NEW ORLEANS — A man accused of stealing houses from at least seven different people using forged or fabricated deeds pled not guilty to attempted murder Monday for allegedly shooting a man in a February drive-by.
Police allege Jonathan Burden pulled up in a car alongside a man who was friends with Burden’s ex-girlfriend and shot him in the right shoulder. The man alleged Burden fired about 10 shots into his car at about 7:30 p.m. February 1 and hit him once. The man, who did not want to be identified, said he was lucky to be alive.
District Attorney Jason Williams’ office charged Burden earlier this month with attempted 2nd degree murder, but he remains free on bond. Police initially booked Burden on a lesser 2nd degree battery count and two other charges and he was released on $50,000 total bond.
The DA raised the main charge to attempted murder and also added felony charges for a drive-by shooting and discharging a firearm while committing a violent crime, but Judge Camille Buras said Monday the original bond paid by Burden would transfer to the new charges.
Buras ordered Burden to stay away from the alleged victim. The judge also subpoenaed the alleged victim’s medical records during Monday’s hearing.
NOPD records state Burden has six previous felony convictions and was facing federal charges at the time of the shooting, although the allegations he faces in federal bankruptcy court for claiming property from a dead woman’s bankruptcy estate are civil, not criminal. So too are allegations from other property owners in state civil cases.
The alleged victim in the shooting case has repeatedly declined to comment on Burden’s release out of fear that he or someone affiliated with Burden could come after him.
Property owners who allege Burden stole their houses out from under them have also been calling for Burden to be locked up.
"They need to do something with him. They need to get him, and just hold onto him," said Derrick Breston, whose property in the Bywater was taken from him and his dead mother and soon transferred to Burden, who immediately sold it for $100,000.
A national board-certified forensic document examiner, Adele Thonn, told WWL Louisiana it was "probable" that Burden wrote the fake deed that was used to take Breston's house, based on comparisons of the handwritten portions of the document with Burden's other known writing.
Breston recently won an appeal directing the Orleans Parish Civil District Court to return the property to him.
Burden has bragged on social media about "taking down" people's properties. He claimed during a podcast interview that he is saving owners from foreclosure. But seven local property owners sued him and alleged he tricked them or tried to trick them into handing over their houses to him for little or no compensation or help.
In one case, the former owner of a million-dollar Uptown mansion alleged she was considering a $1.1 million offer for her house when Burden got her to sign a backup offer, then used that document to hold up the sale of her house until she paid him $85,000 to go away.
Later, a federal bankruptcy judge ruled Burden took another house in Central City from a dead woman's estate. That judge, Meredith Grabill, ordered Burden to pay back thousands of dollars he collected from people renting units in the four-plex. Videos Burden posted on social media showed he had managed to collect the rent money by convincing NOPD officers to order the rightful trustee of the estate to leave.
