Ex-federal prosecutor disbarred after online posting scandal

The Louisiana Supreme Court last week disbarred Sal Perricone, the chief federal prosecutor under U.S. Attorney Jim Letten whose involvement in an online posting scandal prompted a federal judge to overturn the convictions of five NOPD officers involved in the high-profile, post-Katrina Danziger Bridge case.

Sal Perricone was an assistant U.S. Attorney when his posts were exposed. He resigned in 2012, as did his boss, Jim Letten, who at the time was the longest-serving U.S. Attorney in the nation’s history.

Letten was not implicated in the postings.

U.S. District Judge Kurt Englehardt cited Perricone’s misconduct in overturning the convictions of five former police officers connected to deadly shootings at New Orleans’ Danziger bridge in the chaotic days following Hurricane Katrina. Less than a week after Katrina, the officers killed 17-year-old James Brissette and Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man. They also wounded four other unarmed residents.

Justice advocates and community activists accused the federal prosecutors of making the illegal online posts about active U.S. Department of Justice cases to allow the five convicted NOPD officers to avoid lengthy prison sentences.

The Danziger Bridge case and several other high-profile, officer-involved cases led to a federally mandated NOPD consent decree aimed at bringing the police department up to federal standards for constitutional policing.

Implementation of the 492-point consent decree began in August 2013 and is ongoing.

Attorneys for Perricone attributed his online posts to post-traumatic stress but that argument did not gain ground with members of the Louisiana Supreme Court.

The 67-year-old Perricone voluntarily resigned from the practice of law in federal courts. He had hoped to avoid state disbarment. But the Supreme Court said last Wednesday that disbarment was “the only appropriate sanction.”

This article originally published in the December 10, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.