Louisiana Voice

One-time prominent New Orleans attorney Ashton O’Dwyer’s story certainly isn’t new. In fact, it’s 16 years old now and has been chronicled by several writers, including popular New Orleans Times-Picayune/Morning Advocate columnist James Gill.

But his story takes on renewed significance – and timeliness – with the media spotlight turned on Louisiana State Police Troop F following the May 2019 death of RONALD GREENE and the beating of a second African-American by state troopers and the ensuing federal investigation of Louisiana State Police (LSP).

For those who have been in a coma for the past two years, Greene, 49, was killed by state troopers after he fled when officers attempted to pull his car over for an unspecified traffic violation. An AUTOPSY (copies of which, by the way, authorities have refused to release) reportedly revealed he had no drugs or alcohol in his system, nor were there any such substances in his vehicle, Moreover, there were no outstanding warrants for his arrest, so the reason he fled police, other than the possibility that he felt he had reason to fear police, remains a mystery.

A year after the Greene incident (and nearly a year before details of Greene’s death would become public) troopers from Troop F beat another black man, 29-year-old ANTONIO HARRIS under similar circumstances. That incident included at least one officer who was involved in the Greene death. Unlike Greene, however, Harris survived and currently has a lawsuit pending against LSP, as does Greene’s family.

At least two troopers from Troop F were among those who participated in the brutalization of O’Dwyer in the days following Hurricane Katrina which devastated much of New Orleans but which spared O’Dwyer and his St. Charles Street home – until he made the wrong people uncomfortable and he suddenly became a problem.

Unlike Greene and Harris, O’Dwyer is white and was a full partner in the New Orleans law firm of Lemie and Kelleher where he had worked for 35 years, specializing in admiralty and maritime law. He resided in one of the most upscale sections of New Orleans.

In the end, his crossing the politically-connected legal establishment would cost him his job, his marriage, his law license and his home and leave him destitute and a broken man.

It’s not how the system is supposed to work and O’Dwyer is living testament to man’s inhumanity to man.

To learn the full impact of how the system came down on O’Dwyer, we have to go back to Aug. 29, 2005, the day that Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans. When the levees gave way, about 80 percent of New Orleans homes and businesses flooded. By stroke of good fortune (and because he was on higher ground), O’Dwyer’s home and others on St. Charles Avenue did not. Accordingly, O’Dwyer chose (legally) not to evacuate but to remain in his home to protect his possessions from looters. He had plenty provisions and a generator, giving him the independence he need to subsist until order and power could be restored to a crippled city.

He even took in a few guests and entertained visiting media, giving interviews on a regular basis and offering his opinion on the federal and state governments’ abysmal failure to respond in a timely manner to the plight of thousands trapped in the Louisiana Superdome, the Convention Center, on elevated expressways and on rooftops with no water, food, electricity or toilets. He spared no one in his criticisms – most especially the US Army “Corpse” of Engineers (his term), the Orleans Water and Sewer Board, the various levee boards, through Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, and any others he could call to mind who incurred his wrath and indignation.

Twenty days after Katrina’s landfall, on Sept. 19, O’Dwyer drove to Baton Rouge to do what lawyers do – file a class-action lawsuit in US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana (which had been temporarily relocated from New Orleans to the Capital City) on behalf of Katrina’s victims. Named as defendants were the United States of America, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, former New Orleans Police Superintendent Edwin Compass and Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff Malin Gusman.

“My approach to the Katrina litigation was quite simple,” O’Dwyer told LouisianaVoice. “I believed that the case would hinge on a single issue, namely: did the USA have immunity or not? If the USA was not immune, then the Federal Tort Claims Act, coupled with the depth, breadth and scope of the federal purse, was fully able to compensate everyone, including the lawyers, handsomely.

“But what if the USA was determined to be immune because of the provisions of the Flood Control Act of 1928? What then? Who was the ‘next deepest pocket’? Answer: the State of Louisiana, of course (and its various agencies and instrumentalities and political subdivisions).”

But what O’Dwyer did not know at the time and would not learn until the second anniversary of Katrina (and this is where it gets dicey) was that a cabal of plaintiffs’ attorneys, headed up by Joseph Bruno of New Orleans, had been appointed by Federal Judge Stanwood R. Duval, Jr. to manage and control litigation against the federal government on behalf of the state and 500,000 storm victims.

That created a problem when it was determined that the US did, in fact, enjoy immunity from the Flood Control Act. But, O’Dwyer said, because the attorneys had entered into a secret pact with then-Attorney General Charles Foti to represent the state by filing a $400 billion claim against the federal government, any chance of then suing the state was negated because the state was now their client and attorneys are precluded by something called legal ethics from suing their own clients.

Meanwhile, the wheels were set in motion to silence O’Dwyer’s constant stream of interviews about the poor response to the hurricane. Twelve days after the storm, on Sept. 11, there was a MEETING in Foti’s Baton Rouge office. Among the attendees were State Supreme Court Justice Catherine “Kitty” Kimball, Louisiana State Bar Association President Frank X. Neuner, Jr., and Chief Disciplinary Counsel of the State Supreme Court’s Attorney Disciplinary Board, Charles B. Plattsmier, Jr.

During that meeting, the discussion turned to O’Dwyer who, in the aftermath of the storm, had been confronted by uniformed members of a militia who threatened to evacuate him by force despite his home having received only minimal damage. O’Dwyer’s protestations had been taped by the media and the notoriety generated by his interviews was deemed unacceptable by those in that meeting.

“Somebody has got to shut that guy up,” Justice Kimball was quoted as saying. “He’s giving us all a bad name.”

Plattsmier, appointed by the Supreme Court, was said to have quickly agreed to take care of the O’Dwyer “problem” by contacting some of his partners at Lemle and Kelleher.

Three days later, on Sept. 14, Charles R. Talley, one of O’Dwyer’s law partners inadvertently revealed to O’Dwyer that he and at least one other partner, Joseph L. “Larry” Shea, Jr., had understood a threat from Plattsmier that O’Dwyer’s law license would be suspended if he continued to talk to the media and vacate his property.

The following day, another partner, William R. Forrester, Jr., hand-delivered a letter from the firm’s chairman Ernest L. Edwards, Jr. (there are a lot of “Juniors” In this story) warning that his partnership was in jeopardy unless he stopped giving interviews to the media or failed to cooperate with government authorities and surrender his weapons. A courtesy copy of the letter was also provided to Plattsmier, which suggested that Plattsmier may well have been the source of the directive.

On September 17, 2005, O’Dwyer was visited by a delegation composed of Neuner and two members of the Louisiana Department of Justice, one of whom was Assistant Attorney General Burton Guidry. They were there to warn him that complaints about him had been made “at the highest levels of government.” That same evening, O’Dwyer was host to several members of the New York City Police Department, who were on special assignment in New Orleans. They were the only police officers who responded to his invitation, posted at the Uptown 2nd District Police Station, to be dinner guests at his home.

Tomorrow: The Axe Falls