Deduct Purse

There are so many points of stress in the social and economic fabric that make up our society. When the times go into tumult you never really know which institutions are going to unravel first. So many things feel like they're up in the air right now in the midst of a global pandemic, a deepening recession, a growing street revolt against the police state, etc. etc.

Somehow the first thing to really break under the pressure in New Orleans, though, is a Mardi Gras parade is destroyed by an Instagram post.

KIPP Schools in New Orleans became the latest group on Friday night to join others vowing not to march with the Mystic Krewe of Nyx in future parades after krewe's captain Julie Lea's recent insensitive social media post on one of the krewe's accounts.

Of course the uprising is about a lot more than just that one "insensitive" post. That's really just spark that lit the powder keg. Most long time fans of the serial will recall at least some of the highlights from previous episodes.  We've known for a while that Julie Leas was kind of a sketchy character. She'd been fired as Delgado's police chief for facilitating a double dipping scheme for officers on security details. This business over a "stolen" T-Shirt idea was odd.

Former Nyx member, attorney Taetrece Harrison, argued that in 2016 krewe captain Julie Lea stole her idea for throwing T-shirts after she left the organization. Her argument successfully netted her a temporary restraining order on the krewe's shirt throw when Judge Paulette Irons of the Civil District Court for Orleans Parish ordered it Feb. 13. But on Thursday, attorneys for Lea and Nyx, Chip Morrison and Jana McCaffrey, succeeded in getting Judge Sidney Cates IV to both dissolve that order and dismiss Harrison's suit to ban the shirts permanently.

Incidentally there is a Schaylece Harrison on the First City Court ballot July 11. It would be remarkable if these two lawyers were not related.

But that's not important right now. Because now, in what we suppose must be some sort of irony given the wider context, the cops have been called on Lea.

New Orleans police said Friday they have opened an internal investigation following allegations made by a former member of the krewe that in 2012, an NOPD officer — who is the husband of Nyx Captain Julie Lea — helped her obtain a Krewe of Muses waiting list by hacking into that krewe's website.

It's always been part of the Nyx origin myth that the club grew out of the Muses waiting list.  Kind of weird nobody ever talked about how before.  Turns out there's a lot of opportunity in waiting lists. Lea seemed to figure that out pretty well.

Jennifer Edwards, a former treasurer for the organization, said she quit over Lea's business dealings with the krewe. Edwards said Lea formed a separate company from the nonprofit Krewe of Nyx in order to collect fees from prospective members who wanted to add their names to the waiting list.

“So you had to pay, I think it was $75, to be on the wait list,” Edwards said. “That money went to a separate entity and never flowed back to the Krewe of Nyx.”

About four years ago, there were Facebook rumors circulating about misappropriated funds. Now we have a better picture of that as well.  The fees went into the Deduct Purse. Anyway, like we said, much of this has been sitting more or less in plain sight for years.  Just waiting for the right moment.