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    New Orleans woman sues after being accused of stalking the city’s mayor

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    A New Orleans woman once accused of stalking by the city’s mayor, LaToya Cantrell, turned the tables on Friday with a $1m-plus federal lawsuit accusing the elected official, her chief of staff, and eight members of the city’s police department of civil rights violations and defamation.Anne W Breaud’s lawsuit says Cantrell falsely accused her of following and harassing her. It also claims Cantrell’s chief of staff and members of the police department improperly accessed state and federal information on Breaud.Cantrell earlier this year filed a state court lawsuit accusing Breaud of stalking. But after a protective order against Breaud was initially issued, the lawsuit was thrown out, and Cantrell was ordered to pay Breaud’s legal costs.Defendants in the lawsuit filed on Friday include Cantrell, her chief of staff, the city and its police department, as well as three police officers identified by name and five officers who are not identified by name in the lawsuit. The police department declined to comment on pending litigation on Friday. The city also declined to comment in a release from Cantrell’s press secretary, saying its position would be made public in court filings answering the lawsuit.Sparking all the litigation were two photographs Breaud snapped from the balcony of her French Quarter apartment in April, showing Cantrell and a police bodyguard, since retired, dining and drinking on the balcony of a restaurant across a narrow street.Breaud said she sent the images to a police watchdog group, the Metropolitan Crime Commission. The pictures fueled controversy over Cantrell’s personal relationship with the bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie.Vappie, who is not a defendant in the lawsuit, was criminally charged in federal court last week with wire fraud involving allegedly filing false payroll documents and lying to FBI agents about his relationship with the mayor. Vappie’s attorneys have declared him innocent. His first court appearance is set for 7 August.Cantrell, according to the lawsuit, accused Breaud of not only turning her pictures over to local media, but also of following Cantrell and taking and distributing another photo, all of which Breaud denies.“While Cantrell falsely painted herself as the victim of a pattern of stalking, harassment and intimidation by Breaud, it is Cantrell who has engaged in a pattern of harassment and character assassination against Breaud, a person wrongly accused by Cantrell of stalking solely because Breaud captured a photograph of Cantrell and Vappie in a compromising position,” the lawsuit states.The lawsuit accuses the police defendants of illegally obtaining information about her on state and national databases, and she contends that Cantrell and her chief of staff made it public.The lawsuit seeks a court finding that Cantrell and the other defendants violated Breaud’s civil rights and her constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure, violated federal privacy and computer fraud laws, and defamed her. It also seeks $500,000 in actual damages, including emotional stress, litigation costs and time lost defending against Cantrell’s allegations, plus $500,000 in punitive damages and other damages in unspecified amounts for alleged violations of state law. More

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      Assured Kamala Harris cuts a transformed figure in New Orleans – and carefully avoids any mention of Biden’s fitness for office

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      The ideal understudy is talented but inconspicuous, prepared at all times to step into the top role and yet content to never do so.In New Orleans, at the 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture, gone was the Kamala Harris of the drab brown, chair-matching suit and the halting, technical commentary about American policy needs. That was the Harris who spoke here in 2019, then a Democratic presidential primary contender trailed by fewer than 10 reporters.Instead, on Saturday, Harris – dressed in a bright teal suit and tailed by a press contingent which had expanded to more than four times its previous size – spoke to a standing-room-only crowd in a room equipped to seat more than 500 people.In what was billed as an on-stage conversation with Essence CEO Caroline Wanga, Harris confidently offered a blend of standard campaign-season talk – a recitation of the Biden-Harris administration’s major policy accomplishments with dire warnings about the dangers posed by a possible second Trump term and the critical importance of the choice that voters will face in just 122 days – blended with the language of women’s empowerment.To say that Harris assiduously avoided any mention of recent questions about Biden’s fitness for office would be an overstatement, and Wanga did not ask or seemingly make room for the issue gripping much of Washington. In the past week, the fallout of the president’s shaky debate performance on 27 June has manifested in calls for him to drop out of the race, with a handful of Democratic lawmakers joining the chorus. Many of those same critics are now hoping Harris might be the new nominee in November.For those inclined to read tea leaves, there may well have been more there in New Orleans. Harris encouraged the audience to embrace ambition and the difficulty of cutting new, and even history-making, paths.“I beseech you, don’t you ever hear something can’t be done,’ Harris said. “People in your life will tell you, though, it’s not your time. It’s not your turn. Nobody like you has done it before. Don’t you ever listen to that.“I like to say, ‘I eat no for breakfast,’” she said.View image in fullscreenHarris had been introduced as a woman “doing the heavy lifting”, “smart”, “tough”, and a “proven fighter for the backbone of this country”. Then she entered and exited to the sound of a Beyoncé-Kendrick Lamar collaboration, Freedom, at the point where Beyonce sings, “Singin’, freedom, freedom, Where are you? … Hey! I’ma keep running.”While Biden has insisted he will remain in the race amid what he has described as a subset of Washington insiders and op-ed writers insisting he should step aside, Harris’s poll numbers have improved and her public speeches and commentary – once a much maligned element of her time on the national political stage – have become more assertive and assured.Harris has spent recent months crisscrossing the country speaking about threats to reproductive rights, maternal mortality, economic opportunity and inclusion. And in New Orleans, Harris described the election as more important than “any in your lifetime”, adding that democracy may not survive a second Trump term. Trump, she said, was a convicted felon whom the supreme court had just granted immunity from prosecution.Harris also spoke about an array of the administration’s efforts to resolve the problems that vex the lives of Americans, including many in the room: a cap on the price of insulin paid by those enrolled in Medicare; expanded access to public health insurance for low- to moderate-income women after giving birth, the period in which many fatal complications arise; and billions in student loan debt forgiven. When Harris called for those who had seen some of their student debt forgiven, hundreds of hands went up in the room.“You got that because you voted in 2020,” Harris told the audience.View image in fullscreenAnd, she said, there was work that remained such as reducing the cost of childcare for all Americans to no more than 7% of household income, and work on the cusp of being done. This included the administration’s efforts to remove medical debt from the calculus that generated credit scores and made it hard for some Americans to rent an apartment or purchase a car.Leshelle Henderson, a nurse practitioner from Cleveland providing family medicine and psychiatric care, said she was trying to serve her community and a country in the midst of a mental health crisis. And she was working double time to pay off hundreds of thousands in student loans, none of which had been forgiven. She came to Essence Fest for fun but wanted to hear the vice-president speak about student loan forgiveness and what a second Biden-Harris administration would do for the economic fortunes of Black men and women.That was before the event.“I liked what I heard,” Henderson said. “I did, but want to hear more. Honestly, I think what we heard tonight is the next president of the United States. Isn’t that something?” More

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      New Orleans magician says he made AI Biden robocall for aide to challenger

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      A magician in New Orleans says he was the person who used artificial intelligence to create an audio recording of Joe Biden used in an infamous robocall and that he was paid by a consultant for the president’s primary challenger, Dean Phillips.NBC News reported Paul David Carpenter, who holds multiple world records and also works as a hypnotist, provided it with text messages, call logs and payment documentation to back up his claims.Carpenter claimed he was hired by Steve Kramer, a consultant for Phillips’s campaign, to use AI to mimic Biden’s voice discouraging people from voting in New Hampshire’s 23 January primary.“I created the audio used in the robocall [but] I did not distribute it,” Carpenter reportedly told NBC. “I was in a situation where someone offered me some money to do something and I did it.“There was no malicious intent. I didn’t know how it was going to be distributed.”The audio recording is currently under investigation by law enforcement officials, and prompted the US government to outlaw robocalls using AI-generated voices.Carpenter told NBC it was “so scary” how easy it was for him to produce the fake audio, saying it took less than 20 minutes and cost him $1. In return, he was paid $150, as documented in Venmo payments from Kramer and his father, Bruce Kramer, that Carpenter reportedly supplied to NBC.He also shared what he described as the original robocall audio file, which he manufactured with software from ElevenLabs, an AI firm that touts its ability to create a voice clone from existing speech samples.NBC said Kramer, a veteran political operative, did not comment on Carpenter’s version of events and would soon publish an opinion piece that would “explain all”.In a statement, Phillips’ campaign said it was “disgusted to learn that Mr Kramer is allegedly behind this call”.“If it is true that Mr Kramer had any involvement in the creation of deepfake robocalls, he did so of his own volition, which had nothing to do with our campaign,” said the campaign’s press secretary, Katie Dolan.“The fundamental notion of our campaign is the importance of competition, choice and democracy,” she added. “If the allegations are true, we absolutely denounce his actions.”Federal Election Commission records show that in December and January, the Phillips campaign paid nearly $260,000 to Kramer, who once worked on the 2020 presidential campaign for Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.NBC said it found no evidence to suggest the Minnesota congressman’s campaign had instructed Kramer to produce the audio or disseminate the robocall.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCarpenter describes himself as a “digital nomad artist”, and perhaps his biggest previous claim to fame was setting the world records for fastest straitjacket escape and most fork bends in under a minute.“The only thing missing from the political circus is a magician, and here I am,” Carpenter joked.Carpenter has no fixed address but lists himself as a resident of New Orleans. Videos and images online show him in the streets of the city’s famed French Quarter neighborhood.New Hampshire authorities by 6 February issued cease-and-desist orders and subpoenas to two Texas companies believed to be linked to the robocall – Life Corporation, which investigators alleged was the robocall’s source, and Lingo Telecom, which they said transmitted it.After news of the robocall became known, the Federal Communications Commission ruled unanimously to either fine companies using AI voices in their calls or block any service providers that carry them.Phillips’ campaign has done little to affect Biden’s status as the presumptive Democratic nominee for November’s presidential election. On Thursday, the congressman floated the idea of running for the White House on a “unity ticket” with Nikki Haley, who was on track to lose the Republican primary to Biden’s presidential predecessor Donald Trump.Edward Helmore contributed reporting More

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      Republican victory in Louisiana signals hard-right turn for once bipartisan state

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      When Louisiana’s attorney general, Jeff Landry, won the open gubernatorial primary on 14 October, it not only ended eight years of relatively productive bipartisan control of the state’s government: it marked a hard-right shift in Louisiana’s politics that could set back environmental policy and human and civil rights for decades to come.Landry’s outright victory in the jungle primary – a system unique to Louisiana, in which all voters, regardless of party, vote on all candidates at the local, state and federal levels – shocked voters and pundits in the state alike. Landry was long favored to triumph, but it was expected he would be forced into a runoff. Ultimately, the state’s Democratic party offered no meaningful resistance to Landry’s campaign, and he cruised to a win, capturing more than 50% of the votes cast in a low-turnout race.The morning after the election, Robert Mann, a political science professor at Louisiana State University and a frequent critic of Landry, announced he would be leaving his position. He said he had no confidence the school’s administration would protect him from the changing political headwinds.To outsiders, Mann’s reaction may seem dramatic. Louisianans understood fully: in 2021, Landry used his office to try to pressure LSU into dismissing the professor over his argument that the university needed to require students to test regularly for Covid-19.The incident wasn’t isolated. In February 2021, Landry filed a lawsuit against the Times-Picayune reporter Andrea Gallo over her investigation into sexual misconduct charges against one of his closest aides. Landry ultimately lost his meritless case.As Gallo noted, winning wasn’t necessarily the point.“I think that it sends a very clear message to reporters, and to the public of Louisiana, that if you request documents from the attorney general’s office you better watch out, because you might be subjected to a lawsuit,” Gallo told the US Press Freedom Tracker, a website that documents attacks on media in the United States.In 2022, Landry had a simple message for women in Louisiana who opposed the abortion ban that took effect when the US supreme court eliminated the rights Roe v Wade had once established.“If you don’t like the laws in the state, you can move,” Landry said.Of course, most people in Louisiana – where the median income is just over $27,000 a year – can’t just pick up and leave. Which means they’re all but stuck with Landry as governor for at least four years come January.In his election’s immediate aftermath, Landry moved to shore up his control of an already conservative legislature. Within three days, the state senator Cameron Henry, a hardline conservative and Landry ally, had cleared the field to become his chamber’s next president.While Republicans have controlled both chambers throughout the eight years the outgoing Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, has spent in office, the senate’s leadership in particular has been generally less hardline than either rank-and-file members or Landry.Critically, they have worked with both Edwards and Democratic lawmakers on a host of issues.Landry, of course, is having none of that. As the Times-Picayune also noted when writing about Henry’s ascension, Landry has made it clear in private conversations he wants people loyal to him in key leadership roles.That means he is unlikely to face resistance to many of his policies. For women, Black people, the LGBTQ+ community and others in the hard right’s crosshairs, that’s an ominous possibility.Landry opposes any form of minimum wage and is generally hostile to so-called “welfare net” programs designed to help lower-income and working-class people. He backed a plan to make public juvenile court records public – but only in the state’s predominantly Black parishes.Although that bill died in the senate, it faces a significantly brighter future next year with Landry in the governor’s office.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIndeed, Edwards and his veto pen were able to either stall or beat back entirely a host of measures that could re-materialize.Those include a “don’t say gay” bill banning classroom discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity, anti-drag measures, additional restrictions on access to healthcare for trans people, further criminalization of abortion and contraceptives, and deeper erosion of the state’s barely existent gun control measures.Even the state house member Ray Garofalo’s widely ridiculed bill requiring schools to teach the nonexistent “good” side of slavery could be resurrected.Environmental protections will also be on the chopping block. Landry memorably heckled Barack Obama during the former president’s 2011 State of the Union address, holding up a sign that said “drilling = jobs”. With the petroleum industry still one of Louisiana’s single most powerful forces, areas like Cancer Alley – a stretch along the Mississippi River overrun by refineries and pollution – will probably be especially hard-hit as Republicans roll back the state’s modest pollution controls.“On social welfare issues, we’ll be Florida on steroids,” said JP Morrell, the New Orleans city council president and a former state legislator. Though a Democrat, Morrell’s stint as a state lawmaker saw him successfully move some legislation – and blunt some of his conservative counterparts’ worst bills – in part because he was able to establish working relationships with key Republicans.Morrell contends that will be an even more important skill for Democrats now that Landry is governor and Republicans have a stranglehold on both chambers.But with a supermajority in hand, Republicans won’t necessarily need Democrats. For instance, one area Democrats and Republicans have worked together on during Edwards’s governorship has been the annual spending bills. Edwards’ Republican predecessor, Bobby Jindal, left the state government’s books in shambles thanks to his relentless effort to slash spending on education and social services.Edwards, by contrast, will leave office with a $330m surplus.While memories of Jindal’s disastrous tenure are still fresh in Louisiana’s collective conscience, Landry and most Republican state legislators are budget hawks. In fact, Republicans are already discussing significant changes to the tax code that would reduce what wealthy people and corporations pay – even as they are contemplating a new round of cuts to education and other safety net programs.“It will be like the Jindal years, but worse” if Republicans decide to go that route, Morrell said.That means Democrats, who represent large urban areas like New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport, will be spending whatever political capital they have accumulated simply protecting their communities.Invoking his city’s status as the most culturally relevant on the global stage, Morrell said: “For better or for worse, you have to protect New Orleans from the worst of it. You’re not going to save the rest of the state.” More

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      Trump-backed Republican Jeff Landry wins Louisiana governor’s race

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      Attorney General Jeff Landry, a rightwing Republican backed by Donald Trump, has won the Louisiana governor’s race, holding off a crowded field of candidates.The win is a major victory for the Republican party as they reclaim the governor’s mansion for the first time in eight years. Landry will replace current governor John Bel Edwards, who was unable to seek re-election due to consecutive term limits.Edwards is the only Democratic governor in the south.“Today’s election says that our state is united,” Landry said during his victory speech on Saturday night. “It’s a wake-up call and it’s a message that everyone should hear loud and clear, that we the people in this state are going to expect more out of our government from here on out.”By garnering more than half of the votes, Landry avoided an expected runoff under the state’s “jungle primary” system. The last time there wasn’t a gubernatorial runoff in Louisiana was in 2011 and 2007, when Bobby Jindal, a Republican, won the state’s top position.The governor-elect, who celebrated with supporters during a watch party in Broussard, Louisiana, described the election as “historic”.Landry, 52, has raised the profile of attorney general since taking office in 2016. He has used his office to champion conservative policy positions.More recently, Landry has been in the spotlight over his involvement and staunch support of Louisiana laws that have drawn much debate, including banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths, the state’s near-total abortion ban that doesn’t have exceptions for cases of rape and incest, and a law restricting youths’ access to “sexually explicit material” in libraries, which opponents fear will target LGBTQ+ books.Landry has repeatedly clashed with Edwards over matters in the state, including LGBTQ rights, state finances and the death penalty. However the Republican has also repeatedly put Louisiana in national fights, including over Joe Biden’s policies that limit oil and gas production and Covid vaccine mandates.Landry spent two years on Capitol Hill, beginning in 2011, where he represented Louisiana’s third US congressional district. Prior to his political career, Landry served 11 years in the Louisiana Army National Guard, was a local police officer, sheriff’s deputy and attorney.Landry has made clear that one of his top priorities as governor would be addressing crime in urban areas. The Republican has pushed a tough-on-crime rhetoric, calling for more “transparency” in the justice system and continuing to support capital punishment. Louisiana has the nation’s second-highest murder rate per capita.Along the campaign trail, Landry faced political attacks from opponents on social media and in interviews, calling him a bully and making accusations of backroom deals to gain support.He also faced scrutiny for skipping all but one of the major-televised debates. More

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      Revealed: New Orleans archdiocese concealed serial child molester for years

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      The last four Roman Catholic archbishops of New Orleans went to shocking lengths to conceal a confessed serial child molester who is still living but has never been prosecuted, a Guardian investigation has found.Upon review of hundreds of pages of previously secret church files, the Guardian has uncovered arguably the most complete account yet about the extremes to which the second-oldest Catholic archdiocese in the US went to coddle the admitted child molester Lawrence Hecker.Back in 1999, Hecker confessed to his superiors at the archdiocese of New Orleans that he had either sexually molested or otherwise shared a bed with multiple teenagers whom he met through his work as a Roman Catholic priest.The admitted conduct occurred during a 15-year period, beginning in the mid-1960s, which Hecker says “was a time of great change in the world and in the church, and I succumbed to its zeitgeist”. In a two-page statement given to local church authorities serving a region with about a half-million Catholics, Hecker says, “It was a time when I neglected spiritual direction, confession and most daily prayer.”Hecker confessed to the misconduct or abuse of seven teenagers between about 1966 and 1979, including “overtly sexual acts” or “affectionate … sex acts” with at least two individuals. In other cases, Hecker reported either fondling, mutual masturbation, nudity or bed sharing, including once on another overnight trip to a Texas theme park.Hecker’s confession said the late New Orleans archbishop Philip Hannan spoke with him about an accusation of sexual abuse in 1988. In 1996, Hannan’s successor as archbishop, the late Francis Schulte, received another allegation which the organization deemed unsubstantiated.Hecker’s 1999 admission arrived after one of his victims came forward with another complaint to the archdiocese. The organization responded in part by sending Hecker to an out-of-state psychiatric treatment facility which diagnosed him as a pedophile who rationalized, justified and took “little responsibility for his behavior”.The facility also recommended that the archdiocese prohibit Hecker from working with children, adolescents or other “particularly vulnerable” people.But Hecker did not stop working. In fact, after a sabbatical of a few months, the church ultimately allowed him to continue until his retirement in 2002 – which happened after a Catholic clerical molestation and cover-up scandal that ensnared the archdiocese of Boston prompted worldwide church reforms.When attorneys for the archdiocese – pressured by the Boston scandal – reported Hecker alongside a handful of other clerics to New Orleans police, they only informed investigators about a single one of the cases cited in his confession. And they didn’t mention the confession at all.Law enforcement authorities have never charged Hecker with a crime, even though his number of accusers has only swelled with the passage of time. Despite transparency policies that the Catholic church generally adopted after the 2002 scandal in Boston, New Orleans’s archdiocese waited until it released a 2018 list of dozens of priests and deacons whom it considered to be strongly suspected of sexually abusing minors before it publicly acknowledged that Hecker was a predator.Notably, the archdiocese only stopped paying Hecker retirement benefits in 2020. Citing a moral obligation it had to all clerics, the archdiocese waited until after it filed for federal bankruptcy protection that year (in part because of litigation in the wake of the clergy abuse list) to stop paying these benefits to Hecker and other abusive clerics. The judge overseeing the bankruptcy ordered it.The archdiocese did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but an attorney for the organization last week said in court that the city’s archbishop since 2009 – Gregory Aymond – “is taking every step possible to protect children”.The Orleans parish district attorney, Jason Williams, confirmed that on 14 June the archdiocese turned over “voluminous documents” pertaining to Hecker. He would not say whether his office compelled the church to hand over the files through a subpoena.That production came after Williams’s office spoke with a man who alleged being choked unconscious and raped as a child by Hecker after meeting the priest through a Catholic institution, according to an attorney representing the accuser.Child rape cases in Louisiana have no filing deadlines, and they could carry life imprisonment. Yet it is not clear when or if Hecker may ultimately be charged.Hecker’s attorney, Eugene Redmann, has declined to speak with the Guardian about claims against his client. But he alluded to how Hecker was 91, said the claims were generally from “decades ago” and added that people of advanced age “lose a lot of memory”.“We will address any charges if they are brought,” Redmann said.Reached by phone last week and asked for comment on his 1999 statement to the archdiocese, Hecker paused for several moments before saying: “I am running behind on time and have to get to an appointment.”He then hung up.Read the Guardian’s full investigation here.
      In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline at 800-422-4453. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International More

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      Media organizations push for release of sealed records of US priest accused of abusing children

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      Two national US media organizations and Louisiana state prosecutors have joined efforts to secure the public release of sealed information that would provide a more complete account of a retired Roman Catholic priest in New Orleans who has been previously accused of molesting several children.In papers filed late Wednesday at New Orleans’s federal courthouse, the Guardian and the Associated Press contend that there is a legitimate public interest in the contents of the documents dealing with Lawrence Hecker despite archdiocesan claims that the information could be disparaging to the organization.The Guardian and AP argue that the records were improperly labeled as confidential after the church filed its pending, three-year-old bankruptcy case and are seeking to remove that designation, supporting arguments first advanced by Aaron Hebert, who in 2019 filed a lawsuit accusing Hecker of molesting him decades earlier, when the plaintiff was a child.The archdiocese is the only entity which has opposed efforts by Hebert and his lawyers to unseal the Hecker-related records. Church attorneys have argued that neither the Guardian nor the AP have a right to become involved because the archdiocese’s 2020 bankruptcy filing for the most part indefinitely halted litigation against it.“The archdiocese has consistently hid behind its bankruptcy case to keep the public from learning facts about abuse perpetrated at the hands of its priests,” said attorney Lori Mince, who is representing the Guardian and the AP. “We do not believe the law allows this.”Wednesday’s filings by Mince and her associates note how similar arguments by the archdiocese failed last year when the church argued that an audit detailing possible financial crimes by a priest accused of abuse in a separate lawsuit should be shielded from public view.The abuse lawsuit against the priest named in the audit was later voluntarily dismissed, as was a defamation case that the cleric had filed.The church’s opposition to unsealing records related to Hecker comes even as New Orleans’s district attorney, Jason Williams, filed a legal brief Tuesday which urged federal judge Jane Triche Milazzo to publicly release the documents in question.Hebert, who on Wednesday agreed to reveal his identity for the first time, and his lawyers have long maintained that the retired cleric committed crimes for which he can still be punished because they were severe enough that there is no deadline by which he needs to be charged. Williams’s brief said unsealing documents involving Hecker would allow “the appropriate authorities to investigate any criminal activity”.“The continued sealing of the documents in this case serves as a major impediment to a proper investigation,” said Williams’s brief, which was filed within hours of the Guardian asking a DA’s spokesperson whether his office intended to take a position on the Hecker records-related dispute.Williams separately provided the Guardian with a statement on Wednesday which mentioned how the records being sought included a sworn civil deposition Hecker made while facing questioning “concerning the commission of a crime”.That, Williams said, “should not be withheld from a prosecutorial authority merely because reputations may be harmed”.As New Orleans television station WWL reported, Williams’s filing was the first move from local law enforcement aimed at exposing records that the archdiocese has long fought to keep hidden, though some facts about the accusations against Hecker and the church’s reactions to them have been previously publicized by the media and archdiocesan officials themselves.The lawsuit at the heart of the battle over access to Hecker’s records not only accuses him of abuse. But it also accuses his supervisors of not immediately reporting him to law enforcement despite knowing he was an abuser.Hebert’s legal team asserts Hecker was treated in a similar manner to how Boston’s Catholic archdiocese handled its abusive clerics before a 2002 scandal engulfed it and prompted the worldwide church to implement transparency policies, among other reforms.Court filings from Hecker have denied Hebert’s claims. Yet an attorney for New Orleans’s archdiocese at one point disclosed in open court that church officials had known as far back as the 1980s that Hecker was accused of child molestation, and they have paid out multiple civil financial settlements in cases involving claims against him.Despite that history, the church allowed Hecker to work in the archdiocese until he retired in 2002. And despite transparency reforms that the church implemented the year he retired, it wasn’t until 2018 that the archdiocese publicly acknowledged that it believed Hecker to be a child molester.The archdiocese provided Hecker with retirement benefits until after it filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2020, when it was faced with a mound of clerical abuse lawsuits. The bankruptcy indefinitely paused lawsuits against Hecker and other accused clergy abusers, though attorneys for the 2019 plaintiff gained permission to depose Hecker.Motions from Hebert, Williams, the Guardian and the AP now in front of Milazzo seek the release of the contents of that potentially explosive deposition – taken in late December 2020 – along with documents referenced during it to provide a fuller understanding of the case.Milazzo is scheduled to hear arguments on 15 June at a courthouse where several other judges have recused themselves from handling litigation involving abuse and the archdiocese because of links shared by the region’s legal establishment and the Catholic church.Hecker acknowledged last year that FBI agents had met with him amid a broader investigation into alleged sex abuse by Catholic church personnel in New Orleans. But he hasn’t been charged.Hebert on Wednesday said the public deserves to know everything Hecker, who is in his 90s, has done. “I want justice to be done,” Hebert said. “When everything comes out, it will be a better day for all of us.” More

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      Revisited: The Division: New Orleans – part four – podcast

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      The division begins to reinvestigate Kuantay Reeder’s case, discovering new evidence that could hold the key to his freedom. The Guardian’s US southern bureau chief, Oliver Laughland, interviews Harry Connick, the district attorney from 1973 to 2003, to ask how he felt about presiding over an administration accused of rights violations and disproportionately punishing the city’s poorest Black residents

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      This week we are revisiting some of our favourite episodes from the year so far. This episode was first broadcast on 9 May. The division spends six months reinvestigating Kuantay Reeder’s case. They find new evidence, and the Guardian’s US southern bureau chief, Oliver Laughland, accompanies the team to court to see whether Reeder’s conviction will be overturned. Also present are members of Mark Broxton’s family, including his mother, Mary Green, who see Reeder face to face for the first time since 1995. Oliver also visits Harry Connick, the district attorney from 1973 to 2003. Many people argue his policies – such as routine use of the habitual offender law – were one of the main reasons New Orleans became the incarceration capital of the world. Oliver questions Connick on the use of multi-billing and the issue of Brady violations – where evidence is withheld – during his tenure. In 2011 the supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said a lack of training on Brady was pervasive. In many ways, Connick and the new district attorney, Jason Williams, couldn’t be much further apart. A lot of what Jason Williams is doing now is a direct response to the policies and the legacy of Connick. But there are some parallels between them. Connick was in power during the biggest crime wave New Orleans had ever seen. And when Williams took office, the crime rate was soaring too. Oliver and the producer Joshua Kelly pay a visit to Williams to ask how he is responding to the pressure of the rising crime rates and his upcoming trial for alleged tax evasion. If found guilty, there are question marks over the future of the civil-rights division. Read Oliver’s reporting on his six months with the division: Inside the division: how a small team of US prosecutors fight decades of shocking injustice Life in prison for stealing $20: how the Division is taking apart brutal criminal sentences The Visiting Room is an online project documenting interviews with over 100 inmates serving life without parole sentences at Angola prison. Kuantay Reeder was filmed as part of the project while he was incarcerated: More

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      Revisited: The Division: New Orleans – part two – podcast

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      In 1995, Kuantay Reeder is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit. He spends years doing hard labour in the fields of the prison, and trying to have his conviction overturned. By 2020, he has exhausted almost every legal avenue available to him. But 2020 is also the year that Jason Williams is elected to be the new district attorney of New Orleans. Will the creation of a new civil rights division in his office offer hope to Reeder?

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      This week we are revisiting some of our favourite episodes from the year so far. This episode was first broadcast on 7 May. In 1995, Kuantay Reeder is convicted of a murder he says he did not commit. He is sent to Angola prison in Louisiana, the site of a former plantation, where he is forced to spend years working in the fields, work Kuantay calls “modern-day slavery”. Prof Andrea Armstrong has been going to Angola for years, documenting its history and talking to prisoners about their lives there. She talks about prison labour programmes and the indignities faced by inmates. After fighting for years to have his conviction overturned, Reeder’s case has little legal hope left. But in 2020 New Orleans elects a new district attorney, Jason Williams, who promises to reckon with the city’s history of unfair prosecutions. Williams talks to the Guardian’s US southern bureau chief, Oliver Laughland, about his election victory and his reform pledges. Read Oliver’s reporting on his six months with the division: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/06/life-in-prison-for-stealing-20-how-the-division-is-taking-apart-brutal-criminal-sentences More