NEW ORLEANS — One of the seven new defendants indicted last week in the massive federal case exposing staged accident fraud will remain locked up until trial because of his links to the murder of a cooperating witness.
Leon “Chunky” Parker, 51, was ruled to be a possible danger to the community by U.S. Magistrate Janis van Meerveld following a detailed presentation by prosecutors about Parker’s connections to the 2020 killing of Cornelius Garrison.
Meerveld said she was especially concerned about Parker’s text and phone conversations with defendant Ryan Harris, who previously was charged in the murder. Some of those contacts were in the days and hours leading up to the murder and directly afterward.
“There is enough concern here that Mr. Parker had some role in that murder,” Meerveld said from the bench. “There is a lot of evidence here that Mr. Garrison was indeed hushed up.”
In addition to Parker’s links to Harris, prosecutors pointed to his withdrawal of $47,000 from the bank the day before the fatal shooting, as well the five kilos of marijuana that agents found at Parker’s house when they arrested him last week.
Parker’s appointed attorney, Stephen Haedicke, argued unsuccessfully that the government’s evidence was merely circumstantial or coincidental, calling it “a bunch of smoke.”
Haedicke noted that his client has not been charged directly with Garrison’s murder.
One other defendant from last week’s indictment, disbarred attorney Sean Alfortish, also remains locked up pending a detention hearing on Jan. 8 in which prosecutors claim he is a danger as well as a flight risk.
Evidence that prosecutors filed evidence last week shows that Garrison was working closely with Alfortish to stage accidents and steer the participants to file allegedly fraudulent lawsuits through Alfortish’s fiancée, Vanessa Motta.
In WWL Louisiana’s investigative series “Highway Robbery,” Motta and Alfortish were named as targets of the federal probe. Motta raised eyebrows as a Hollywood stuntwoman-turned-attorney who became one of the busiest accident attorneys in New Orleans shortly after she graduated from Loyola Law School.
Motta and another prominent accident attorney, Jason Giles, were among the nine new defendants indicted last week in the sprawling five-year-old case in which 50 defendants have already pleaded guilty. Motta Law Firm and the King Firm, where Giles is a partner, also were indicted.
Attorneys for Motta and Alfortish have both issued statements claiming their innocence.
After Alfortish appeared in court last week, his attorney Shaun Clarke said, “This investigation has been going on over five years. It’s not often that a client is excited about an indictment. He’s downright eager to finally get his day and court.”
In a statement, Motta’s attorney Sean Toomey said, “The government’s theory – that a lawyer barely a year out of law school decided to participate in a sprawling conspiracy – is terribly mistaken. If these accidents were in fact staged, my client was also a victim and taken advantage by others.”
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