Katrina Victims: Justice is Coming

Los Angeles, Calif., June 29, 2009—The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles has dropped the one remaining campaign finance charge against prominent Los Angeles trial attorney Pierce O’Donnell.

Judge S. James Otero today signed a stipulation order prepared by federal prosecutors to dismiss a felony charge of allegedly causing the treasurer of a political campaign to submit inaccurate reports. Coupled with Judge Otero’s decision earlier this month to throw out two other charges, the latest move means that O’Donnell has been cleared of all allegations.

“The government did the right thing by dismissing the final charge and vindicating Pierce in his fight against these allegations,” said George Terwilliger, an attorney for O’Donnell at the Washington D.C. firm of White & Case. “It is just as important to the cause of justice to root out unfounded criminal allegations as it is to promote integrity in the election finance system.”

O’Donnell has continued to vigorously represent clients since he was charged last summer with violations of campaign finance law. “I will continue to champion the causes of the vulnerable and unrepresented,” he said.

He served as lead counsel in the last remaining case for victims of Hurricane Katrina in their efforts to hold the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accountable for the catastrophic flooding of Greater New Orleans. The trial of Robinson v. United States before federal judge Stanwood Duval, Jr. ended last month and a ruling is expected later this summer.

O’Donnell also served as lead counsel in a long-running civil fraud case that resulted last month in a $350 million verdict in Los Angeles Superior Court. The case, Auerbach Acquisition Associates v. Greg Daily, was originally filed in 2002 and is believed to be the largest civil jury award in California this year.

O’Donnell was charged last summer with three felony counts of campaign-finance irregularities. At the heart of the government’s case were allegations that O’Donnell had provided $26,000 in campaign contributions through employees of his law firm to the 2004 presidential campaign of John Edwards.

The third and final charge accused O’Donnell of causing the treasurer of a campaign committee to submit inaccurate reports to the Federal Election Commission concerning the contributions.

Two other counts claimed that O’Donnell’s so-called conduit contributions violated the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). Those charges were thrown out on June 8 by Judge Otero, who ruled in a written opinion that the provision under which O’Donnell was charged “does not prohibit soliciting and reimbursing contributions.”

Prosecutors in Los Angeles have filed a notice that they will appeal Judge Otero’s decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but pursuing that appeal must be approved by Department of Justice officials in Washington.

Brian O’Neill, O’Donnell’s Los Angeles-based attorney at the law firm Jones Day, said he is confident that O’Donnell will prevail in the appeal. “It is very much to Pierce’s credit that he has continued to practice law at an extraordinarily high level despite the pressures of this case,” O’Neill said.

“I’m delighted that justice has finally prevailed in this case,” added Joseph Cotchett, a prominent San Francisco Bay Area attorney who served as co-counsel in the Katrina case. “Pierce is not only an outstanding lawyer, he is an outstanding citizen who participates in the community. Needless to say, we are all delighted for him.”

A federal judge dismissed the most serious counts against Pierce O'Donnell.  He ruled that prosecutors had improperly charged the attorney with two violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act.  Source: Los Angeles Times, June 9, 2009.

 Below are links to news articles covering this story.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-odonnell9-2009jun09,0,6503039.story

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/06/08/state/n173614D46.DTL&type=printable

http://www.law.com/jsp/law/LawArticleFriendly.jsp?id=1202431315783;

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticlePrinterFriendlyNLJ.jsp?id=1202431315617

http://electionlawblog.org/archives/013792.html

The Army Corps destroyed Greater New Orleans. That creates a little PR problem. So what do they do?

Spend $1 million of taxpayer money to create a favorable image of this rogue agency.

The Corps has hired a swanky public relations firm for a three-year media campaign. http://opp-inc.com/content/index.php?page=outreach-portfolio-1

The best way to improve the Corps’ public image is to build better and more resilient levees in New Orleans, restore the storm surge buffering wetlands destroyed by the MR-GO, and stop lying to the people. President Obama and Secretary of Defense Gates should put an immediate halts to this outrage. And then they should appoint an 8/29 Investigation Panel as levees.org has been advocating for years.

The time for reforming—and more ideally, dismantling—the Corps is long overdue.

On the eve of the historic Robinson v. United States trial set to begin next Monday, one of the Army Corps’ most vocal and knowledgeable critics has been fired. Dr. Ivor van Heerden, a research professor at Louisiana State University, was recently informed that his contract would not be renewed. The professor has been sharply critical of the Corps’ mismanagement of the flood protection system that was supposed to protect Greater New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. http://www.lsureveille.com/former-professor-unsure-about-fire-1.1714945

On April 9th^, 2009 LSU announced it was firing van Heerden, effective the end of the spring semester 2010. Van Heerden said he was not offered any reason. Van Heerden spoke to Harry Shearer on his Le Show radio program: "I learned about not being deputy director through the news media. They basically didn't have the guts to tell me that to my face.... They couldn't tell me why and wouldn't tell me why."

Dr. van Heerden wrote the highly-acclaimed book The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina—The Inside Story From One Louisiana Scientist that chronicled the post-Katina investigation that he led for the State of Louisiana. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/books/30stor.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=0e0db3ff031f3f7a&ex=1306641600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

LSU is the beneficiary of substantial research grants from the Army Corps. The Chancellor and his minions have made no bones about the fact that van Heerden was rocking the boat by biting the hand that fed the university’s coffers. http://www.nola.com/timespic/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1239714610325230.xml&coll=1

Dr. van Heerden has also served as a valued scientific consultant to our trial team in the Robinson case. LSU prohibited him from being a testifying expert at our trial. It is hard enough to defeat the most powerful adversary—the United States of America that prints the money and makes the laws—but heavy-handed tactics to suppress the truth make the challenge even more daunting.

This story is not finished.

The long awaited decision came on Friday.

Federal Judge Stanwood Duval, Jr. ruled that the six plaintiffs in the test case of Robinson v. United States were entitled to a trial to determine their claims that the Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for the catastrophic flooding of the New Orleans East, St. Bernard Parish, and the Lower 9th Ward. The four-week nonjury trial is set to begin April 20^th in New Orleans. http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1237613032260730.xml&coll=1

 In a 65-page ruling, Judge Duval dismissed the Government’s attempt to have the case dismissed on the ground of sovereign immunity—that is, a citizen cannot sue her government for damages caused by its employees. The Army Corps had argued that all of its decisions in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the MR-GO were discretionary and therefore immune—no matter how negligent or incompetent those actions and inaction might have been.The evidence shows that the Army Engineers failed to inform Congress about the MR-GO’s long known dangerous conditions—loss of storm surge buffering wetlands, channel erosion, subsidence of flood levee crowns, and the funneling of surge—and the attendant risk of catastrophic flooding of Greater New Orleans.

Judge Duval found that there were substantial issues of disputed fact about the Corps’ failure to comply with federal law, particularly the National Environmental Policy Act, in its management of the ship channel between the Port of New Orleans and Gulf of Mexico.

“It is disquieting to see that environmental concerns may not have had much sway,” the court observed.

At trial, Plaintiffs will offer substantial evidence that the Corps failed to implement feasible remedial measures that could have made the MR-GO safer and avoided the risk of the disaster that in fact occurred when the nation’s 35th largest city was destroyed in the worst engineering disaster in history.

The six plaintiffs in Robinson v. United States—the largest lawsuit ever against the federal government—are the vanguard for over 400,000 other victims who have filed claims against the Army Corps. If these six plaintiffs win, all other claimants similarly situated will be entitled to recover of damages. The Government has reported that these claims could run as high as $100 billion.

Judge Duval’s ruling can be obtained at www.katrinajustice.com under “DFE Order.”

Less than two months into his new administration, President Obama is ratcheting up his focus on rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Earlier this week, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano participated in a listening tour of New Orleans and other Katrina-devastated areas. The two Cabinet officers announced hundreds of millions dollars of new recovery funds. http://www.bayoubuzz.com/News/Louisiana/Politics/US_Louisiana_Leaders_Tour_New_Orleans_Area_And_Make_Committments__8479.asp

“Today, we turn the page and start a new chapter in the federal partnership with communities throughout Louisiana,” said Donovan. “HUD will work very closely with our counterparts at the state and local level to make certain families can continue to live and work in the Bayou State, whether it's producing affordable rental housing, supporting our most vulnerable citizens, or stimulating the state’s employment base.”

“Our commitment to the Gulf Coast remains unwavering and our determination to bring to completion many of the projects is still underway,” said DHS Secretary Napolitano. “A lot of progress has been made to help the region recover, but it is abundantly clear that there are still areas where progress has stalled, bureaucracy has set-in, and people continue to struggle. My goal is to eliminate the red tape, help rebuild now and rebuild the region stronger than ever.”

The total package—including extending relocation assistance for Katrina victims—is estimated to exceed a half billion dollars.

This is a good start toward on President Obama’s promises to make Gulf Coast recovery a priority.

In all of the stories about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, one subset of victims has been largely ignored. While Greater New Orleans still resembles a third world country devastated by a tsunami, the children of the storm continue to be scarred emotionally from the trauma of near death, evacuation, and loss of community, schools, and friends. Scant attention has been paid to this awful psychological toll.

I recall a taxi driver telling me two years ago about what happened to his son. An honors student-athlete beginning his junior year when Katrina struck, he and his family were uprooted to Houston for several months. When they returned, their home and neighborhood lied in ruins.

The young man returned to a makeshift high school, but most of his friends, teachers, and coaches were gone. Nothing was the same. The youth started hanging with the wrong crowd, experimented with drugs, and sunk into a deep funk.

Tragically, this story is not unique.

Click to read more ...

Just when you despaired that the Army Corps could ever be reformed, we learn that President Obama has appointed a pro-environmentalist to oversee the Army Corps. The Obama administration has named Terrence "Rock" Salt as deputy assistant secretary of the Army overseeing the nation's civil works projects managed by the Corps. Salt is reported to be a longtime Everglades advocate.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com:80/storm/content/local_news/epaper/2009/02/26/0226salt.html

A retired Army colonel, Salt has two decades' experience working on the Everglades and Kissimmee River restorations with the Army Corps and the Interior Department. Presumably, he is a seasoned veteran of the bureaucratic infighting between the Army Corps and its supposed bosses in the Department of the Army. Every President since Franklin D. Roosevelt has unsuccessfully sought to rein in the lawless, arrogant Army Engineers whose true allegiance is to the Congress whose favorite pork projects are Corps water development boondoggles like the MR-GO.

This potential good news is linked to the long overdue departure of John Woodley, Jr., the Bushite’s assistant Army secretary for public works. Woodley was supposed to oversee the Corps but like most of his predecessors, he proved to be largely ineffectual.

If President Obama is looking to cut fraud, waste, and abuse in federal spending, he need look no further than the bloated Army Corps budget of over $10 billion this year. Hopefully, the changing of the guard in the leadership of Army civil works projects will lead to real reforms and budget cuts. And while we’re at it, let’s take all these civilian projects away from the military and create a new interdisciplinary agency that is pro-environmental, receptive to civilian engineer peer review, and not in bed with Congress.

At least we can hope for a change.