NOPD closes investigation into WWL-TV after judge’s complaint
An Oct. 1 police report finds "no violation there or criminal offense" in the station’s reporting, closing a case that began with a judge’s Sept. 11 complaint.
NEW ORLEANS: The New Orleans Police Department has closed its investigation into WWL-TV, finding no basis for a criminal case the station faced after a criminal court judge asked police to penalize it for reporting that scrutinized her finances.
According to an Oct. 1 police report obtained by The Times-Picayune, Criminal District Court Judge Kimya Holmes filed her complaint with the NOPD's First District on Sept. 11. The detective who handled it, Marcus Dubuclet, noted that the statute Holmes cited, Louisiana Revised Statute 44:11.2, no longer carries criminal penalties. "There is no violation there or criminal offense," Dubuclet wrote.
WWL chief investigative reporter David Hammer had published a story weeks earlier reporting that Holmes's former fiance, Arthur Allen, had transferred ownership of an English Turn home worth $765,000 to Holmes while he was negotiating a plea deal on federal fraud counts. Allen had pleaded guilty to stealing some $712,000 in COVID-19 relief money, and at his Sept. 25 sentencing, U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey upbraided him, saying Hammer's reporting left him feeling "duped" before imposing a two-year sentence.
Hammer's Aug. 24 report included a small image of a property-transfer document that showed the home address, along with the license plate of a Corvette leased by Allen that a confidential source had photographed in the courthouse garage. On Sept. 10, the criminal court's judicial administrator, Rob Kazik, wrote to WWL demanding that the station remove the material and reveal its confidential sources. WWL removed the images within 24 hours and republished them with the address and plate blurred, but declined to name its sources.
Holmes told Dubuclet she had received threatening phone calls laced with racial slurs after the story aired and felt unsafe for herself and those around her. After WWL lawyers informed the department that the legislature had repealed the law’s criminal provisions, Dubuclet relayed the information to the judge. Holmes said she was unaware of the change and acknowledged she had no grounds for a criminal complaint if the law no longer carried penalties, the report says. Holmes has not disputed the accuracy of WWL's reporting.
The case drew alarm from First Amendment attorneys. Louisiana media attorney Scott Sternberg said he could not imagine "a public official filing a criminal complaint in response to reporting" whose accuracy the judge never challenged. The repeals took effect Aug. 1, weeks before both Hammer's story and the complaint.
WWL first reported the closure on Tuesday. The Oct. 1 report closes the case, though it adds that the sheriff's office responsible for courthouse security would take over any further inquiry tied to the photograph of the vehicle in the courthouse parking garage.
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