NEW ORLEANS — A lawyer formerly with the state Attorney General’s Office and Orleans District Attorney was booked early Sunday morning with domestic abuse battery and aggravated assault.
Joseph Zanetti, 38, was arrested after his live-in girlfriend accused him of pointing a gun at her head during an argument. The alleged assault was reported from a home they shared in Uptown New Orleans.
“The offender pushed her and got his handgun and pointed it at her head threatening to harm her,” a preliminary police report states.
The woman told police that the argument stemmed from her “being involved in a sex traffic incident” and his suspicions that “she was using him because he was a former district attorney in New Orleans.”
Zanetti was an attorney with the Attorney General’s Office from February until July of 2023. Before that he was a prosecutor in the Orleans DA’s office from March 2021 until September 2022, his resume shows. At the time of his arrest, he listed himself as an attorney in private practice.
Because Zanetti was booked in a case of domestic violence, he was ordered held for several days in jail until a contradictory hearing Tuesday under the state statute known as Gwen’s Law.
The outcome of Zanetti’s court hearing was unavailable late Tuesday, but court records show that if he is released on bail he must enroll in domestic violence monitoring, surrender any firearms and sign a stay-away order.
The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office voluntarily recused itself from the case because of Zanetti’s prior work there as a prosecutor.
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