NEW ORLEANS — Sean Alfortish, the disbarred attorney and federal felon now charged in a massive staged accident and insurance fraud scheme, will remain in jail until at least Jan. 8 after his detention hearing Friday was continued.
Trading in the street clothes he was wearing in court Wednesday right after he was arrested, Alfortish was in magistrate court Friday morning in an orange prison jumpsuit, handcuffed and shackled.
Alfortish, 57, was one of 10 defendants named in a superseding indictment unsealed on Monday in the sprawling six-year case the feds call “Operation Sideswipe.”
The case, in which nearly 50 people have pleaded guilty, has outlined how “slammers’ packed cars with willing participants, intentionally crashed into 18-wheelers, then worked with allegedly crooked attorneys to file fraudulent lawsuits. Authorities say hundreds of millions of dollars were paid to settle dozens of bogus claims.
A hint that the indictment was coming came when federal agents showed up early Monday at Alfortish’s Lake Vista home, but he was not home.
Of the new defendants, the U.S. Attorney’s office is requesting detention for only two: Alfortish and Leon “Chunky” Parker, who previously beat a murder charge but is now facing a new case in Jefferson Parish accusing him of being a marijuana dealer.
Alfortish’s attorney, Shaun Clarke, said his client is eager to go to trial.
“This investigation has been going on over five years,” Clarke said. “It’s not often that a client is excited about an indictment. He’s downright eager to finally get his day and court.”
Alfortish, a former Kenner magistrate judge, lost his law license and served more than two years in prison after being convicted for rigging an election to remain president of the Horseman’s Benevolent and Protective Association and raiding the group’s coffers to treat himself to lavish perks.
In an unusually revealing motion ahead of detention hearings for the two men, federal prosecutors outlined their concerns about them being flight risks and potentially dangerous to witnesses or others in the community.
“The strength of the evidence and possibility of lengthy prison sentences could very well motivate Alfortish and Parker to threaten the safety of others in the community or otherwise obstruct the proceedings, as they previously did with (Cornelius) Garrison,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Simpson.
Garrison was murdered in 2020 after secretly working with the FBI for months as a key government witness. Garrison told agents about staging accidents with 18-wheelers – and recruiting other scam participants – on behalf of Alfortish and Alfortish’s fiancée, Vanessa Motta.
Motta was among the defendants indicted Monday along with another high-profile attorney, Jason Giles, who was charged along with the firm where he is a partner, The King Firm. Unlike Alfortish and Parker, Motta and Giles were issued summons to schedule their surrenders to authorities through their defense attorneys.
The government’s filing, backed up by FBI interview summaries with confidential witnesses, links Alfortish and Parker, at least indirectly, to Garrison’s killing, despite the previous indictment of Ryan Harris as the alleged triggerman.
“Evidence points to Parker playing a role in Garrison’s murder,” Simpson wrote. “On Sept. 6, 2020 – just two weeks before the homicide, Parker’s Google data shows that he searched for “Cornelius Garrison…Six days before the murder, on Sept. 16th, Harris texted Parker a photograph of a 9-millimeter semi-automatic firearm that Harris unsuccessfully attempted to purchase.”
Garrison, who had previously expressed fear for this life, was ultimately killed in the foyer of his apartment with a 9-millimeter gun as his mother looked on in horror.
The prosecutors portray an even closer relationship between Alfortish and Garrison, alleging that Alfortish recruited the experienced “slammer” to stage cases that he would then hand to Motta to file fraudulent lawsuits.
When the scheme exploded into public view with indictments of dozens of defendants starting in 2019, the feds allege that “Alfortish and Motta sought to make Garrison an unavailable witness.”
“For example, Alfortish ‘offered to compensate (Garrison) if (Garrison) took the fall for the staged accidents,’ ” the prosecutor wrote. “Alfortish offered $500,000 with $100,000 upfront. Additionally, Alfortish ‘offered to move (Garrison) to the Bahamas because of the heat from the investigation into the staged accidents.’ ”
So far, 49 out of 61 defendants have pleaded guilty for various roles in the staged accidents, most of them low-level participants who packed into cars, then filed lawsuits based on phantom injuries. Some went as far as to undergo unnecessary surgeries to try and increase their payoff from the bogus lawsuits and subsequent settlements.
Before Monday’s indictment naming Motta and Giles, only one other attorney, Danny Patrick Keating, had been indicted. Keating pleaded guilty in exchange for his cooperation and is awaiting sentencing next year.
