{"id":34524,"date":"2022-08-06T12:56:49","date_gmt":"2022-08-06T12:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=34524"},"modified":"2022-08-06T12:56:49","modified_gmt":"2022-08-06T12:56:49","slug":"da-jason-williams-tax-fraud-trial-was-political-ploy-and-it-worked-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/06\/da-jason-williams-tax-fraud-trial-was-political-ploy-and-it-worked-courts\/","title":{"rendered":"DA Jason Williams: tax fraud trial was political ploy ‘and it worked’ | Courts"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams emerged from his federal tax fraud trial<\/a>\u00a0with less trust in a criminal justice system that he has long seen as deeply flawed. But the experience, he said, also left him with a real-world lesson to impart to the young attorneys in his office: prosecutorial overreach is a dangerous weapon.<\/p>\n

A jury acquitted Williams last week<\/a> of charges he conspired to defraud the IRS with falsified tax returns and failing to file proper forms for large cash payments. The federal case against him crumbled under the weight of an untrustworthy star witness<\/a> and a lack of evidence<\/a> linking Williams to the spate of charges lodged by federal prosecutors from the Western District of Louisiana.<\/p>\n

In his own office, Williams says he has asked assistant district attorneys to vigorously pursue convictions for violent crimes, but to also ensure they have the evidence needed to secure guilty verdicts. In an interview this week, Williams said he’ll use his own trial as an instructional case study.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very clear about the need to not overreach or overcharge,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t know that [my trial] will change my beliefs or my policies. But I think it will help me articulate to young lawyers the \u2018why\u2019 of what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cWhen I\u2019m talking to young lawyers, I will be able to tell them how it affected me personally. And explain how when you focus on something that\u2019s not serious \u2014 or a case that should not be prosecuted \u2014 you\u2019re taking resources away from something that is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams was vindicated in court. But he’s still walking back into a cauldron of criticism as crime has surged across the city and country. By July, the city was on pace\u00a0to post the nation’s highest per capita murder rate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Residents have become increasingly concerned with public safety<\/a>\u00a0and like other progressive prosecutors, Williams’ work has faced intense scrutiny. Since a February report showed\u00a0Williams’ administration missed deadlines<\/a> that allowed arrested individuals to be released from jail, critics have seized on what they perceive to be Williams’ focus on the system’s past sins rather than its present problems \u2014 a\u00a0connection Williams has decried as tenuous.<\/p>\n

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District Attorney Jason Rogers Williams holds a press conference to announce a special grand jury indictment of 4 individuals following numerous armed robberies across the city, in the St. Roch neighborhood of New Orleans, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022. (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com<\/a>, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)<\/p>\n

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He has returned to prosecuting cases this week, securing a second-degree murder conviction against Damond Scott<\/a>, who opened fire on a busy neighborhood block and killed a man. To date, Williams’ attorneys have tried 40 cases this year, a rapid-fire pace that highlights the office’s drive and the need to break through a trial backlog due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Williams is well aware of detractors\u2019 disappointment that he wasn’t convicted and removed from office, potentially to be replaced with a more conservative district attorney. He also knows that the jury\u2019s acquittal has failed to convince some that he\u2019s innocent of the allegations.<\/p>\n

The indictment, Williams said, \u201cWas an effort to disparage me, and drag my reputation through the mud.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it worked. I\u2019m sure there are some people in this community who believe that wherever there\u2019s smoke, there\u2019s fire. People don\u2019t like politicians or lawyers; I’m both.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘Everyone was changed’<\/h3>\n
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Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams, left, and his wife, Elizabeth Marcell Williams, hold hands as they head toward the U.S. District Courthouse in New Orleans for the start of his tax fraud trial on Monday July 18, 2022.<\/p>\n

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Williams said the case won’t change how he’ll lead his office, but personally, it has shaken him and his family.<\/p>\n

Speaking from the front porch of his Uptown home, Williams and his wife, Liz Marcell Williams, offered details on how a federal indictment and trial throws things into turmoil. They have put their house up for sale after an online death threat<\/a> and a swell of media attention changed their view on privacy. Banks saw the couple as a risk and closed their accounts, which meant some credit cards were also canceled. Friendships were destroyed.<\/p>\n

\u201cRelationships have been ruined,\u201d Marcell Williams said. \u201cPeople who were on the witness stand, testifying for the government, were at our wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are people we haven\u2019t talked to for two years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Williams acknowledged that other people have had “far worse” encounters with the criminal justice system. But the ordeal changed him.<\/p>\n

\u201cFar worse has been done to far better people than me,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople have gone to jail, and then been exonerated after a number of years. Some people have been executed and then posthumously vindicated. So, I do have perspective. But I also realized that I\u2019m just not okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cI hoped and I thought that at the end of it, a burden would be lifted, and everything would go back to exactly what it was before,” he said. “But just like COVID affected all of us, everyone was changed. What we go through affects us. And, you know, this too has had a huge impact on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The death threat continues to be under investigation. The New Orleans Police Department is leading the probe into the online post, but has released few details about the nature of threat. Williams said authorities have informed him it was posted on an alt-right website, and included a call to action to gather on the steps of the courthouse to hurt him.<\/p>\n

The most devastating blow from the trial didn’t land on Williams, of course. While Williams was acquitted, the jury found his co-defendant, law associate and friend Nicole Burdett, guilty of four counts of falsifying her own tax returns<\/a>, in a separate indictment tried at the same time.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me to come out of it completely vindicated and for her to come out of it with dings and convictions,\u201d Williams said, \u201cis just truly heartbreaking.\u201d Burdett in 2019 turned down an offer of immunity from federal prosecutors that would have required her cooperation in the case.<\/p>\n

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Nicole Burdett heads to court on the first day of his tax fraud charges at the Hale Boggs Federal Courthouse on Poydras Street in New Orleans, Monday, July 18, 2022. Burdett was found guilty of four counts of falsifying four years’ worth of her own taxes, allegedly shaving nearly $130,000 off of her tax bill. (Staff Photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com<\/a> | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)<\/p>\n

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\u201cShe was a non-issue in this case, except that prosecutors thought they can bully her \u2014 to try to make her life miserable \u2014 to make her tell lies to help their case against me,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

He pledged: \u201cI will be working with all of our lawyers \u2026 and there\u2019s not a doubt in my mind that she will be vindicated too.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. District Court Judge Lance Africk, who presided over Williams’ and Burdett’s trial, scheduled her sentencing for Nov. 30. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n