John Sens resigned from his late Friday as a federal grand jury investigates contracting at the jail complex.
Category: Criminal Justice
Posted inCriminal Justice
Ruling stays execution of elderly killer who tortured stepson
Judge says Christopher Sepulvado is entitled to learn more about the state’s plan to put him to death with a single drug.
Posted inCriminal Justice, Investigations
Company with family, political ties does big business with OPSO
Metro Business Supplies has done $1.7 million in business with the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office since Hurricane Katrina. The man who landed the job, Richard Schlaudecker, is married to the daughter of Chief Deputy Gerald Ursin.
Posted inCriminal Justice
State says it will use a new, single drug for upcoming execution
Louisiana has found a way around a nationwide shortage of one of the three drugs used to execute inmates.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Pretrial program gets at least a temporary stay of execution
Rumors that the city’s pretrial assessment program met its demise Friday at the hands of Criminal Court judges turn out to be exaggerated.
In fact, the program, run by the New York-based Vera Institute of Justice, is up and running at the Orleans Parish jail at least through the end of the month and perhaps well beyond that.
Posted inCriminal Justice
City of New Orleans wants out of NOPD consent decree
U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan signed off Friday morning on a long-anticipated federal consent decree aimed at reforming the New Orleans Police Department and, in a surprise move, the city of New Orleans immediately said it wants out from under it. “The Parties’ proposed Consent Decree filed on July 24, 2012, is approved as amended,” […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
DEA agent to retire after bidding to monitor NOPD consent decree
Jimmy S. Fox III, special agent in charge of the New Orleans division of the Drug Enforcement Administration, will retire from the agency Friday, according to a Jan. 4 email obtained by The Lens. Fox has been under fire for possible federal ethics-law violations since a recent Times-Picayune report called the 26-year DEA veteran to […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Government & Politics
Would-be NOPD monitor still working for federal drug agency
Did a company bidding to monitor the New Orleans Police Department’s federal consent decree misrepresent the employment status of a local narc now under fire for possible ethics-law violations? The company says it didn’t. But in its bid, currently being reviewed by the city and U.S. Department of Justice, KeyPoint Government Solutions indicated a half-dozen […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Investigations
Despite PSC vote, phone rates to remain high at Orleans jail, state prisons
Officials inked new phone contracts for the state prisons and Orleans jail before rules cutting phone commissions went into effect, so families will continue to pay high fees to speak with inmates. Sheriff Gusman stands to collect $1.5 million in phone call commissions this year.
Posted inCriminal Justice
PSC votes Thursday on reduced rate for prison calls
Photo by Eve Abrams A vote today will decide whether prisoners’ families will pay an estimated 35 percent less for calls placed from Louisiana lockups. Current rates are 15 times the cost of a normal phone service in Louisiana. The five-member Public Service Commission is slated to vote on the issue during their monthly 9 […]