Tulane Fraternity Members Cleared Of Charges

WDSU.com POSTED: 12:39 pm CDT October 8, 2008
UPDATED: 1:09 pm CDT October 8, 2008

On Tuesday the district attorney's office refused charges against six other members.

Today District Attorney Robert Freeman said, "Both victims do not want to participate in any prosecution of this matter."

The victims accused the 10 suspects of burning them with hot water mixed with ingredients for a crab-boil during an initiation event in May.

University officials say the 10 students still face student conduct charges from the school.

Orleans Parish prosecutors refused to charge five members of a Tulane University fraternity arrested this spring in what police called a hazing that included the pouring of crab-boil and boiling water on two pledges.

A preliminary hearing had been scheduled today in the Magistrate section of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. Instead, the district attorney's office announced it would seek no charges against the five men, all originally booked with aggravated second-degree battery . . .

. . . Tulane suspended its chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity after the arrests and promised its own investigation.

At some point, crab-boil and other things were poured on the pledges' bodies and boiling water poured over that, tearing their skin in places, according to the sources.

The two victims had "second- and third-degree burns" to various parts of the body that included the back, chest, neck and arms," the sources said.

*read full article on the Times Picayune website

A month after a judge tossed out their convictions and gave them new trials, two men who were serving life sentences in a 1992 homicide were expected to be released from jail late Friday on bond.

Larry Delmore, 38, of New Orleans, and Terrence Meyers, 37, of Avondale, will await retrial for second-degree murder while under house arrest in the Aug. 3, 1992, slaying of Samuel George. Authorities say George was killed in a drive-by shooting at a Westwego area intersection.

Delmore and Meyers are following the path set by their friend and co-defendant Glenn Davis, whose conviction was tossed out two years ago and is also awaiting retrial. Davis' attorneys with the Innocence Project New Orleans uncovered evidence showing the original prosecutors wrongly withheld evidence from his defense attorney, who at the same time had a conflict of interest in his legal representation of the men.

The three were tried together and convicted. But Delmore's and Meyers' attempt to have their cases thrown out was not granted until Aug. 19, when Judge Martha Sassone of the 24th Judicial District ordered new trials.

"We look forward to getting this sorted out and giving them a real shot at justice," Meyers' attorney John Craft said.

"We believe they will be exonerated," Delmore's attorney Ariel DiGiulio said.

Davis, 35, who attended Friday's hearing, has been free on a $100,000 bond and is confined to house arrest in Marrero until his new trial for second-degree murder.

DiGiulio and Craft asked Judge Patrick McCabe of the 24th Judicial District to set bonds similar to Davis. Delmore and Meyers both have jobs awaiting them, their families could assure their bonds and they will be confined to their mothers' homes, the attorneys said.

Meyers' "family has stood by him . . . and continues to stand by him," Craft told McCabe.

The men's mothers were elated by the news their sons would be getting out of jail for the first time since 1992, but they declined to comment after the hearing.

Assistant District Attorney Charlie Carr asked for $200,000 bonds, saying Delmore, the alleged shooter, and Meyers had a "significantly greater role" in the slaying than Davis, who was convicted of being in the car's back seat. McCabe said evidence in the trial showed Davis was "the least culpable" in the slaying. The prosecutors' case hinged on the testimony of one witness, Norman Jackson. But Jackson was stabbed to death on an Uptown street corner in March 2003.

Prosecutors have sought to use transcripts of Jackson's testimony from the 1993 trial in the retrials.

McCabe has disallowed it, but the state Supreme Court in a 5-2 vote Friday upheld the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal ruling allowing the use of transcripts.

Davis' attorneys said the true killer was Derek "Blake" Richardson, who since has been murdered.

Anderson Council, who defended Davis, Delmore and Meyers, also represented Richardson in an unrelated narcotics case and knew Richardson was a suspect in George's slaying, according to Davis' attorneys. That, Davis' attorneys argue, affected Council's representation at the trial.

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Paul Purpura can be reached at ppurpura@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3791.

NO CHARGES ARE FILED IN CARNIVAL SHOOTING
Five people injured after Endymion

Wednesday, April 09, 2008
THE TIMES-PICAYUNE
By Laura Maggi

Prosecutors decided against charging Inassio Farria, 17, and Bryson McDonald, 18, because of a "a lack of victim-witness cooperation and other evidentiary issues," Dalton Savwoir, a spokesman for District Attorney Keva Landrum-Johnson, said Tuesday. Savwoir would not elaborate on the witness problems.

Farria and McDonald were arrested not long after the Feb. 2 shooting at the corner of Canal and Baronne streets, which happened shortly after the Endymion parade had passed. Five people were injured, including an 18-year-old man the New Orleans Police Department has publicly identified as the "intended victim." Three of the other victims, including two women from out of state, were hit in their legs. Another man was struck in the elbow.

A large number of officers descended onto the chaotic scene, which was littered with parade debris and people milling around after the parade. Police leaders estimated more than 60 officers had been stationed on the Canal Street neutral ground near the scene during the parade.

According to a police report by 8th District Detective Louis Labat, five officers caught Farria and McDonald, who were running from the shooting scene and pointed at by people in the crowd.

Last month during a preliminary court hearing, defense attorneys for Farria and McDonald questioned whether police had nabbed the correct men, pointing out that no weapons were recovered and the department hadn't performed gunpowder residue tests on the suspects.

"The case against them was very weak," said Dylan Utley, who represented McDonald. "We felt they were swept up in the chaos and misidentified."

Police Department Assistant Superintendent Marlon Defillo called the DA's decision to refuse the case a "disappointment."

"Certainly we will remain focused on making sure witnesses and victims feel comfortable coming forward," said Defillo, who was one of several members of NOPD Superintendent Warren Riley's command staff who went the scene of the shooting.

Detectives interviewed two witnesses at the scene, a sibling and cousin of the man the police referred to as the "intended target," who identified one of the men as the shooters, according to the police report. Both witnesses told police that they were standing with their relative on the corner when he got into an argument with men they didn't know. Two men then pulled guns out of their waistbands and shot at their relative, the witnesses said. He was hit in the lower back and wrist.

But the police report indicated that the man who was shot gave a different version of event to police. The next day at the hospital, he told police that a group of people the report called "unknown subjects" were arguing at the corner of Baronne and Canal streets around 10:20 p.m., adding that he did not see who shot him.

No other witnesses were mentioned in the report. The other victims, who all they were walking in the area when they were hit by stray bullets or fragments, did not see the shooters.

One victim, a visitor from California who'd been in the city only about half an hour before she was shot while walking on Canal Street, said in a phone interview that she suddenly felt as if her "leg was on fire." When she looked down, she saw blood.

The woman said she never saw the gunman.

. . . . . . .

Laura Maggi can be reached at lmaggi@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3316.

DIGIULIO UTLEY, LLC
DiGiulio Utley, LLC Obtain Victory for Pets! Condo Owners Amend Bylaws allowing them to keep pets

February 2009

New Orleans personal injury and criminal defense lawyers, Dylan C. Utley and Ariel K. DiGiulio, represent people in Louisiana civil and criminal courts as well as in federal courts in Louisiana. Their clients typically come from the greater New Orleans area, Jefferson Parish (Metairie, Gretna, Kenner, Harahan, Waggaman, Grand Isle, Avondale, Westwego, Marrero, Lafitte), St. Charles Parish, Baton Rouge and Lafayette regions and from communities such as Metairie, Algiers, Gretna, Avondale, Westwego, Harahan, and Kenner.

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