John Simerman

2 weeks ago | nola.com | John Simerman

Robert Jenkins, a prominent New Orleans criminal defense attorney who represented former Mayor Ray Nagin and former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard in their respective federal corruption cases, has died, according to friends. He was 67. The cause of Jenkins’ death was not immediately known. Darren Lombard, the criminal court clerk in Orleans Parish, said Jenkins died on Thursday.

3 weeks ago | nola.com | John Simerman

Tom O’Connor stood on Fortin Street, between his house and the Fair Grounds racetrack, miffed at a sudden new addition to the scene outside the venue for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Dozens of concrete barrier rails had appeared in a line running down the street, past the festival entrance. A group of plastic street barriers sat at nearby street corners, set there to be filled with water. “How are we supposed to move in and out?” O’Connor asked.

3 weeks ago | nola.com | John Simerman

JENA — A group of protesters stood outside the federal immigration center in this central Louisiana town a few weeks ago, calling for it to be emptied, when a truck rolled past and belched a plume of exhaust at them. The driver circled around as the group faced a bank of TV news cameras set up in the brush across the road, then repeated the act — a greeting of sorts to a hamlet in the pines that once again has drawn a national media glare.

1 month ago | nola.com | John Simerman

A federal jury in New Orleans on Tuesday convicted three accused members of a violent Central City drug gang on racketeering and murder charges, in a case centered on a double killing in 2017 outside an Edna Karr High School basketball game. The killings of suspected gang rivals Wynston "Baby Ghost" Jackson and Lawrence Williams IV highlighted an 11-count racketeering indictment that once named 10 defendants.

1 month ago | ourcommunitynow.com | John Simerman

JENA -- An immigration judge on Friday agreed with the Trump administration that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student activist and legal permanent resident who is accused of speaking out at the expense of U.S. foreign policy, is deportable. At a hearing inside the heavily secured Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, Judge Jamee Comans found that the government had shown that Khalil can legally be expelled.