribes to U.S. Rep. William Jefferson around the time of the trial. Edwards was found guilty of racketeering and is more than halfway through a 10-year sentence in a Louisiana federal prison.

Perdigao represented Guidry in civil matters at the time of the Edwards trial; Perdigao also testified in the case. His motion claims that the bribes Guidry allegedly paid were “to be used by Jefferson to illegally influence then-U.S. Attorney Eddie Jordan,” a Jefferson ally, to treat Guidry leniently. Guidry eventually pleaded guilty to paying bribes to Edwards to get a riverboat casino license. In 2001, he was sentenced to a halfway house for five months.

The motion does not say how Perdigao knows of the alleged bribes, or whether he has proof.

Also in hopes of influencing Jordan, the motion claims, Guidry loaned $300,000 in August 2000 to Mose Jefferson, the congressman’s brother. The loan paperwork was drawn up by the Adams and Reese law firm, where Perdigao was employed, the motion says.

Eddie Jordan is another in a long line of interesting Louisiana politicians. He was appointed by President Clinton as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana and he served until 2001 when he was succeeded by his first assistant, Jim Letten, who was lead prosecutor in the Edwin Edwards prosecution.

Eddie Jordan

Thereafter, Jordan ran for and won election as New Orleans District Attorney, but he stirred controversy when one of his first acts in 2003 was to fire most of the white employees in the D.A.’s office. In late 2007, Jordan resigned after effectively bankrupting the D.A.’s office from the $3.5 million judgment resulting from a jury verdict that he racially discriminated against white employees. As a result, the D.A.’s office faced seizure of its office assets and disruption in paying staff salaries.

According to a June 2007 Times-Picayune article, Mose Jefferson was reportedly the source of bribes paid to former Orleans Parish School Board president Ellenese Brooks-Simms, and Jefferson has been indicted for bribery in that case. This supports Perdigao’s claim that Mose Jefferson was involved in bribery. (In an interesting side-note, Ralph Capitelli represented Brooks-Simms in that case.)

Page 5 of the Times-Picayune article notes the close relationship between Congressman William Jefferson and “Jefferson allies including District Attorney Eddie Jordan … ,” providing support for Perdigao’s claim of an alliance between William Jefferson and Eddie Jordan.

Other allegations in the motion to recuse

Another claim alleged in Perdigao’s motion to recuse raises questions about the adequacy of investigations conducted by the Department of Justice:

In October 2006 Guidry’s son-in-law informed Perdigao that Guidry was aware of Perdigao having contacted the Public Integrity Division of the Department of Justice informing it of the dealings between William Jefferson and Guidry. Guidry’s son-in-law relayed a threat to Perdigao from Guidry that he “better watch what he says.” Perdigao was also told that Guidry knew the IRS was, for the first time, investigating Perdigao.

The U.S. Attorney’s office filed this response strenuously opposing Perdigao’s motion, based in part on the fact that the U.S. Attorney’s office had already voluntarily recused itself from investigating Perdigao’s allegations, turning the matter over to DoJ, which took over that investigation in September 2006. The response by the U.S. Attorney’s office strongly rejects all of Perdigao’s allegations, and points out that its recusal was made in anticipation that Perdigao would raise such claims as the date neared to finalize his criminal case. Furthermore, the response filed by the U.S. Attorney’s office represented to the court that Perdigao’s claims had been investigated by DoJ, and found to be without merit:

[E]ach accusation about the U.S. Attorney’s office including the claim that Perdigao’s cooperation was being leaked were contemporaneously referred to the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) which determined there was no merit in them and closed their investigation in April 2007.

The U.S. Attorney’s office also included a (redacted) letter stating that the Department of Justice “has agreed to handle the criminal investigation and its impact, if any, on the Edwards prosecution.” The U.S. Attorney’s response also notes that Perdigao directly communicated his claims to “to the former Attorney General of the United States who afforded his lawyers the opportunity to present the allegations directly to the head of the DOJ Public Integrity Section.”

Adams and Reese, which is also implicated in wrongdoing by Perdigao’s motion, has also issued a strong denial, according to this story:

Adams and Reese managing partner, Charles Adams, Jr. tells 9NEWS, “Perdigao is lashing out at those who are holding him accountable for his actions – our firm who caught him and the government who is prosecuting him. Adams and Reese categorically denies Perdigao’s allegations of wrongdoing.”

The same story says that the government has until May 9 to file a substantive response, and that Edwards’s attorney planned to meet with him last week to discuss their options in light of Perdigao’s allegations.

It is important to emphasize that there may be absolutely nothing to Perdigao’s allegations of corruption. Perdigao admits in his motion that Guidry actively sought to discover the vulnerabiliities of the AUSA. It is a possibility that he and Guidry collected information about the AUSA, such as the property records information discussed in this post, with the thought of using that information to support future allegations of corruption.

Still, the fact that OPR’s assessment was filed under seal is interesting and raises questions of its own. There remains the possibility that OPR found something true in Perdigao’s allegations, but determined that it was irrelevant to his specific claims of corruption.

Perdigao’s motion for recusal also alleges:

• That the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI failed to follow up on Perdigao’s debriefing of misconduct related to the Edwards case or to evidence of misconduct involving members of Perdigao’s law firm.

• That Perdigao told the U.S. Attorney’s office that Guidry was the “source of significant misrepresentation of facts upon which the U.S. Attorney’s office relied in order to secure its conviction of Edwards.”

• That the details of Perdigao’s debriefings were promptly shared with Guidry, which Perdigao claimed led to threats against him.

• That Perdigao passed an FBI polygraph examination regarding his claims.

• That the authorities failed to investigate a shooting attack on Perdigao that occurred after he was warned not to assist the government and just prior to his meeting with government officials.

Perdigao’s motion concludes that, “rather than wanting defendant’s testimony about these criminal matters, the [U.S. Attorney’s] office was trying to avoid exposing these facts as the trial of former Governor Edwards had been a high publicity case for the U.S. Attorney’s office, and negative information about the chief witness could jeopardize that conviction.”

According to the Times-Picayune, the U.S. Attorney’s office initially asked the federal district judge to seal Perdigao’s motion to recuse, but the judge refused. That does not mean the court will grant Perdigao’s motion to recuse or even a hearing on the motion, but it does mean this potentially explosive story could be on its way to national attention.

Thus, as the story develops, a key issue will be whether Perdigao’s seven assertions raised in his motion to recuse are proved true or false:

1. a. Did the AUSA lie under oath in his divorce proceeding in Jefferson Parish near the time Guidry testified in the Edwards trial?

1. b. Did the AUSA use an office “paralegal to gather information on his wife’s private investigator”?

1. c. Has the AUSA “forged his father’s name on legal and banking documents”?

1. d. Has the AUSA “misrepresented his attorneys’ fee bills in connection with an award of attorney fees in his divorce dispute”?

1. e. Does the AUSA register “his car in Alabama to save on car insurance even though he lives in Louisiana”?

2. Has Guidry given money to the AUSA?

3. As set forth above, the Ralph Capitelli listed in the Baldwin County, Alabama records appears to be the same Ralph Capitelli who has represented Robert Guidry. The question now becomes: did Harper disclose his joint property ownership with Ralph Capitelli to the DoJ?

4. Did the AUSA send a message to Perdigao’s attorneys on August 24, 2006, to the effect that “he better take the deal; it’s not going to get any better” and that, if he did not, “the government would move to indict him on multiple charges, have him arrested and move for pre-trial detention”?

5. Is there evidence that Congressman William Jefferson was paid funds of up to $1M by Guidry?

6. Do the records of Perdigao’s law firm, Adams and Reese, reflect the creation of Guidry’s “RJG Trust in the Cook Islands, 1900 miles northeast of New Zealand … initially funded with a deposit of $5 million by wire to Bank von Ernst in Switzerland”? Is there evidence that a “sham annuity was also purchased by Guidry to help hide the money”?

7. Do the records of Perdigao’s law firm, Adams and Reese, include documentation of a $300,000 loan from Guidry to Mose Jefferson? If so, did the loan occur at or near the time the U.S. Attorney’s office prepared the sentencing recommendation for Guidry? Have there been significant political contributions from the Guidry family and Adams and Reese partners to Congressman William Jefferson?

Either the allegations are true or they aren’t. Either way, someone ought to find out. We’ve done what we can here to verify one aspect of Perdigao’s claims, and that claim appears to be true.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Orleans should stop trying to seal the documents relating to this matter. The allegations are all now in the public domain, and the public has a right to hear the government’s side of the story. In particular, U.S. Attorney Letten should respond clearly and directly to the allegations regarding the Alabama property transactions. There is no justification for hiding behind sealed and redacted filings.