This week and next week were going to feature two significant events in the slow march to justice in the Louisiana staged accident scam.
Two key figures were finally going to be sentenced. And then once again, they weren’t.
First, a scheduled sentencing Thursday of Danny Keating, the only lawyer with a guilty plea in the case that prosecutors call Operation Sideswipe, was postponed until April.
It would take some research to determine how many times Keating’s sentencing has been postponed. But he pleaded guilty in June 2021, and more than four years later, after what is likely to be at least a half-dozen postponements, he still has not faced sentencing.
Damian Labeaud, who was actually on the ground involved in the staging of collisions where a car carrying several passengers was purposely run into a truck (and in at least one case a bus) in pursuit of a big insurance payout, also has had numerous postponements. His sentencing was to be October 16.
In a Wednesday filing with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Labeaud’s attorney Steven Lemoine asked for a postponement in his sentencing until May.
But in the court filing, Lemoine revealed several developments in the criminal cases that are ongoing against multiple defendants.
Filing reveals other developments
One was not shocking: Lebeaud is cooperating with prosecutors. The numerous delays for both the Lebeaud and Keating sentencings led numerous observers to conclude that cooperation was the reason why such kingpins of the staged accident scheme had not been sentenced yet, even as many lower-level participants who had pleaded guilty in the past received sentences that ranged from home confinement to at least two four-year terms.
A second revelation in the filing by Lemoine is that one of the trials in what was originally called United States vs. Harris (Harris has since pleaded guilty), the big case that involved several lawyers and accused participants in the murder of a witness, is set to begin trial on March 2, according to the Lemoine request. It is expected to run three weeks, he said in the filing.
There were several indictments and superseding indictments in that case, with the latest set of charges handed down in April by the U.S. Attorney’s office.
In the Wednesday document, Lemoine said the U.S. Attorney prosecuting the original U.S. vs. Harris case where Lebeaud is cooperating, Brian Klebba, supports the delay.
The delay is requested, according to Lemoine’s filing, “in order that (Labeaud) can provide pertinent information to the Court related to Mr. Labeaud’s participation” in the upcoming trial.
While the U.S. Attorney’s office for several years had regularly announced guilty pleas from various participants in the staged accident scam, a search of its news releases data base shows no new reports of guilty pleas for almost one year, dating back to October 31 when Antoine Clark pleaded guilty.
Clark was to be sentenced in January. But the docket on his case now shows a January date for sentencing.
At the time of the April superseding indictment, the U.S. Attorney’s office said it had indicted 63 defendants as part of Operation Sideswipe. When the Clark guilty plea was announced about a year ago, the number of pleas obtained by the office was listed as 49.
No defendant has gone to trial in Operation Sideswipe. They either pleaded guilty or are awaiting trial.
The March 2 trial is not expected to be the only one coming out of the superseding indictment.
When it got bloody
In a separate document filed earlier this week by District Court Judge Wendy Vitter, she said a trial involving defendants Sean Alfortish, an attorney, and Leon M. Parker, known as Chunky, will begin on August 10, ten months away.
That trial will be on several counts from the April superseding indictment, and those are the ones where the staged accident scam turned violent.
The charges in those counts involve the murder of Cornelius Garrison in September 2020, who had pleaded guilty in connection with Operation Sideswipe and was participating with federal prosecutors (which the government conceded in the wake of his death). Alfortish and Parker are charged with being involved in Garrison’s murder.
There already has been one guilty plea in the Garrison murder: Ryan Harris, who pleaded guilty in January. The U.S. Attorney’s office at the time of the plea deal said Harris would be sentenced to 35 years in jail. That sentencing was to be in late September but recently was postponed to October 20.
A female acquaintance of Harris, Jovanna Gardner, was originally indicted with Harris in connection with the murder. But prosecutors ultimately concluded she had a minor role in the Garrison killing, and her charges were knocked down to a count of witness tampering.
March trial to focus on indicted lawyers
The trial beginning March 2 will involve the charges against several attorneys involved in the case. Keating, now looking at an April sentencing, so far is the only attorney who has pleaded guilty.
The defendants in the March 2 case will include attorney Vanessa Motta, 43 of New Orleans; the Motta law firm; and Jason Giles, 46, of New Orleans, an attorney and partner at the King Firm, a New Orleans law firm that also was indicted.
According to various recaps of the ways that Operation Sideswipe unfolded, it was the attorneys who had the key role in directing the activities of the “slammers” and “spotters” who looked for trucks to collide with, then feigned injuries and sought insurance payouts.
Some of the defendants were small. Some were not: a payout by C.R. England and its insurer topped $4 million.
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