Tag: louisiana

He Compared a Black Child to a Dog and Withheld Evidence in Death Row Cases. Now He’s Running for Judge.

Hugo Holland’s aggressive legal tactics made him one of Louisiana’s most renowned prosecutors and helped turn Caddo Parish, a majority Black community in the northwest corner of the state, into one of the nation’s leaders in death penalty convictions.

His nearly 40-year career, though, has been marked by controversies.

In at least two death penalty cases, Louisiana judges found that Holland withheld evidence. In a third, he secured the conviction of a Black 16-year-old, comparing the boy to a dog and telling the jury to “get rid of it”; prosecutors later admitted that Holland and his team had failed to turn over evidence.

Defense attorneys have also accused him of racism, pointing, for example, to a capital murder case several years ago in which Holland emailed one of them to say he was going to spend Veterans Day in his pickup truck looking for “a Black guy or a Mex-can.” Holland called it a joke.

Holland, 62, is now running for judge in the First Judicial District Court in Caddo Parish, and his nascent campaign appears to have substantial backing. He has raised more than $61,000 in less than two months, according to the first campaign finance report released in February — twice the amount many candidates running for the 1st Judicial Court spend in an entire campaign, said Jeffrey Sadow, an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.

Holland’s donors include an assistant district attorney with the Caddo Parish DA’s office, the district attorney of neighboring Bossier and Webster parishes, a former state judge, and members of major law firms throughout the area.

Holland’s funding haul might prove to be so daunting that it scares off potential challengers, Sadow said, though candidates have until the end of July to enter the race. “It shows he’s got an awful lot of support and that he’s considered a quality candidate,” he said.

In addition to his robust campaign fundraising, Holland has been able to bring on the head of the local Republican Party, Matthew Kay, as his campaign chair. (Kay also served as an elector for Donald Trump in 2024.)

Holland declined multiple requests for comment about his candidacy and record as a prosecutor. Neither Kay nor nine of the 10 donors Verite News and ProPublica reached out to would respond or agree to speak about their support for Holland.

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‘Refuses to enforce its own precedents’: Sotomayor torches SCOTUS for inaction on ‘significant’ buried evidence in slaying of teen pizza delivery driver

Justice Sonia Sotomayor registered a sharp dissent Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the case of a man sentenced to life in the 1998 slaying of a teenage pizza delivery driver in Louisiana, accusing her colleagues of refusing to “enforce its own precedents.”

Joined only by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor argued that it made little sense for the Supreme Court to effectively free James Skinner’s co-defendant from death row with a decision a decade earlier but to leave Skinner in prison for the rest of his days without parole, when both men were incarcerated for the murder of 16-year-old Eric Walber based on “similar sets of evidence, which centered on the same two eyewitness accounts.”

“Equal justice under law, the phrase engraved on the front of this Court’s building, requires that two codefendants, convicted of the same crime, who raised essentially the same constitutional claims, receive the same answer from the courts,” Sotomayor said. “Here, because the Louisiana courts refused to apply this Court’s Brady precedents, including a decision by this Court involving the very same evidence, Skinner risks spending the rest of his life in prison while [Michael] Wearry walks free,” Sotomayor said. “Because the Court refuses to enforce its own precedents, I respectfully dissent from the denial of certiorari.”

Under Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors must hand over “Brady material,” evidence that is exculpatory or tends to be favorable to the defense. The “withholding of evidence that is material to the determination of either guilt or punishment of a criminal defendant violates the defendant’s constitutional right to due process,” the Supreme Court held in 1963.

The evidence of Brady violations in the case of Michael Wearry was egregious to the point that the Supreme Court ruled his conviction and death sentence had to be set aside in 2016, and a new trial was “required.” Of particular concern was what the state hid from the defense about its star witness, a “jailhouse snitch” named Sam Scott who two years after the slaying claimed a lesser level of responsibility in Walber’s death while pointing to Wearry, Skinner, and three others.

That story not only changed, but was also wrong about basic facts. For instance, the witness claimed Walber was shot to death — but the evidence showed that on that April 1998 day, the Albany High School football player was filling in for someone who didn’t show up for work at Pizza Express and was beaten and run over by his own car, local CBS affiliate WAFB reported. Skinner was allegedly behind the wheel.

Further explaining why the Supreme Court found Scott’s account “dubious,” one of his versions of the crime said Randy Hutchinson — who had “undergone knee surgery to repair a ruptured patellar tendon” nine days earlier — ran after the pizza delivery driver.

Worse yet, Scott had made statements behind bars that he wanted to “‘make sure [Wearry] gets the needle cause he jacked over me,'” an inmate reported. Neither the defense nor the jury were aware of this evidence.

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Sophisticated drones attacked Louisiana’s Barksdale bomber base

Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, in Bossier Parish not far from Shreveport, was attacked by drone swarms during the week of March 9. The attack disrupted B-52H aircraft launches in support of Operation Epic Fury against Iran. It is the first time a US airbase was temporarily put out of operation in wartime, something that never happened even in World War II.

Each wave forced the Air Force to halt operations and send its personnel to shelters. Barksdale is the command hub of the US Air Force Global Strike Command. Not only are B-52s based there, but the base is part of America’s nuclear triad. It shelters long range nuclear cruise missiles (such as the AGM-86B) and will soon house a new Long Range Standoff cruise missile. Shelters and storage sites for the new missiles are under construction.

The only other significant US airbase for B-52s is in Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Both bases are supporting Epic Fury. The aircraft can either fly to the UK and then on to Iran, or (as they did during the period when the UK blocked them) fly directly from Barksdale to Iran, a very long mission requiring eight in-air refuelings.

The drone waves lasted around four hours each day, an extraordinarily long loiter time for a drone. It is not known if the drones were fixed wing or quadcopter types, or how they were powered (liquid fuel or electrical). Each wave consisted of 12 to 15 drones, and the drones flew with their lights on, intentionally making them visible.

Barksdale AFB does not have air defenses, nor does it have fighter jets that can take down drones.

The airbase does have some electronic countermeasures that were designed to disable GPS and the datalinks between the drones and their remote operators. The electronic countermeasures failed to work.

The drones themselves may have been autonomous or semi-autonomous, and operated in ways suggesting the drones were equipped with multiple sensors that directed the behavior of each drone over the base and in response to attempts at jamming.

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‘Multiple waves’ of unauthorized drones recently spotted over strategic US Air Force base

A drone sighting that temporarily raised alarms at one of the United States Air Force’s largest and most strategic airfields earlier this month was more extensive, and potentially more dangerous, than first reported, according to a confidential internal briefing document reviewed by ABC News.

Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana said it was under a shelter-in-place order March 9 after “a report of an unmanned aerial system operating over the installation.”

The sighting raised concerns because Barksdale houses long-range B-52 bombers and plays a critical role in command and control of the Air Force nuclear defense capabilities.

The shelter-in-place order was lifted later that day but the unauthorized drone flights continued for nearly a week.

“Barksdale Air Force Base detected multiple unauthorized drones operating in our airspace during the week of March 9th,” Capt. Hunter Rininger of the 2nd Bomb Wing said in a statement provided to ABC News. The additional drone incursions had not been previously reported.

According to the confidential briefing document dated March 15, the drones came in waves and entered and exited the base in a way that may suggest attempts to “avoid the operator(s) being located.” Lights on the drones suggested the operators “may be testing security responses” at the base.

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New Orleans ‘Anti-Police’ Defense Attorney Indicted for Wire Fraud

An ‘anti-police’ New Orleans defense attorney was indicted for wire fraud on Friday.

Tanzanika Ruffin allegedly stole $250,000 from a client and used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle.

This is not the first time that Ruffin has been accused of criminal conduct.

She was fired from as an assistant district attorney in 2004 for extortion allegations.

“Ruffin was fired from the DA’s office more than 20 years ago for extortion allegations. The DA’s office later dismissed the allegations, and the Bar suspended her license for a short period,” WDSU reported.

Per the Justice Department:

On Friday, March 13, 2026, a Federal Grand Jury indicted TANZANIKA RUFFIN (“RUFFIN”), age 48, for wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343, announced U.S. Attorney David I. Courcelle.

According to the indictment, RUFFIN defrauded approximately $250,000 from her clients’ family. RUFFIN made numerous misrepresentations to the family regarding the $250,000.

RUFFIN falsely told her client and his family that they had to compensate a New Orleans Police Department (“NOPD”) officer for various fictitious injuries and harms that the officer had allegedly suffered.

RUFFIN also falsely represented that she had confected a “Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement” (“NDA”) with the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office and the NOPD officer.

According to RUFFIN, this fabricated NDA required her client’s family to keep confidential any discussions about a financial settlement.

In truth and in fact, no such NDA existed. Instead, RUFFIN spent all the money on personal and unauthorized expenditures and did not give any funds to the NOPD officer.

If convicted, RUFFIN faces a maximum penalty of twenty (20) years of imprisonment, up to three (3) years of supervised release, a fine of up to $250,000, and payment of a mandatory $100 special assessment fee.

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Ex-husband of sex scandal mayor Misty Roberts fought to keep kids away from her former lover who later turned up dead 

Disgraced Louisiana mayor Misty Roberts’ former lover was found dead just weeks after her ex-husband accused him of being abusive, it was revealed Thursday.

Roberts, 43, who was found guilty on Tuesday of having sex with her son’s underaged friend, started dating William Andrew Cronce in the wake of her divorce from Duncan Clanton, the father of her children.

Cronce, a local pipe liner, was then found dead on February 23, 2024.

An online obituary described the 38 year old as a loving and hardworking father, who coached baseball in the DeRidder community where Roberts served as mayor.

‘He was unstoppable on a machine or with a ball in his glove,’ the obituary said. ‘He was truly the man in the arena – falling, standing up and trying again.’

It went on to say that ‘behind an extremely hard exterior was the most gentle man.’

‘He loved and lived with so much emotion and passion,’ the obituary concludes.   

It is unclear how Cronce died, but his death came just about one month after Clanton accused him of being abusive in a civil restraining order to keep him away from his and Roberts’ two adolescent children, according to the New York Post.

Clanton argued that his ex-wife’s new lover had alcoholic, suicidal and ‘stalky’ tendencies in the January 24, 2024 letter asking a Beauregard Parish court judge to grant the protection order on behalf of his daughter, then 10 years old, and son, 13.

‘I am fearful for my children’s safety because William Andrew Cronce does have access to weapons/handguns, he is bold enough to publicly voice/threaten suicide and has shown stalking behavior with the mother of my children,’ he wrote.

The worried father then went on to claim that during an argument with Roberts, Cronce ‘exited the house loudly, shouting in front of [the children] that their mother needs to learn to shut her “c*** sucker” if she knows what’s good for her.’

Cronce had even allegedly threatened suicide in a Facebook post following a breakup with Roberts, and was later found by police ‘incapacitated and unconscious with a gun on his person,’ the ex-husband said.

‘If he is brave enough to take his own life, what is stopping him from shooting Misty, our kids and himself?’ Clanton asked, rhetorically.

He also said that despite Cronce allegedly ‘stalking’ his ex-wife by taking photos of her home and vehicle and sending them to her while they were broken up, she took him back.

Clanton then ultimately filed the request for a protection order after he said Roberts ignored his repeated pleas to keep Cronce away from their children – and even disregarded their own daughter’s wishes not to see him.

Cronce ‘has a history of instability and alcoholism that is abusive in relationships,’ the father-of-two wrote in the court document.

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Brother of female Louisiana mayor convicted of having sex with boy, 16, is rapist who targeted underage child

The brother of a disgraced Louisiana mayor convicted of having sex with her teen son’s best friend has admitted to raping a young girl in a years-long abuse campaign. 

Brandon Lee Roberts, 40, the brother of mayor Misty Roberts, pleaded guilty in November to sexually assaulting a teenage girl and another young woman over several years. 

The guilty plea on seven counts of rape saw Brandon sentenced this week to a total of 32 years in prison, reports KPLCTV. 

Prosecutors said the abuse began when one of the victims was just 13 and went on for years before Brandon was eventually arrested in October 2024. 

His arrest came just two months after his older sister was arrested after she was caught engaging in sexual activity with her son’s 16-year-old friend at a drunken pool party at her home.

Roberts, the former mayor of DeRidder, Louisiana, was convicted on Tuesday as a jury found her guilty of indecent behavior and carnal knowledge of a minor. 

The mother-of-two wept uncontrollably as she was convicted, shaking her head in disbelief as she was warned she faces up to 17 years behind bars when she is sentenced next month.  

Once an influential mayor of the tiny western Louisiana town, she will also be required to register as a sex offender. 

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Who is Misty Roberts? Rape-accused former Louisiana mayor caught with a minor by her kids

Misty Roberts, the former mayor of DeRidder, is facing a charge of third-degree rape following allegations stemming from a 2024 incident that has now gone to trial. According to testimony and video evidence played for jurors, Roberts’ own children reportedly told police they witnessed troubling behavior involving their mother and a 16-year-old boy during what was described as a boozy pool party. In one interview shown in court, Roberts’ son told investigators that he saw his mother having sex with the minor through a crack in a window. However, when questioned later about his recollection, he told the court that he ‘couldn’t be certain that’s what he saw’ that night, according to KPLC-TV.

Jurors were also shown photos from the party, including images of minors holding drinks and a photograph prosecutors described as “lewd.” The image showed Roberts wearing a bikini while the teen victim looked up at her smiling.

As per KPLC-TV, Roberts’ daughter also took the stand as jurors watched her recorded interview with investigators. In that interview, she said she saw her mother and the young man “on top of each other” on the night in question.

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Democrat Judge Kicked Out of Office After Getting Caught in Series of Outrageous Lies Including About Her Military Service

A judge in Louisiana lost her seat on the bench after making up a series of massive lies during her 2020 election campaign.

As The Daily Mail reported, Baton Rouge Judge Tiffany Foxworth-Roberts was removed from her position by the Louisiana Supreme Court in a 4-3 vote. She is the first judge to be removed from office in the Pelican State in 16 years.

Foxworth-Roberts is a Democrat who was elected in 2020 by only 27 votes.

One Louisiana Supreme Court judge slammed Foxworth-Roberts’ “tortured explanations and excuses” while she was under investigation.

“Rather than take responsibility for her conduct, (Foxworth-Roberts) has persisted with tortured explanations and excuses,’ Justice Jay McCallum wrote. “Therefore, her conduct has done little, if anything, to show remorse or contrition.”

The biggest lie she uttered centered around her time in uniform. She claimed in a campaign ad to have served in combat in Desert Storm and has risen to the rank of Army Captain.

But there’s just one problem: Foxworth-Roberts not only never saw combat, but she was never deployed overseas at all.

The Mail reported:

In ads she ran while campaigning for the bench, Foxworth-Roberts wore military attire and claimed to have risen to the rank of Army Captain, and in one ad she said she was ‘no stranger to being on the front lines during the call of duty.’

But during the investigation into her claims, Foxworth-Roberts initially would not approve the release of her military records, and when they were eventually released, it was found that she never served in combat, and had never been deployed overseas.

Despite being found to have fabricated her combat record, Foxworth-Roberts reportedly argued that she played a role in Operation Desert Storm because she worked with veterans of the war at the Walter Reed Medical Center.

In addition to lying about her military service, Foxworth-Roberts submitted an insurance claim that stated $40,000 had been stolen from her after someone supposedly broke into her car back in 2020.

The crime actually happened outside her home, and the goods she reported stolen from the police were different than the ones reported to the insurance company.

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Louisiana Woman Gets Over 4 Years in Federal Prison for $267K Pandemic Fraud

Reha Janee Arvie, age 35, of Westwego, LA, was sentenced for Conspiracy to Commit Mail Fraud,  Acting United States Attorney Michael M. Simpson announced. 

Court documents say that around July 2020, Arvie defrauded, and attempted to defraud various state offices of Unemployment Insurance through the submission of about 100 fraudulent UI applications. Arvie recruited friends and family, via Facebook, to file these fraudulent UI applications. 

Additionally, Arvie filed fraudulent UI applications for herself and others, in various states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Utah, Texas, and the territory of Guam. Arvie charged those for whom she filed fraudulent UI claims fees, ranging from $1,200.00 to $1,500.00. For example, Arvie obtained $267,612.00 in UI benefits from California’s Employment Development Department. Moreover, during the investigation, Arvie lied to federal agents during an interview.

United States District Judge Sarah S. Vance sentenced Arvie to 52 months imprisonment, followed by 3 years of supervised release and payment of a $100 mandatory special assessment fee.   

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. 

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