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Tuesday, February 09, 2021

Who will Cedric choose to be the next US Attorney?

 People said he would lose influence after giving up that congressional seat but I don't know about that

Though U.S. senators hold an informal veto power over such choices, Louisiana’s two Republican senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, figure to hold little influence over the choice. Sources say all roads to the post lead through former New Orleans-area Rep. Cedric Richmond, now among President Joe Biden’s closest White House advisors. Richmond did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Who do we think he might choose?  There's a lot of interesting names here. 

Leading names floated to succeed Strasser include former Orleans Parish Criminal District Judge Keva Landrum, who lost a December runoff for district attorney; former state Sen. Walt Leger; St. John the Baptist Parish District Attorney Bridget Dinvaut; Desiree Charbonnet, the former New Orleans Municipal Court judge and mayoral candidate; and Duane Evans, who served as interim U.S. Attorney in New Orleans after Kenneth Polite left in 2017.

New Orleans City Attorney Sunni LeBoeuf also is thought to be in the early mix, sources said. Other names that may be in play include former federal prosecutor Matt Chester, now a local defense lawyer, and Marquest Meeks, a former federal prosecutor in New Orleans who is now senior counsel for Major League Baseball.

Keva Landrum gets special attention in this article in part because she just lost a run for District Attorney despite having garnered an endorsement from Richmond as well as from Mayor Cantrell and the BOLD organization (which has grown more closely affiliated with the mayor over the course of her term.)  It's not unheard of that a candidate would receive support from both sides of that sometime rivalry but it is interesting that such a candidate would have lost their election. 

Anyway it's not out of bounds to think that Landrum would be in for a consolation prize of some sort (although we would have to consider this post more than just that.)  Still, her current gig seems pretty chill. Are we sure she'd want to give that up?

Assistant U.S. Attorney Dall Kammer and his team will have until March 2 to present their own list of potential witnesses to testify at sentencing, at a date that’s not yet been set.

The U.S. Probation Office has already filed a draft sentencing report. Sentencing guidelines depend on several factors, including the amount of money involved. It’s not unusual for people to write letters to judges vouching for defendants’ character before they are sentenced, but hearing testimony from both sides before sentencing is less common.

Mayfield “will probably want to bring forth people to say he was of good character and maybe this was just a simple mistake,” said WWL-TV Legal Analyst Keva Landrum, a former state criminal court judge and district attorney. “And then the prosecution may want to bring people who they thought would have been their witnesses in the trial to say otherwise.”

On the other hand, that story does point out that she already has eyes on a federal case that could be of significance to several of her political patrons. So maybe she is just the person for the job after all.

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