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No one knows when New Orleans Federal Judge Kurt Engelhardt could issue a ruling on a request to throw out the convictions against former New Orleans cops convicted in the Danziger bridge shootings case. However, defense attorneys contend that the blogging scandal that has embroiled Jim Letten’s office should be enough evidence for new trials for five of the officers.
The New Orleans Fraternal Order of Police is just one of many groups speaking out about “Blog Gate.”
F.O.P President Raymond Burkhart joined WWL’s Tommy Tucker this morning to talk about the request from attorneys for a new trial following revelations that two top prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office were allegedly blogging about the case online in a public forum.
Listen to the full interview with Burkhart...
Now that Judge Englehardt is fully aware of the frequent anonymous postings made by two of Jim Letten’s top prosecutors, Burkhart has a lot of questions about the online postings of prosecutors Sal Perricone and Jan Mann.
''Was the jury pool tainted, were the jurors going in already with convictions on their minds because of the way things played out in the press," asked Burkhart
Burkhardt said although the Judge harshly scolded Jim Letten's office for what happened in his recent order calling for an independent investigation of Letten’s office over the scandal, there's been nothing yet about ordering new trials.
Judge Englehardt wrote that he is awaiting the results of the Department of Justice’s internal investigation into the matter.
Burkhart argues the cases should be thrown out following the revelations that Perricone and Mann posted online anonymous attacks in the comment sections of Nola.com articles.
