Citizen Crime Watch Blog

Trial in fatal heroin overdose postponed
4 men were charged in student’s death
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
From staff reports

The New Orleans man facing federal drug charges for his alleged role in supplying the heroin that led to a 16-year-old girl’s overdose has until September to prepare for his trial.

Henry Deeb Gabriel III had been scheduled for trial Monday on a host of federal narcotics charges related to the death of Madeleine Prevost, a Lusher School student who died after taking a dose of heroin.

Defense attorneys petitioned for the extension, which was granted by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier last month.

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$1 million bond set in nonfatal shooting
Defendant acquitted of killing musician
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
By Gwen Filosa
The Times-Picayune

An Orleans Parish judge has set bail at $1 million to keep David Bonds in jail awaiting trial on a count of attempted murder, two months after a jury acquitted the 19-year-old of murdering musician Dinerral Shavers.

Judge Julian Parker last week raised the magistrate court’s original $750,000 bond to $1 million — which in Orleans is an enormous sum for a defendant facing a charge not involving a homicide.

Bonds remained in jail as of Tuesday, according to the sheriff’s online inmate database. At the arraignment June 25, Bonds entered a plea of innocence to the count of attempted murder for a shooting that took place 24 days after an Orleans Parish jury freed Bonds from four indictments related to gunplay that ended Shavers’ life.

Bonds is again on his way to trial at Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, accused of shooting a 25-year-old man in the 700 block of Canal Street on May 4.

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Man booked in attempted murder
Bonds back in court after April acquittal
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
By Gwen Filosa

David Bonds, the 19-year-old acquitted in the slaying of musician Dinerral Shavers, now is charged with attempted murder in a shooting that took place 24 days after an Orleans Parish jury freed him.

Bonds remains in jail in lieu of $750,000 bail. He was scheduled to appear in magistrate court Tuesday for a preliminary hearing that his public defenders requested. But prosecutors filed a charge of attempted second-degree murder against Bonds, sending the case to trial in one of the 12 sections of Criminal District Court.

Bonds is accused of shooting a 25-year-old man in the 700 block of Canal Street at dawn on May 4. Police said Bonds got into an argument with another man about 5 a.m. at Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue and that Bonds shot the man in the torso.

Attempted murder carries a penalty of up to 50 years in prison upon conviction. The case hasn’t yet been allotted to a judge.

Bonds turned 19 three days after the Canal Street shooting, and returned to police custody May 16 after police located him in Thibodaux.

Two people saw the shooting, according to a police news release.

After an emotional trial, Bonds was acquitted April 10 of murdering Hot 8 Brass Band drummer Dinerral Shavers. Bonds was accused of shooting into Shavers’ car as he drove away from a heated confrontation between the musician’s stepson and a friend and other teenagers on Dumaine Street.

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N.O. cop won’t see fleeing charge
He still must face DWI, speeding case
Saturday, June 07, 2008
By Laura Maggi

The Orleans Parish district attorney’s office this week decided against prosecuting an off-duty New Orleans Police Department officer for fleeing from a Crescent City Connection squad car, although Officer Charles Richard still faces myriad charges in traffic court, including reckless driving and driving while intoxicated. …

Richard is scheduled to go to trial June 25 in New Orleans traffic court on charges of driving while intoxicated and recklessly operating a vehicle, as well as speeding and running a red light, said Louis Ivon, the court’s administrator.

Richard was heading across the Crescent City Connection at around 1:37 a.m. on March 3 when Sgt. David Kramer with the CCC Police Department clocked his Dodge Charger going 83 mph in a 50 mph speed zone. Kramer followed the car in his cruiser, with his lights on, but Richard didn’t stop for 2.9 miles, according to a brief police report filed at Criminal District Court.

Kramer followed the car off the Gen. DeGaulle Drive exit and continued as the driver turned right onto L.B. Landry Ave. Richard kept going, according to the report, ending up on Shirley Drive, where he failed to stop for a red light at the Gen. Meyer Avenue intersection.

Richard then crashed into the Naval Support Activity building on Gen. Meyer and was ejected from the car, the report said. At that point, Kramer realized the driver was an off-duty New Orleans police officer, the report said.

An EMS unit took Richard to University Hospital, where a blood sample was taken. The report stated that Dr. Frank Minyard, the Orleans Parish coroner, examined the laboratory report from Richard’s blood and found the ethanol level was high enough to “significantly impair Richard’s judgment.”

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Officer’s killer deemed insane
Appeals judges uphold lower court ruling
Saturday, May 31, 2008
By Laura Maggi
Staff writer

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week upheld a lower federal court decision overturning the life sentence of a Texas man who killed a New Orleans police officer in 1996, concluding that Salvador Perez was insane at the time of the shooting and should not have been found guilty of first-degree murder.

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Bonds held on $750,000 bond; his lawyers want hearing in June
by Gwen Filosa, The Times-Picayune
Wednesday May 21, 2008, 2:13 PM

David Bonds: Being held on $750,000 bond.

David Bonds, the 19-year-old New Orleans man freed by a jury last month from the murder charge related to Dinerral Shavers’ 2006 homicide, was ordered held on $750,000 bond today on another shooting allegation.

Bonds, who turned 19 on May 7, was booked Tuesday with attempted murder in connection with the May 4 shooting of a 25-year-old man in the city’s downtown. The shooting took place 24 days after Bonds left Orleans Parish Criminal District Court a free man no longer charged with the murder of the popular musician.

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Accused cop killer found not competent for trial
by Laura Maggi, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday April 22, 2008, 1:07 PM

The man accused of killing NOPD Officer Nicola Cotton can’t competently assist in his own defense and must be sent to a state mental hospital for treatment, a Criminal District Court judge ordered Tuesday.

Bernel Johnson, 44, will be sent to the state forensic mental hospital in East Feliciana Parish, where doctors will evaluate him and attempt to improve his psychiatric condition enough for him to stand trial in the first-degree murder of Cotton.

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Lawyer: 3 lied about Shavers killing
Motives of three key witnesses questioned
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
By Gwen Filosa
The Times-Picayune

The three teenage girls who say David Bonds fired the fatal bullet into Dinerral Shavers’ car on Dec. 28, 2006, are lying to frame Bonds and protect their 6th Ward neighbors who are responsible for the killing, public defenders told an Orleans Parish jury Tuesday.

Bonds is standing trial this week at Orleans Parish Criminal District Court in the death of Shavers, 25, the drummer of the Hot 8 Brass Band who was shot dead after picking up his teenage stepson in the 2200 block of Dumaine Street.

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Related:

Live Blog: State’s eyewitneses testify in Shavers’ trial

No charges are filed in Carnival shooting
Five people injured after Endymion
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
By Laura Maggi
The Times-Picayune

The Orleans Parish district attorney’s office last week refused to press forward with attempted murder charges against two teenagers accused of shooting into a crowd of Carnival revelers on Canal Street after the Endymion parade, citing witness problems common in New Orleans criminal cases.

Prosecutors decided against charging Inassio Farria, 17, and Bryson McDonald, 18, because of a “a lack of victim-witness cooperation and other evidentiary issues,” Dalton Savwoir, a spokesman for District Attorney Keva Landrum-Johnson, said Tuesday. Savwoir would not elaborate on the witness problems.

Farria and McDonald were arrested not long after the Feb. 2 shooting at the corner of Canal and Baronne streets, which happened shortly after the Endymion parade had passed. Five people were injured, including an 18-year-old man the New Orleans Police Department has publicly identified as the “intended victim.” Three of the other victims, including two women from out of state, were hit in their legs. Another man was struck in the elbow.

A large number of officers descended onto the chaotic scene, which was littered with parade debris and people milling around after the parade. Police leaders estimated more than 60 officers had been stationed on the Canal Street neutral ground near the scene during the parade.

According to a police report by 8th District Detective Louis Labat, five officers caught Farria and McDonald, who were running from the shooting scene and pointed at by people in the crowd.

Last month during a preliminary court hearing, defense attorneys for Farria and McDonald questioned whether police had nabbed the correct men, pointing out that no weapons were recovered and the department hadn’t performed gunpowder residue tests on the suspects.

“The case against them was very weak,” said Dylan Utley, who represented McDonald. “We felt they were swept up in the chaos and misidentified.”

Police Department Assistant Superintendent Marlon Defillo called the DA’s decision to refuse the case a “disappointment.”

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Suspect indicted in 2 murder cases
He’s accused in death of N.O. police officer
The Times-Picayune
Friday, March 14, 2008
By Susan Finch

An Orleans Parish grand jury Thursday indicted a 19-year-old Harvey man on charges of murdering two people last fall, one of them a longtime New Orleans police detective, and trying to kill a third person.

The grand jury accused Chris Dillon of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Sgt. Thelonious Dukes, a 19-year New Orleans Police Department veteran, early on Oct. 13, 2007, at Dukes’ home in eastern New Orleans. Dukes, who was 47, died Nov. 9 from his injuries.

In a separate indictment, Dillon was accused of second-degree murder of Andrew Toussaint and attempted second-degree murder of Keith Brady in the 3700 block of South Roman Street at around 6 p.m. on Nov. 20.

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