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A federal jury has unanimously convicted three Louisiana residents of insider trading in connection with the acquisition of the Shaw Group after a three-week trial, U.S. Attorney Brandon Fremin said in a Thursday news release.

U.S. District Judge John deGravelles of the Middle District of Louisiana presided over the trial in Baton Rouge.

Victory Ho, 38, of Morgan City; Kelly Liu, 32, and Salvador Russo III, 35, both of Baton Rouge; were convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud, commonly known as insider trading, Fremin stated.

Ho made about $300,000 from the illegal insider trading activities, the release said. He was the former Morgan City Housing Authority board chairman. He resigned from the housing authority board in August 2016 following a drug arrest in Morgan City.

Each faces a significant term of incarceration, fines, restitution and supervised release following imprisonment. The defendants’ sentencing dates have not been set, the release stated.

According to the evidence presented at trial, in mid-2012, The Shaw Group was considering a potential merger opportunity. At the time, Liu was a Shaw employee working in the financial planning and analysis department.

In late July 2012, Shaw and Chicago Bridge and Iron Company, known as CB&I, came to an agreement whereby CB&I acquired all outstanding shares of Shaw stock. The merger between the two companies was publicly announced July 30, 2012. As a result of the public announcement, Shaw’s stock price rose substantially, the release said.

As the evidence established, prior to the public announcement and through her job at Shaw, Liu obtained inside information that Shaw was being acquired by another company and passed the inside information to Ho, through another individual, and to Russo, for their use in trading Shaw securities, the news release said.

Thereafter, Ho and Russo allegedly purchased Shaw securities before the public announcement. Ho sold his Shaw securities after the public announcement had caused Shaw’s stock price to rise, while Russo held his Shaw securities, all at the expense of Shaw shareholders and potential Shaw shareholders who were not privy to the inside information.

“The unanimous guilty verdicts returned by the jury today should send a strong message that corporate and securities fraud by insiders and others will not be tolerated and will be aggressively pursued by my office, together with our partners,” Fremin said.

“Liu had inside information that she knew was incredibly valuable, and she violated her corporate duties—and federal securities law—by sharing that inside information with Ho and Russo, knowing that they would all benefit from the unfair advantage they had over the rest of the market,” Fremin said.

“I truly appreciate the efforts of our partners with the FBI, IRS-Criminal Investigations, the U.S. Secret Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and the prosecutors and staff within this office, who worked tirelessly to uncover, investigate, and present the defendants’ sophisticated scheme to the jury. I thank the jury for their thoughtful consideration and hard work throughout this lengthy and complex trial,” he said.

FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Eric J. Rommal stated, “Motivated by greed and self-enrichment, the defendants in today’s court case utilized material, non-public information and dishonest tactics in order to manipulate the securities market. The jury’s decision should send a clear message that anyone who uses insider information for profit will not be tolerated. The FBI New Orleans Field Office will continue to use all available resources to end this behavior. The FBI, in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and our federal, state, and local partners, will investigate and prosecute all forms of white-collar crime in Louisiana.”

U.S. Secret Service spokesperson Mason Brayman stated, “This case demonstrates the investigative capabilities of the U.S. Secret Service and the collaborative efforts of our law enforcement partners, specifically the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Criminal Investigative Division of the Internal Revenue Service.”

This matter is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana and the Baton Rouge offices of the FBI, Secret Service, and IRS-Criminal Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Chris Dippel, Patricia Jones and Adam Ptashkin.

It looks like the kids have done it again.
Following up on a recent column about the achievements of St. Mary young people, it’s worth noting that 22 seniors at Berwick High got their diplomas last Thursday after compiling perfect 4.0 grade point averages.
Four more students carried the cedar rope at Patterson High’s commencement after earning 4.0s. And Morgan City High’s graduation featured 11 summa cum laude grads, also with 4.0s.
Principal Mickey Fabre, by the way, always seems to inject a bit of showmanship into Morgan City’s commencement.
On Friday, Fabre presented the Principal’s Award to Austin Navarro. According to Diane Miller Fears of our staff, Fabre said Navarro and Fabre often compared their watches. But Navarro’s timepiece went missing. So, at graduation, Fabre gave Navarro the principal’s watch along with the Principal’s Award.
We’ll introduce you to Central Catholic High’s valedictorian and salutatorian in Friday’s edition.
More accomplished young people: Jordan Richardson, son of Marvin Dewey and Judy Richardson of Amelia, is the Department of History, Geography and Philosophy’s Outstanding Master’s Graduate at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
And Collin Conner of Morgan City is the Nicholls State University College of Business Administration’s Outstanding Graduate.
The young folks have got it going on.
We also learned this week that St. Mary Parish public schools posted a graduation rate of 88.2 percent in 2016-17, beating the state rate by more than 10 percentage points. It’s hard not to conclude that the quality of local schools helps explain the achievements of those accomplished young people.
But we also have to take a step back when we see those numbers, and remember that while St. Mary ranks near the top of Louisiana schools, Louisiana ranks very low in a nation that ranks low in the industrial world.
If our graduation rate is 88.2 percent, then statistically, a group of 100 public school students will include a dozen or so who will not graduate. And our economy no longer showers rewards on those who end their education with high school, let alone on those who don’t make it that far.
The other sad fact to ponder is that most of those high-achieving young people will have to leave St. Mary if they want to turn their talents into real success.
It’s not so much that some will leave. Kids chase dreams. That’s their job. That’s the way of the world.
The tragedy is that they must.
Jason Kander, Missouri’s secretary of state, put the issue in perspective recently on the “Slate Political Gabfest” podcast.
He’s a Democratic up-and-comer in a state rocked by a sex scandal involving a Republican governor, so he’s in the middle of a bitter partisan fight. But on the podcast, Kander said something that should be the campaign slogan for every official and every candidate for office, Republican or Democrat. It might be the only thing that matters.
Kander said he wants his state to be a place kids don’t have to leave to be successful.
Put another way, we know what young people have to offer St. Mary Parish. The question is what St. Mary Parish has to offer its young people.

10-2 and
pick ’em
If you hang around old reporters, you’ll hear about old stories. Here’s one related to the upcoming vote on whether Louisiana should continue to allow convictions on 10-2 jury votes. You’ll get to say yea or nay this fall.
In my nearly three decades in Louisiana, the most widely watched and followed trial, maybe more so than even Edwin Edwards’ 2000 conviction, was decided by a 10-2 verdict. It was the 1998 case of Dr. Richard Schmidt, who was convicted of trying to kill his longtime girlfriend with a shot containing AIDS-tainted blood.
Schmidt, a Lafayette gastroenterologist who was married, engaged in a 10-year affair with the woman. Their affair resulted in abortions, a lovechild and threats to hurt her after she got tired of trying to get him to leave his wife.
Schmidt was accused of drawing blood from two of his patients, a male AIDS sufferer and a woman with hepatitis C, and injecting it into his girlfriend as he told her it was a B-12 shot on Aug. 4, 1994.
The prosecutor was Keith Stutes, who went on to become the 15th Judicial District attorney. He had records showing blood was drawn at Schmidt’s College Road office without being sent to a lab, and he had the results of a new DNA technique that showed a relationship between the HIV in the woman’s blood and Schmidt’s AIDS patient. It was the first time that technique, called phylogenetic analysis, was used in a U.S. criminal trial.
But the defense called Dr. Michael Hagansee, who treated AIDS patients at what was then Big Charity in New Orleans. Hagansee testified that the nurse’s HIV didn’t progress in a way consistent with infection on the date when, according to the prosecution’s case, the shot had to have happened.
The public reaction to the trial was amazing. Everywhere I went, people who knew what I do for a living questioned me about the latest developments. I got a call from a reporter in Germany, who wanted to know about that “d” in Schmidt’s name. A British reporter told me his readers “like to know about the strange goings-on you Yanks get up to.”
The case became an episode on “Forensic Files” and on “Law & Order.” (For L&O junkies, it’s “Patient Zero,” Season 14, Episode 3. It has Lenny and Ed.)
Reasonable doubt? I covered the trial and, to be honest, the doubt seemed reasonable to me, despite what many thought was a rock-solid prosecution case.
The jury came back with a 10-2 guilty verdict. In Texas, Mississippi or Arkansas, that’s a hung jury. In Louisiana, it’s a conviction. Schmidt was sentenced to 50 years for attempted murder.
Because a civil right — the right to a fair trial — is involved, and because only Louisiana and Oregon allow such convictions with something less than unanimous verdicts, I can’t imagine why our state’s system has been allowed to stand in light of 14th Amendment guarantees of equal protection.
But voters will soon have their say on the question.

Bar
Here’s another old story, a belated tribute to former first Lady Barbara Bush, who died April 17.
Mrs. Bush came in for some criticism for intemperate remarks about Katrina refugees housed in Houston. Heaven knows few people in public life covered themselves in glory after Katrina.
But my experience with her was different.
I was working in Sikeston, Missouri, about 1988, when she was still Mrs. Vice President and came to visit a local Head Start class.
Mrs. Bush’s big thing was literacy. She seemed at home in a class full of little kids, all from low-income homes, most of them African American. She talked to them, read to them and did the hokey-pokey with them.
She made quite a sight, with that snow-white hair and her pearls. She put her left foot in, took her left foot out, and turned all about. The kids loved it.
Then the mood changed. Word filtered down to the room that someone had called in a bomb threat.
Mrs. Bush, who had a Secret Service agent with her, seemed a little startled. But she pulled herself together, obviously not wanting to scare the little guys, and walked briskly to the door.
Trouble was, the door was that closet in the back of the room where the teacher kept the Play-Doh and construction paper.
I was standing in the back of the room, so I gave her a “psst” and jerked my head toward the front of the room. I don’t know if she saw me, but she turned and saw the Secret Service guy waving her to the door into the hallway. Mrs. Bush made a dignified exit.
Later, I got a picture of the payphone used to call in the threat. It was outside a barbecue joint on the west end of town, where they served the best ribs I had before or since. They were always cooked just right with a sweet-and-tangy sauce.
I don’t know if the feds ever caught the guy. But the fullest penalty of the law is scarcely sufficient for the man who disrespected a fine first lady and those ribs.
Bill Decker is managing editor of The Daily Review.

A drive down Grand Chenier Highway during rush hour is nothing like traveling in New Orleans at first light. In this remote region of southwest Louisiana, the closest thing to being in a hurry is the bird banders and mist net assistants making rounds under the beautiful old growth, tree-lined cheniers, during the annual bird migration.
Samantha Collins is a biologist who has worked for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries on Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge since 2014. Collins, 32, earned her Master of Science Degree in Wildlife and Fisheries from Clemson University in 2012.
Prior to being offered a graduate research assistantship at Clemson, whereby eventually earning her Masters, she says she bumped around several states as a technician trying to learn all she could.
Following her Master’s program, the young biologist ultimately wound up at the U. S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, where she recorded band data.
According to Collins, it was all good experience preparing her for the research work she is doing for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries on Rockefeller.
For approximately 20 years, the University of Southern Mississippi, under the direction of Frank Moore, operated a migration station in Johnson Bayou. Located some 60 miles west of Rockefeller Refuge, along the gulf coast near the Texas border, the station is just one of several that acts as study and research locations where biologists and technicians record every bird they hear, see or catch in mist nets. The data obtained is critical information for the development of habitat management strategies and determining the health of avian populations.
In more recent years, cattle grazing began to alter the landscape on the Johnson Bayou site, causing it to somewhat decline as a research location.
About that time, Collins had come on board with the Louisiana of Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
Stepping in, she contacted Moore to offer the Nunez Woods property across the road from the refuge to continue the important migration research.
The Nunez Woods property happened to be an old growth chenier with rich stands of pristine live oak and hackberry trees that is leased by the department for research purposes. In short, the offered site is perfect for migrating songbirds.
And, in 2015, Collins was able to work with Moore where funding was obtained to operate a migration station that year.
As it turned out, 2015 proved to be very successful, and the Nunez property produced lots of birds, Collins says.
“It was a very productive site. We caught a lot of birds, and there was even some species like Swainson’s warblers that we caught more of on Nunez than they had ever caught at Johnson Bayou,” Collins said.
In 2016 and 2017, there were no funds available to operate the migration station on Nunez Woods.
But, in 2018, a couple of critical research projects came up. One measuring the tick load of migrating birds, where studies show birds often carry these parasites.
And the other, comparing weather radar migration data with actual information from migration stations on the ground.
In addition to the Nunez Woods site, further down the road, the Nature Conservancy manages a conservation easement they negotiated with landowners to support wildlife, particularly migrating birds. Known as the Hollister Chenier Preserve, the property is roughly 50 acres in size and by comparison is newer succession growth, consisting mainly of lower canopy woods and shrub understory.
Having both Chenier habitats close by is ideal for Collins and the research she is involved in with the department. Coastal erosion, hurricanes and land use all have reduced the available chenier acreage along the coast to a fraction of what it once was on the coastal prairie.
“These cheniers are basically endangered in this area,” Collins said. “They were historic ridges on the landscape from where the Mississippi River used to flood and when we had open channelization where the Gulf of Mexico met the land. In flood years, it would create these little ridges, and that’s what these cheniers are – little ridges – though not very high.
“One of the studies I’m doing is looking at the value of these cheniers to songbirds,” Collins added. “We’re looking at things like the vegetation composition and availability of prey at both sites. So, we’re doing fruit sampling and arthropod sampling, looking for – you know – what kinds of bugs are here and what kinds of fruit.”
Collins also is involved in the Motus Wildlife Tracking System program currently managed through the Louisiana Natural Heritage Program arm of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Motus is Latin for movement and is an international collaborative research network that uses a coordinated automated radio telemetry array to track the movement and behavior of small flying organisms (birds, bats and insects) by definition.
Essentially, tiny avian NanoTag transmitters emit signals to antenna arrays located along the coastline that track migrating birds as they fly overhead. Signals from NanoTags can be detected 10 to 15 kilometers (6 to 9 miles) away. The only drawback is the antenna towers cannot detect birds down on the ground or obscured by vegetation.
One of the things Moore has looked at is the availability of suitable habitat during migration where energy stores critical to a successful migration can be safely deposited.
In Collins’s NanoTag research, she has chosen Swainson’s thrushes and northern water thrushes. Her reasoning is both of these species are northern latitude birds capable of traveling long distances during the spring migration.
And, by the numbers of them caught at the Nunez Woods migration station in 2015, they would be good candidates to study the importance of chenier habitats as key stopover locations for them to rejuvenate during migration.
“We’re looking at their age class and their condition,” Collins said. “We’re looking at their fat and muscle scores. We want to know if a low fat, low muscle bird takes longer to migrate north, or would they stay here longer to refuel. Or, would fatter, healthier birds get up there quicker. Those kinds of questions we really haven’t been able to ask before.
“Essentially, songbirds rely on these Chenier habitats to refuel,” Collins added. “And, if they can’t make it to their northern habitats to breed, then populations are going to suffer because of that.”
Spring birding is allowed on Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge. Visitors must check in at the Refuge Headquarters that is open from Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
For more information on the Motus Wildlife Tracking System, visit www.motus.org.
EDITOR’s NOTE: John K. Flores is The Daily Review’s Outdoor Writer. If you wish to make a comment or have an anecdote, recipe or story you wish to share, you can contact Flores at 985-395-5586 or at gowiththeflo@cox.net

A donation of new golf bags was given to the Central Catholic High School golf team in memory of Gerald Gatlin through the donations to The First Annual Gerald Gatlin Memorial Tournament last year. Gatlin was a PGA golfer and was the owner of Royal Golf Course in Slidell. Making the donation to the team is his wife, Pat Gatlin, and daughter Stephanie Gatlin Lind. CCHS golf team members are Wade Crappell, Andrew Duval, Madalyn Land-ry, Michael Scott Wise, Madison Theriot, Ben Harrington and Christopher Templet.

Submitted Photo