Whipped Cream Difficulties

Another update: I have previously written about Carolyn Barnes, who was accused of shooting at a census worker, ruled incompetent to stand trial, sent to the state hospital, and continued to practice law while maintaining that she was sane.

Well, she found a judge who agrees with her. Yesterday, she was ruled competent to stand trial. The judge ordered her release from the state hospital to the county jail, and set an early April trial date. He also set a bail of $30,000 and:

…ordered Barnes to wear a GPS monitor if she made bail — a prospect Barnes said would be difficult.
While she has been detained at the hospital, she said, her house has been vandalized and she has no remaining assets.

The “no remaining assets” part is also worth a little focus here. You see, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the people who run the state hospitals, tries to

…collect treatment fees from mentally ill patients ordered into the hospitals by judges until they are ready to stand trial. Critics compared the practice to dunning incarcerated prisoners for their room and board.

According to the Statesman, Ms. Barnes was being charged $509 a day, and has been invoiced for “more than $100,000”.

If I were to fly out to New York City next Tuesday and stay for a week, I could get what seems like a pretty nice hotel room for around $350 a night – possibly less than $300. Subtracting that from the $509 a day Ms. Barnes was being billed leaves me with $150 to $200 a day for food, which even by NYC standards sounds fair: get a couple of bagels with lox spread for breakfast, maybe grab a dog from a street vendor for lunch, and you’ve still got enough money to eat someplace decent to fairly nice for dinner. Of course, I’m not including the cost of medication in my calculations, but there’s also no mention in the articles I’ve seen that Ms. Barnes was getting medication, or that medication was included in her bill.

The whole Yassine Enterprises case is starting to feel like kind of a bust. Yes, they lost their liquor licenses and yes there have been convictions. But those convictions seem mostly mild: money laundering, a single drug charge, and a charge of “transferring a firearm used in a violent crime”. Where are the murders? Where are the “sending money to terrorists” charges? This just isn’t shaping up to be entertaining at all.

Another member of the group has pled out. He was accused of “..conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute over 500 grams of cocaine; possession with intent to distribute over 500 grams of cocaine; and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute over five kilos of cocaine, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.”

He pled guilty to…one charge of “misprison of a felony”. All of the other charges against him have been dropped.

What is “misprison of a felony”? The Statesman describes it as “he was aware a crime had been committed and that he failed to report it to authorities”. That kind of fits in with the actual wording of the US Code:

Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

From what I’m seeing elsewhere, it isn’t just “he didn’t report the felony”, but misprison also requires an active attempt to conceal the felony.

The gentleman in question also fled the jurisdiction after failing a drug test, but was arrested in Honduras and returned to the United States. I don’t see any indication that he’s been charged with, or pled guilty, to any crime relating to that.

I thought it was worth noting: how often do you hear about “misprison of a felony”?

Not often enough, as I completely missed this unrelated story (until Google turned it up): Karen Parker lived in Jefferson Parish in Louisiana. Ms. Parker had a boyfriend (eventually fiancee, eventually husband, now divorced), Aaron Broussard, who was the Jefferson Parish president. Mr. Broussard wanted to get his girlfriend a good job. But, “once he took over the position of Parish President he could not hire Parker and there would be increased scrutiny as a result of the romantic relationship between Broussard and Parker”.

What to do, what to do? Well, if you’re the Jefferson Parrish president, you call your people together and you say “I want someone to hire my woman”. If you’re the Parrish attorney, Thomas G. Wilkinson, you’re also apparently an idiot. Because Wilkinson hired Parker as a “paralegal supervisor” in his office:

…even though she was not qualified, trained, or certified as a paralegal supervisor. Indeed, according to court records, PARKER did no work as a paralegal supervisor and, in fact, the little work she did perform was not paralegal work at all. According to court records, BROUSSARD and WILKINSON were aware that PARKER did no work as a paralegal supervisor. PARKER’s salary and her raises were approved and known by WILKINSON who, in turn, was retained by BROUSSARD as the Jefferson Parish Attorney. BROUSSARD also approved of substantial pay raises, from 2004 through 2009, for WILKINSON, the Parish Attorney.

Ms. Parker pled guilty to misprison. Apparently, Mr. Wilkinson did as well, and Mr. Broussard pled to “one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and one count of theft”. I can’t find any evidence that they’ve been sentenced yet, as it looks like their cases are also part of the whole Letten/NOLA.com mess.