Happy Anniversary!

Hey look, Waste Management's civil RICO suit against Fred Heebe and Jim Ward is turning 10 years old.

Both sides have lined up high-powered attorneys – Waste Management is represented by a group of lawyers from Phelps Dunbar, a white-shoe New Orleans law firm, as well as the Washington firm Baker Botts, while Heebe and Ward’s legal team includes, among others, Kyle Schonekas and Billy Gibbens, the lawyers that blew up the federal investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2013.

Given that legal horsepower, it’s perhaps not surprising that the litigation is about to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. There are more than 600 items in the online court docket, including dozens of complex motions, and the plaintiffs want to introduce more than 400 exhibits, a move Heebe and Ward are opposing.

Do you think all those big money lawyers are "celebrating" this cash cow? I think they are celebrating.  Ray Nagin, whose bribery conviction, obviously, figures into this case, once said he decided to go into politics because it was, "the dominant industry." And now everyone involved in this case has a decade's worth of stimulus checks to prove it. 

But that isn't the only interesting principle of politics this group of "high-powered attorneys" has proven in the course of their work.  They've also demonstrated that amassing great fortune and influence through corrupt political dealings and environmental endangerment, is nowhere near as serious a crime as commenting on websites. 

Heebe, meanwhile, was represented by some of the city’s most aggressive defense lawyers, who pushed back as federal investigators dug into how he secured a near-monopoly on the local landfill business. They didn’t wait for the feds to strike. Instead, they went on offense, revealing that two top prosecutors had routinely posted comments — using aliases — on news stories about cases the U.S. Attorney’s Office was handling.

The scandal turned the office upside down, ending the long reign of popular U.S. Attorney Jim Letten. More remarkably, it won Heebe and his stepfather, Jim Ward, his partner in the River Birch landfill in Waggaman, the equivalent of a pre-emptive pardon. The Department of Justice, which rarely even confirms the existence of investigations, announced that its probe of Heebe and Ward was over, and that neither would be charged.

This astonishing precedent was further cemented when we learned that commenting on websites is, in fact, so egregious an offense as to outweigh actual murders committed by police.  

“Legacyusa” turned out to be one of the top federal prosecutors in New Orleans. His post was just one of many anonymous barbs that led a federal judge Tuesday to throw out the convictions of those ex-cops in the Danziger Bridge shootings, which left two people dead and four seriously wounded.

In a 129-page ruling, District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt cited long list of “egregious and inflammatory” comments by at least three Justice Department officials using a variety of online identities. Those comments fueled a “21st century carnival atmosphere” that tainted the 2011 trial and will require a new one, Engelhardt wrote.

Engelhardt actually threw out the River Birch case at one point too, even though that ruling didn't stick.  Wonder how that happened. 

Engelhardt had connections to other players in the case. When Heebe and Ward pushed to unmask the pseudonymous commenters in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Engelhardt joined the crusade, eventually directing the Department of Justice to appoint a special prosecutor to probe the commenting scandal.

Engelhardt owed his appointment to the federal bench to then-U.S. Sen. David Vitter; he had served as Vitter’s campaign treasurer. Vitter was also an ally of Heebe and Ward. He was among the politicians who questioned decisions by the state DEQ to hastily open landfills around the region, moves that also drew scorn from environmentalists.

The "dominant industry" works in fascinating ways, doesn't it.  I mean.. look what happened even during the time it took me to type this up. 

This time, there was no 11th-hour surprise. But once again, Fred Heebe and Jim Ward, owners of the River Birch landfill in Waggaman, found a way to dodge a public accounting of what their detractors have long portrayed as an improper influence campaign meant to keep potential rivals at bay -- and as much local garbage going into their dump as possible.

On the eve of trial of a civil racketeering lawsuit that was filed a decade ago, the two men settled with their accuser, Waste Management, one of the largest garbage companies in North America. Terms of the settlement, noted in the case's lengthy docket on Friday by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, were not disclosed. The case was set for trial Monday.

Well, happy anniversary, in any case. To quote Nagin once more, thanks for "keeping the brand out there."