Now, it should be evident, that if an FBI agent comes to talk to you; that you should remain silent and request to be magistrated. Of course, you risk the possibility of being charged with Obstruction of Justice, by not answering their convoluted questions.What really gets, me however; is that all of this is going on "under the color of law" while a sitting United States Attorney in Washington D.C., looks on with seeming approval.
This same, Eric Holder was called to D.C. while dealing with a wrongful conviction case in this same Louisiana!!
- By BILL LODGE
- Advocate staff writer
- Published: Jun 22, 2011
There is no reason to suggest undercover FBI agents entrapped former New Roads Mayor Tommy Nelson during a sting operation that resulted in his indictment on racketeering and wire fraud charges, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Defense attorneys Page A. Pate, of Atlanta, and Michael A. Fiser, of Baton Rouge, argued that agents posing as corrupt sanitation service officials unfairly pushed bribes toward Nelson after he agreed their service would benefit city residents.
The garbage can cleaning service was known as Cifer 5000.
Earlier Tuesday, Pate and Fiser rested their defense of Nelson.
Chief U.S. District Judge Ralph E. Tyson dismissed the jury of five women and seven men for the rest of the day. The judge ordered all to return to his Baton Rouge courtroom Wednesday morning for final arguments in the nearly three-week trial.
Pate and Fiser asked that jurors be told Wednesday that they could acquit Nelson if they believed he had been entrapped.
The judge chose not to include that statement in the instructions he will give the jury on Wednesday.
Pate called one witness Tuesday — former FBI Special Agent Darin McAllister — who awaits sentencing in an unrelated criminal case in Nashville.
McAllister was convicted in December on 15 counts of wire fraud, involving $1.2 million in borrowed bank funds and three counts of false statements in his 2009 bankruptcy proceedings.
Jurors were not told of McAllister’s felony conviction. They were told that he no longer works for the FBI and is not employed.
“Yes, Mr. Nelson thought the Cifer 5000 was a good idea for his city,” McAllister testified during questioning by Pate.
Pate said one of the benefits undercover agents pushed toward Nelson was a free hunting trip.
“He did not take a hunting trip, did he?” asked Pate.
“No,” replied McAllister.
Pate then asked whether McAllister offered Nelson a silent partnership in the sanitation service and suggested it could be worth as much as $2 million.
“Yes,” replied McAllister.
Other FBI agents testified earlier in the trial that Nelson accepted the silent partnership.
Nelson, who lost a bid for re-election after he was indicted last year, is alleged to have accepted more than $22,000 in cash and other bribes from government investigators who posed as officials of Cifer 5000.
He did not testify.
FBI agents testified that Nelson received the $22,000 in return for his pledge to help the company obtain municipal business. Nelson, FBI agents testified, also received the money and other gifts in return for letters of support he wrote on behalf of Cifer 5000 to the EPA and Dallas residents he believed were Cifer investors.
Nelson believed those letters could mean as much as $4 million in federal grants and $3 million in new infusions of investor cash for Cifer, FBI agents testified.
FBI agents detained Nelson in May 2010 after the agents made video and audio recordings of Nelson’s acceptance of an alleged $5,000 cash bribe from an undercover FBI operative in the parking lot of a Starbucks Coffee shop in Gonzales.
FBI Special Agent Tonja Sablatura testified early in the trial that Nelson immediately surrendered the envelope containing that cash. She said Nelson then confessed that he had accepted bribes.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael J. Jefferson, M. Patricia Jones and Corey R. Amundson played recorded telephone conversations in which Nelson could be heard asking for money.
In one conversation, Nelson demanded a $10,000 payment from one of the men posing as corrupt businessmen. In another, he bragged that he had received more money from other companies.
Cifer 5000 was a fictitious company used by the FBI in a sting known as Operation Blighted Officials.
Six other municipal officials in three other Baton Rouge-area cities also were indicted last year.
Former Port Allen City Councilman Johnny L. Johnson Sr. pleaded guilty to racketeering and bribery charges. Johnson has not yet been sentenced by Tyson.
Former White Castle Mayor Maurice Brown was convicted March 3 on felony charges. He has not yet been sentenced by U.S. District Judge Brian A. Jackson.
White Castle Police Chief Mario Brown, brother of Maurice Brown, was acquitted on all counts in the same trial.
Port Allen Mayor Derek Lewis and Port Allen Police Chief Fred Smith are scheduled for trial July 25 in Jackson’s court.
St. Gabriel Mayor George L. Grace is scheduled for trial Jan. 23 in Tyson’s court.
Jury: Nelson guilty on all counts
Posted: Jun 22, 2011 2:44 PM CDT Updated: Jun 22, 2011 3:43 PM CDTFormer New Roads Mayor has been found guilty on all seven charges against him.
The jury deliberated for just over an hour before returning the verdict.
Nelson was found guilty of racketeering, wire fraud, making false statements and four counts of interstate commerce.
Defense attorney Paige Pate filed a motion for Judge Tyson to reconsider entrapment, but it was denied. Tyson instructed jurors to throw out entrapment and to not consider it.
Nelson was accused of taking bribes from undercover agents promoting a fake garbage can cleaning business. /end-WAFB story/jl
An action was anticipated with the forging of a recommendation arising out of the last state Convention of the NAACP . It is, as if the clientelle of an uncivil america; think that they can just walk in to court and everything is going to be fair. Without certain justice seeking appartuses involved, the pushers of paper will get the same results. The Six, would not be in the position there in now without those apparatuses in play in 2007.
Victoria Gosserand stands trial in the death of Terri Parker in a car accident days before Christmas last year. Judge Alvin Batiste set the trial for July 11, 2011. I still think it strange that Tommy Nelson wasn't indicted until after comments were made concerning the case of vehicular homicide of Terri Parker on a New Roads thoroughfare.
It should be stated the Louisiana Middle District US Atty, Donald Cazayoux and Gosserand Defense Attorney Rob Marionneaux are both former legislative co-horts. Can, Justice be Served in the Parker death under these circumstances. Should not Eric Holder, send a D. C., civil rights-justice department attorney AND a DOJ special prosecutor for the Gosserand matter. IT IS NOW EVIDENT, COMPLICITY IS A FACT OF LIFE IN THE JURISPRUDENCE IN AMERICA & Louisiana.
What federal operative is busy enticing you or yours to commit corruption?
The Post-trial battle immediately ensued with the 22 June motion filed in the Middle District has already begun.
"Prior to trial, the defense tendered a proposed Fifth Circuit patter instruction to the court
on the issue of entrapment. At the charge conference, the prosecutor objected to the instruction
urging that Mr. Nelson had not made a prima facie case warranting an entrapment instruction."
Where is Bobbi Bernstein, when you really need her?
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