Louisiana news briefs

Gulf oil spill: Ex-BP engineer’s retrial postponed
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The August retrial of a former BP engineer accused of obstructing justice in an investigation of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been postponed while an appeals court decides whether a judge was right to throw out his earlier conviction.
Federal prosecutors allege that Kurt Mix illegally deleted text messages to and from a supervisor and a BP contractor involving the amount of oil flowing from BP’s Macondo well after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.
Mix, who pleaded not guilty, was convicted in December. But U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval later ordered a new trial. He ruled that the verdict had been tainted after the jury forewoman told a then-deadlocked jury that she had heard something outside of the trial that affirmed her view that Mix was guilty.
Federal prosecutors have appealed Duval’s decision. So, Duval on Tuesday canceled the August trial date, saying it will be rescheduled “at the appropriate time.”
Prosecutors say Mix deleted the text messages to stymie a grand jury investigation of the spill.
Mix’s attorneys argued there is ample evidence he shared information about the flow rate throughout the government investigation.

Senate confirms deGravelles’ judicial appointment
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu says the Senate has unanimously confirmed her recommendation of Baton Rouge attorney John deGravelles to serve as a judge for Louisiana’s Middle District.
Landrieu said the Senate confirmed deGravelles on Tuesday and he will take the seat formally held by U.S. District Judge James Brady, who assumed senior status this year.
deGravelles is an attorney and founding partner at deGravelles, Palmintier, Holthaus & Frugé, LLP. He specializes in civil litigation representing individuals and businesses. He also serves as an adjunct faculty member at LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center and Tulane University Law School’s Summer Program in Rhodes, Greece.

Lionel Ferbos’ funeral services set for Aug. 2
NEW ORLEANS — Funeral services are set for Lionel Ferbos, the 103-year-old New Orleans jazz trumpeter who died July 19.
Ferbos will be buried Aug. 2, the same weekend the Satchmo Summerfest celebrates the legacy of another New Orleans trumpeter, Louis Armstrong.
Charbonnet Labat Funeral Home will host a wake for Ferbos on Aug. 1 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Visitation is from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Aug. 2 at Corpus Christi Epiphany Catholic Church.
Archbishop Gregory Aymond will preside over a funeral Mass at Corpus Christi. Musicians scheduled to participate include “Deacon” John Moore and clarinetist Dr. Michael White. A second-line procession with the Treme Brass Band and Black Men of Labor Social Aid and Pleasure Club will depart from the church after the Mass.

St. George organizers shy of needed signatures
BATON ROUGE (AP) — St. George organizers say they’re still shy of the 18,000 signatures needed to put the proposal to create a new city in the southern part of East Baton Rouge Parish to a vote.
St. George spokesman Lionel Rainey said Tuesday the group would not be submitting its petition today, the deadline to put the issue on the November ballot.
Rainey said they expect to be ready for the December election, which will require them to submit the necessary signatures by Oct. 21.
But Mary Olive Pierson, an attorney hired by the Mayor’s Office to handle annexation and St. George litigation, predicted that any election date could be postponed. She says the city-parish will file a lawsuit challenging the petition as soon as it’s filed.
“I can assure you there are going to be challenges to the petition which will have to be dealt with in the courthouse before they get to the voting booth,” she said. “I’ve never had much confidence in their predictions for a timeline for an election.”
Last week, St. George organizers announced they had 17,076 signatures. It was the first time they had disclosed their signature counts since December. The number of signatures required to get the petition on the ballot is based on the count of registered voters in the area, which city officials have estimated at about 73,000 people. Twenty-five percent of voters must sign the petition for it to be put to all the voters, which means they likely need at least 18,000 signatures.
Rainey said he didn’t have an updated signature count Tuesday but estimated that at least 200 more signatures had been collected in the past week.
“It was a really good week,” he said, attributing some of the past week’s momentum to a PBS “Frontline” documentary that aired last week on the effort that he says unfairly depicted the movement as racially motivated.
“Absolutely it was positive for us, these people are not prejudiced,” he said. “There is no racial or class motive around this, they just want better for their children. And rightfully so, that frustrates them.”
Frustration with the parish’s public schools has been a driving force in discussions about St. George.
Community activists opposed to the breakaway city, however, have decried the movement as a diversion from fixing systemic problems in schools across East Baton Rouge Parish.