Louisiana news briefs

Former health care center financial chief indicted
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Jefferson Community Health Care Center’s former finance chief who investigators say transferred more than $207,000 in clinic funds to her personal bank account has been indicted on federal wire fraud and obstruction charges.
U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite’s office says 33-year-old Ebony Williams White, of Katy, Texas, faces seven counts of wire fraud and one count of obstruction.
The obstruction charge stems from White allegedly fabricating a document that suggested she was owed $137,000 plus bonuses for work in addition to her CFO duties.
The allegations were first made public by Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera’s office.
If convicted, White faces a maximum 160 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Former doctor pleads
guilty in voyeurism case
LAKE CHARLES (AP) — A former Lake Charles gynecologist accused of taking inappropriate photos of his unsuspecting patients will spend the next eight years in prison.
Dr. Peter Raymond LaFuria, 65, pleaded guilty in state district court Wednesday to five counts of video voyeurism, five counts of sexual battery, five counts of molestation of a juvenile and five counts of obscenity.
He was sentenced to eight years in prison, without benefit of probation or parole, and probation for five years after his release. He will also have to register as a sex offender.
He was fined $5,000 on the obscenity charges and ordered to pay $25,000 in restitution for the cost of prosecution.

Spill trial: Lawyers chided
for contacting jurors
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered lawyers for a former BP engineer to refrain from any further contact with jurors who convicted the engineer of trying to obstruct a federal probe of the company’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Kurt Mix’s attorneys have said they interviewed some jurors after the Dec. 18 verdict and found evidence of juror misconduct that warrants a new trial.
In Thursday’s order, U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. said he is concerned about the “appropriateness” of lawyers interviewing jurors without his permission. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has “expressed general hostility toward the practice of post-trial juror interviews,” the judge noted.
Duval instructed Mix’s attorneys and Justice Department prosecutors to submit written arguments by Jan. 24 on whether the defense lawyers’ contact with jurors should affect their motion for a new trial. Duval is set to hear arguments Feb. 26 on the motion for a new trial.
Mix, 52, of Katy, Texas, was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice for deleting a string of text messages to and from a BP supervisor from his iPhone.

AG warns of email scam
BATON ROUGE (AP) — Louisiana Attorney General James “Buddy” Caldwell’s office is warning residents about an email scam that apparently leaves recipients vulnerable to a computer virus.
Caldwell’s office said Thursday that its public protection division has received roughly 20 calls and emails this week from consumers asking about the emails.
The emails are purportedly sent from a “court clerk” and impersonate the domain names of several law firms. The subject line of the message says, “Notice of appearance in court,” and instructs recipients to appear in “The Court of Louisiana” as a defendant for a hearing on their “illegal software usage.”
Caldwell’s office says recipients should delete the emails and avoid opening any attachment because it may link to a computer virus.

Caldwell offers defense
of role in Big Oil lawsuit
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Attorney General Buddy Caldwell is seeking dismissal of a lawsuit that says he illegally approved a New Orleans-area flood protection board’s contract with lawyers who are suing the oil and gas industry over coastal wetlands loss.
Caldwell’s office on Thursday released a copy of his state court response to the lawsuit filed last month by the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association. The filing says Caldwell never approved the contract between the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East and private lawyers led by Gladstone Jones of New Orleans. It says Caldwell did review the board’s resolution to hire the lawyers, making sure it met legal requirements — a task he says he is required by law to do.
The flood board’s lawsuit against 97 oil and gas companies was filed last summer. It says the companies’ coastal drilling activities contributed to the erosion of wetlands, diminishing a natural hurricane protection buffer for New Orleans.

Gretna merchant pleads
guilty to over $2M in fraud
NEW ORLEANS — A suburban New Orleans merchant has pleaded guilty to receiving more than $2.2 million from the federal government through unauthorized food stamp benefits.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office says 44-year-old Long T. Trinh entered the plea Thursday before U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon.
According to court documents, Trinh knowingly presented for payment and redemption benefits which had been purchased in exchange for cash and ineligible items through his store Seafood Heaven based in Gretna.
Trinh faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is set for April 3.

Truck driver crushed
by concrete load
GONZALES (AP) — Ascension Parish sheriff’s deputies say the driver of a concrete truck died after he swerved from side to side on a road, shifting the weight of the concrete in the mixer portion of the truck forward, crushing him.
Deputies said 61-year-old Albert Rucker, of Baton Rouge, died in the one-vehicle accident at approximately 4:30 p.m. Wednesday on Merritt Evans Road.

Man indicted over cocaine found at Baton Rouge airport
BATON ROUGE (AP) — A federal grand jury has accused a 51-year-old Colorado man of trying to transport more than 70 pounds of cocaine through Baton Rouge on a private plane.
Federal authorities said the plane with the drugs and Vincenzo Salzano on board was intercepted in October.
Salzano, of Aurora, Colo., was indicted by a federal grand jury in Baton Rouge on one count each of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
If convicted on both counts, he faces up to life in prison, $20 million in fines, and forfeiture of the airplane and any proceeds derived from the activity.
Officials say the drug bust prevented $1 million worth of cocaine from being delivered to Atlanta.