Acquittal revives NOLa. DA

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Columnist

Jason Williams may have just become the most popular politician in New Orleans. The Orleans District Attorney’s absolute acquittal on ten counts of federal tax fraud has lent credence in some voters’ minds that he was politically targeted for his progressive politics. Whether true or not, the trial’s outlining of the rather mundane tax deductions which he and his law partner declared made even Williams’ biggest critics wonder whether the U.S. Justice Department had assembled a real case against him in the first place.

Williams and his law partner Nicole Burdett were accused of illegally taking $200,000 in improper tax deductions. Some included questionable declarations like counting yoga lessons as a business expense. Federal prosecutors also queried why the former defense attorneys engaged in large cash transfers throughout their careers. Their legal team’s reply, though, that many of Williams and Burdett’s clients paid in cash, was not very effectively refuted by the prosecution, and the further justification that their one-time CPA Henry J. Timothy had approved each deduction carried more weight with jurors than prosecutors initially realized.

Especially when Williams‘ and Burdett’s attorneys noted that the two stood as the sole targets of the federal tax fraud investigation, despite Timothy’s myriad of high profile clients. The CPA had pleaded guilty to one count of tax fraud and turned state’s evidence, admitting before the grand jury that he fraudulently prepared Williams and Burdett’s tax returns by improperly inflating their businesses’ expenses. However, despite Timothy’s testimony, defense attorneys Billy Gibbens and Lisa Monet Wayne proved so effective in defending the now-district attorney and his colleague that jurors seemingly wondered why the IRS did not just simply say “pay us for the improper deductions.”

Gibbens and Wayne repeatedly flummoxed the government’s lead prosecutor in the case, Kelly Uebinger, convincing Federal District Judge Lance Africk to order the reduction of hundreds of pages of documents, effectively banning these pages from evidence, and consequently causing the dismissal of the testimony of several witnesses for the prosecution which sought to comment on the documents.

Uebinger ultimately opted to plead with the jury, calling Burdett and Williams “tax cheats” multiple times in her closing argument, and declaring, “Don’t let them get away with it. They are trying to pull the wool over your eyes.” Her argument fell flat, as jurors found both “not guilty.” More importantly, Williams’ allegations of political targeting at least appeared increasingly plausible in the wake of the government’s botched case.

The irony remains that the rising murder rate and increasing incidents of violent crime in Orleans Parish should render Jason Williams incredibly unpopular. Many cite the District Attorney‘s office’s refusal to prosecute certain mid-level crimes as one of the causes for the recent rash of violent offenses which the City of New Orleans has endured. Other urban DAs – elected on a progressive tide in the weight of the Black Lives Matter protests calling for fewer prosecutions (and therefore fewer predominantly African-American incarcerations) – have seen public opinion turn against them as crime rates have surged. One of Williams‘ professed allies, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, found herself actually recalled from office by the normally liberal Bay Area electorate on June 7, 2022, for this very reason. For a few months, prior to going to trial, Williams appeared as if he might be the next Progressive DA to fall.

Evidence remains antidotal, yet random surveys of local voters seem to indicate that the mishandled trial has restored a degree of public sympathy for Jason Williams. His David-versus-Goliath stance generated a degree of popularity which few other elected officials in the city enjoy right now. And unlike in California, it’s virtually impossible to recall an elected official in Louisiana.

This article originally published in the August 1, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.