Category Archives: New Orleans

Man allegedly assaulted by Shia LaBeouf in New Orleans wants to see hate crime charges

Posted on by

Jeffrey Damnit says actor punched him and second man on Tuesday, calling both ‘faggot’ repeatedly

One of the men whom Shia LaBeouf allegedly battered and insulted with a homophobic slur on Mardi Gras morning in New Orleans on Tuesday, leading to his arrest, would like to see the actor face hate crime charges.

Jeffrey Damnit, who dresses in drag and was in makeup at the time of the encounter with LaBeouf, said on Thursday that the behavior attributed to the Transformers film franchise star was “a complete slap in the face to any alternative-culture person”.

Continue reading...

Shia LaBeouf allegedly called queer man homophobic slurs before New Orleans arrest

Posted on by

Actor allegedly also made remarks to man who dresses in drag, and was seen dancing on Bourbon Street after arrest

The actor Shia LaBeouf allegedly aimed homophobic slurs at two men – one who identifies as queer and the other who dresses in drag – as the Transformers star was arrested for purportedly battering them at a bar early on Tuesday morning in New Orleans, the victims said.

Jeffrey Damnit – who was born with the last name Klein and was listed as one of the victims by New Orleans police – said in an interview on Wednesday that he was wearing mascara, eye shadow and lipstick when LaBeouf tried to beat him up “while screaming, ‘You’re a fucking faggot’”. He also shared a cellphone video showing LaBeouf in the back of a vehicle being examined by first responders, glancing over at Damnit and saying: “Faggot.”

Continue reading...

New Orleans archbishop testifies under oath for first time in church bankruptcy case

Posted on by

Gregory Aymond gave confidential testimony as church closes in on $230m settlement with clergy abuse survivors

As New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese closes in on a proposed settlement with clergy abuse survivors worth at least $230m, its outgoing archbishop, Gregory Aymond, testified under oath for the first time in the church’s bankruptcy case during a confidential court session on Friday.

Aymond’s sworn testimony was given under a protective order, and those who attended the session were barred from discussing it. But Billy Gibbens, a high-profile criminal defense and civil lawyer, confirmed in an interview with WWL Louisiana that he was there representing the archbishop as his personal attorney.

Continue reading...

Nine people dead and scores injured over weekend of mass US shootings

Posted on by

Six separate mass shootings bring tally to 324 this year, underscoring continuing US crisis of gun violence

Sunday’s mass murder at a Mormon church in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, which left at least four worshippers dead and eight wounded, was just one of six mass shootings that erupted across the US over a weekend of gun horror.

The Gun Violence Archive, an online non-profit database which records mass shootings in America, added six fresh incidents over Saturday and Sunday. The concentrated bloodletting, spread out across four states, took the lives of nine people, including the suspect in Sunday’s shooting at Grand Blanc’s Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints church, as well as injuring at least 33.

Continue reading...

Louisiana judge orders return of devices to ex-priest caught having sex on church altar

Posted on by

Former Roman Catholic priest and two dominatrices were evidently recording sexual videos in the church in 2020

A judge in Louisiana has ordered the return of electronics belonging to an ex-Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to obscenity for being caught having sex with two dominatrices atop a church altar while still belonging to the clergy in 2020.

However, the judge also told authorities to erase all data from the devices and storage media as a precaution against videos taken of the tryst from becoming public.

Continue reading...

Hurricane Katrina victim identified 20 years later: ‘finally where she belongs’

Posted on by

Guardian US partner WWL Louisiana called in Ray Theriot, who used utility bills, driver’s licenses and property records

A woman who died at home during Hurricane Katrina in a community outside New Orleans, but who remained unidentified for nearly two decades, has finally been named before the storm’s 20th anniversary on Friday.

The woman, who was identified with the help of New Orleans’s CBS affiliate, WWL Louisiana, has been named as Dorothy Virginia Driggers Taquino, 81.

Continue reading...

New Orleans archbishop accused of personally hiding child abuse in lawsuit

Posted on by

Lawsuit has most direct allegations of wrongdoing leveled against Aymond, who denies them, in court filing to date

A lawsuit newly filed against the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans and its top two officials alleges the city’s archbishop, Gregory Aymond, personally covered up child sexual abuse by priests and deacons – and asks a judge to reject a guarantee on his future retirement benefits as punishment.

The archdiocese responded by saying the allegations brought by the plaintiff, Argent Institutional Trust Co, are baseless.

Continue reading...

New Orleans mayor indicted for corruption over alleged bodyguard romance

Posted on by

Grand jury charges LaToya Cantrell with using city property and resources for purported affair

The New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell, was indicted by a federal grand jury Friday on corruption charges involving a purported romance with her former bodyguard.

Cantrell, 53, thus became the first New Orleans mayor in the city’s 307-year history to be charged by the US government with crimes while still in office.

Continue reading...

Catholic religious order must pay $2.4m to New Orleans clergy abuse survivor

Posted on by

Federal jury awards historic damages to man who says he was sexually abused at a school run by Holy Cross order

In a historic verdict, a federal jury in New Orleans has ordered a Catholic religious order to pay nearly $2.4m in damages to a man who reported being sexually abused by one of its members in the late 1960s.

John Lousteau, 68, asserted that he was sexually abused while attending an overnight summer camp for boys at the Holy Cross school in New Orleans. He maintained that his abuser was the camp’s director, Stanley Repucci, who belonged to the Holy Cross order that ran the school.

Continue reading...

‘I was let out’: New Orleans man who escaped jail pleads case on social media

Posted on by

Man identifying himself as Antoine Massey, one of 10 who escaped in May and who is still at large, protests innocence

A man still at large after escaping from a New Orleans jail last month appears to have taken to social media to plead his case to the public.

In a video that quickly went viral, the man identifying himself as Antoine Massey – one of 10 prisoners who fled from the Orleans Justice center (OJC) on 16 May – said he was wrongfully accused and held up papers he said corroborate his innocence.

Continue reading...

Third arrest made in drugging death of Telemundo reporter near New Orleans

Posted on by

Police announce allegations against Christian Anderson, 33, after body of Adan Manzano, 27, found on 5 February

Authorities investigating the apparent drugging death and robbery of a Telemundo reporter who was covering February’s Super Bowl have arrested a third suspect in the case.

On Friday, the Kenner police department in Louisiana announced the arrest of 33-year-old Christian Anderson on allegations that he had a role in the death of Adan Manzano, 27, whose body was found on 5 February in his hotel room in the city just west of New Orleans.

Continue reading...

Two of 10 prisoners who escaped from New Orleans jail remain on the run

Posted on by

Antoine Massey and Derrick Groves still at large, while at least 11 people arrested on suspicion of aiding prisoners

Two of the 10 prisoners who escaped from New Orleans’s jail on 16 May remained on the run as of Tuesday, after three more of the group were rearrested on Monday, authorities said.

One of the men was arrested by local police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, about 80 miles north-west of New Orleans. Two others were arrested in Walker county, Texas, Louisiana state police said on the Twitter/X.

Continue reading...

New Orleans archbishop appears in court during contentious clergy sexual abuse bankruptcy case

Posted on by

A potential agreement with survivors is in the works, but some parties are unhappy with settlement amount

The Catholic archbishop of New Orleans made a rare in-person appearance in federal bankruptcy court on Friday, days after announcing a potential agreement to settle claims with hundreds of clergy abuse survivors that has been met with pushback from some of the plaintiffs.

“I’m here because I’m concerned for the survivors,” Gregory Aymond said in an interview with WWL Louisiana away from the cameras after what is believed to have been his first appearance in person for an open court hearing in the five years since his archdiocese – one of the US’s oldest – joined roughly 40 Catholic institutions to file for bankruptcy protection amid the worldwide church’s long ongoing clergy molestation scandal.

Continue reading...

New Orleans archbishop appears in court during contentious clergy sexual abuse bankruptcy case

Posted on by

A potential agreement with survivors is in the works, but some parties are unhappy with settlement amount

The Catholic archbishop of New Orleans made a rare in-person appearance in federal bankruptcy court on Friday, days after announcing a potential agreement to settle claims with hundreds of clergy abuse survivors that has been met with pushback from some of the plaintiffs.

“I’m here because I’m concerned for the survivors,” Gregory Aymond said in an interview with WWL Louisiana away from the cameras after what is believed to have been his first appearance in person for an open court hearing in the five years since his archdiocese – one of the US’s oldest – joined roughly 40 Catholic institutions to file for bankruptcy protection amid the worldwide church’s long ongoing clergy molestation scandal.

Continue reading...

Five New Orleans jailbreak fugitives still at large as police arrest alleged helpers

Posted on by

Several people held in connection with jailbreak as manhunt enters second week and criticisms mount over jail management

Several people have been arrested on accusations of helping some of the 10 men who broke out of New Orleans’ jail on 16 May – and half of the escapers remained on the run as a manhunt for them entered its second week, according to authorities.

Police said on Friday that they had booked Casey Smith, 30, a day earlier on allegations that she provided transportation to at least two of the escapers in the hours after the jailbreak. She had allegedly admitted to doing that alongside another woman whom police took into custody on Wednesday, identified as 32-year-old Cortnie Harris, Smith’s cousin and the girlfriend of one of the escaped men, Leo Tate, 31.

Continue reading...

Seven men still on the run after New Orleans jailbreak

Posted on by

Total of 10 men escaped from hole behind toilet in cell; authorities are investigating whether they had inside help

Seven men – including one convicted in four killings and others charged with murder – remained on the run after a breakout at New Orleans’ jail that officials fear may have been enabled by help from within their own ranks.

A total of 10 men participated in the brazen overnight escape by fleeing through a hole behind a toilet and scaling a wall while the lone staffer assigned to their cell pod was away getting food.

Continue reading...

This American pope: Leo XIV’s bloodline reflects the US melting pot

Posted on by

A fraught history of race and immigration connect the new pope with his homeland

Pope Leo XIV, who on Thursday was elected as the first-ever US-born leader of the Roman Catholic church, has a familial bloodline that reflects his homeland’s fraught relationship with race – and why the nation’s stature as a melting pot of origins has long endured, records unearthed by genealogists show.

The maternal grandfather of 69-year-old Robert Prevost, the newly minted pope, was evidently born abroad in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, according to birth records that professional genealogist Chris Smothers cited to ABC News in a recent report. When Leo’s grandfather, Joseph Martinez, obtained an 1887 marriage license to wed the future pope’s grandmother, Louise Baquié, he listed his birthplace as Haiti, which at the time was the same territory as Santo Domingo, Smothers noted.

Continue reading...

Trump officials deport two-year-old US citizen and mother of one-year-old girl

Posted on by

Lawyers in both cases, one in Louisiana and another in Florida, say clients arrested at routine Ice check-ins

The Trump administration has removed a two-year-old US citizen from the country “with no meaningful process”, according to a federal judge, while in a different case the authorities deported the mother of a one-year-old girl, separating them indefinitely.

Lawyers in the two cases, the first in Louisiana and the second in Florida, say their clients were arrested at routine check-ins at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) offices and were given virtually no opportunity to speak with them or family members.

Continue reading...

Police cited ‘malfunctioning’ barrier in New Orleans attack but didn’t take up maker’s offer to inspect and repair

Posted on by

Manufacturer says city has not taken up its offer to inspect – and, if necessary, repair – blockade at no cost

After the deadly truck ramming attack on New Orleans’s Bourbon Street early on New Year’s Day, local police said they had intentionally left down a hydraulic barrier meant to prevent such violence because it had a history of malfunctioning – prompting the blockade’s manufacturer to contact the city with an urgent offer of free inspection and maintenance, according to recently obtained emails.

“We would like to bring out a technician for no charge in order to inspect all the Delta Scientific barriers in New Orleans and ensure they are functional and offer any solutions for maintenance or repairs needed,” Dianne Kennedy, the company’s assistant to general counsel and manager of contracts, wrote to the office of the New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell.

Continue reading...

Custody spat over New Orleans escape-artist dog settled with visitation agreement

Posted on by

Scrim the tramp terrier, known for his many getaways, now has a home and an extended family to look over him

Calling King Solomon.

The wiry terrier named Scrim who had virtually all of New Orleans looking for him while he spent most of the previous year on the run – enduring a hurricane, a historic snowfall and other perils – landed in the middle of an adoption controversy among those who recently brought him to heel again and then wanted to keep him.

Continue reading...