RSS Feed

The following are the radio dispatch logs from the Morgan City Police Department. To report unlawful or suspicious activity, call the police department at 985-380-4605.

Thursday, May 17

6:04 a.m. U.S. 90 East; Reckless driver.

8:15 a.m. 2400 block of Tiger Drive; Complaint.

8:16 a.m. 2100 block of Cedar Street; Building check.

8:38 a.m. 600 block of Second Street; Complaint.

8:50 a.m. 300 block of Laurel Street; Complaint.

9:32 a.m. 8200 block of La. 182 East; Complaint.

11:21 a.m. 300 block of Second Street; Stalled vehicle.

1:14 p.m. 700 block of Myrtle Street; Complaint.

1:16 p.m. 700 block of Myrtle Street; Theft.

1:17 p.m. 700 block of Myrtle Street; Suspicious person.

1:20 p.m. 7300 block of La. 182 East; Building check.

2:23 p.m. U.S. 90 East; Traffic incident.

2:37 p.m. Sixth Street; Traffic incident.

3:57 p.m. 1600 block of Cedar Street; Theft.

4:01 p.m. La. 70; Vehicle accident.

4:21 p.m. 300 block of Louisa Street; Assistance.

5 p.m. 800 block of Roderick Street; Complaint.

5 p.m. U.S. 90 East; Stalled vehicle.

5:03 p.m. 200 block of Louisa Street; Domestic disturbance.

6:58 p.m. 2400 block of Cypress Street; Animal.

8 p.m. 300 block of Louisa Street; Complaint.

9:20 p.m. 1600 block of North Second Street; Suspicious person.

10:06 p.m. 7300 block of La. 182; Suspicious vehicle.

10:23 p.m. 900 block of First Street; Suspicious person.

Friday, May 18

12:26 a.m. 400 block of Fourth Street; Medical.

12:27 a.m. 3200 block of Jennie Drive; Medical.

3:44 a.m. 200 block of Brashear Avenue; Suspicious person.

Once upon a time, there was a royal wedding planned between a handsome prince and a beautiful actress. In an English castle, they planned to profess their love before the world.
The public romance of Britain’s Prince Harry and Hollywood’s Meghan Markle may seem more fairy tale than real life, but there is one potential advantage of tying the knot that they’ll share with all of us commoners.
That’s because marriage — an affair of the heart — can impact the actual heart.
Research has shown that being married reduces the risk of death in patients with heart disease.
Marriage’s impact on the heart is apparent, according to a study published in December 2016 in the Journal of the American Heart Asso-ciation. It’s the first to show an association between marital status and heart disease-related death among patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease.
“I was somewhat surprised by the magnitude of the influence of being married,” said the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Arshed A. Quyyumi, co-director of the Emory Clinical Cardiovascular Research Institute at Emory University in Atlanta.
There are various reasons why marriage might make a difference, Quyyumi said.
“Other than social support, there is some suggestion that health outcomes are improved by optimism, coping, and perhaps lower anxiety and depression. All of these things, or managing them, may be affected by being married,” he said.
Other studies have shown that how good the marriage is can also make a difference to a couple’s health.
Most show happier marriages resulted in better health outcomes, such as fewer serious diseases and hospitalizations. But rocky relationships don’t seem to improve anything health-wise.
“While marriage has long been argued to promote health, it is not the case that any marriage is better than none,” wrote sociologists Hui Liu and Linda Waite in “Bad marriage, broken heart? Age and gender differences in the link between marital quality and cardiovascular risks among older adults,” published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
Marital happiness is not a given in any relationship, and everyone will have to wait and see how things turn out for the royal couple. It’ll start with an expected 100,000 people filling the streets near Windsor Castle on Saturday.
“This wedding will be guided by tradition, allowing everyone to celebrate what makes royal weddings so special,” reads a communications update from Buckingham Palace.
After the ceremony, the pair will head off in a one-horse carriage to build their own happily ever after.
The End.
—Questions or comments about this story may be emailed to: editor@heart.org.

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.