As two New Orleans lawyers await prison over staged crashes, others face possible discipline
Stiff prison sentences are expected for personal injury attorneys Vanessa Motta and Jason Giles after their convictions Friday in a massive scheme to stage vehicle crashes into big-rig trucks across New Orleans.
And that might not be all of the fallout for attorneys who were implicated during a blockbuster three-week trial.
Along with potential decade-plus prison terms, Motta and Giles stand to be permanently disbarred should their convictions withstand appeals, according to legal ethics veterans. Meanwhile, unindicted lawyers who were accused of joining in the brazen insurance fraud — or trying to keep it under wraps — may also face harsh discipline.
Immunity deals were afforded to some of those lawyers, an attorney for Giles said Friday. But those deals won’t count when it comes to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates attorney misconduct in Louisiana, said former chief disciplinary counsel Charles Plattsmier, who held the office for 28 years until 2024.
“I do not believe the Supreme Court would countenance an informal immunity deal by ODC in the face of serious misconduct,” Plattsmier said.
Cooperation with the feds might help them, but it wouldn’t take discipline off the table for the lawyers who managed to sidestep criminal charges. It could even come back to bite them, he said.
Though none were called to testify, some of those lawyers “provided valuable information that demonstrated their complicity or knowledge and awareness of misconduct,” Plattsmier said.
Vanessa Motta
“To the extent that they knew about it, they had a duty to report it,” he said. “If they failed to report, that in and of itself is a serious disciplinary violation that the (Louisiana Supreme Court) has taken quite seriously in the past.”
The use of runners by lawyers to bring them crash victims for lawsuits is both a felony and ethical misconduct, Plattsmier said. He noted a similar scandal in the 1990s in New Orleans involving a group of plaintiff lawyers dubbed the “Canal Street Cartel.”
In that case, numerous people were arrested for swarming car-wreck scenes and emergency rooms to extract fresh bait for the lawyers.
This time around, the street-level “slammers” dispensed with formalities, crafting many wrecks themselves, according to evidence and trial testimony from several witnesses in the first trial from what the FBI dubbed “Operation Sideswipe.”
Not an allegation, but a defense
The notion that slammers like Damian Labeaud and Cornelius Garrison III were acting as runners for those law firms wasn’t an allegation during the trial against Giles and Motta; it was a defense.
Their attorneys claimed Motta and Giles didn’t know at the time that they were paying slammers to deliver carload after carload of bogus injury claimants. The jury found otherwise.
Motta’s attorney, Sean Toomey, in a statement after her guilty verdict Friday thanked the judge and jury. He said that Motta plans to appeal her conviction, but that another lawyer will represent her for that part of the process.
“This was a difficult case and while I am disappointed in the verdict, I have the upmost respect and gratitude for the jury’s service in this trial,” Toomey said. “The next steps are preparing for sentencing, which will require additional motion practice. And a timely notice of appeal will be filed but will be ultimately handled by new counsel.”
Giles’ attorney, Lynda Van Davis, declined to comment Monday.
The marathon trial brought a parade of witnesses who proved damning for the two lawyers on trial. Many also named names of some of their trial bar colleagues who have not faced criminal allegations.
Slammer Damian Labeaud testified that it wasn’t just Giles or another lawyer, Danny Patrick Keating, who long ago admitted working with Labeaud on dozens of staged wrecks, who took advantage of a lucrative scheme.
Labeaud implicated others at The King Firm as well. An insurance defense attorney also testified that two King Firm lawyers, co-founder Anthony Milazzo and James Courtenay, rebuffed him when he cried foul over a boatload of bogus lawsuits. Labeaud testified that Milazzo paid him for crashes and, on occasion, cocaine. An attorney for Milazzo declined to comment.
On separate occasions, an insurance defense attorney and FBI special agent tied a trio of other lawyers — Jason Baer, Lionel Sutton and Toni Arnona — to crashes and lawsuits that the government connected to the scheme. None of those lawyers testified at the trial. Baer, Sutton and Arnona did not respond to phone and email messages Monday.
Defendant Jason Giles, right, and his attorney Lynda Van Davis-Greenstis.
Permanent disbarment
Motta and Giles were suspended from practicing law more than a year ago on an interim basis as the criminal case played out. Now, their felony convictions are proof of misconduct, Plattsmier said.
Steve Scheckman, former special counsel to the Louisiana Judiciary Commission who now represents judges and lawyers accused of misconduct, said the notoriety of the case doesn’t favor the lawyers’ chances of staying in practice unscathed.
Giles and Motta are “looking at permanent disbarment,” Scheckman said.
“The other folks, that’s hard to say. It sort of depends on, what was their level of participation? What was their knowledge and failing to report?” he said.
Chief disciplinary counsel Anderson “Andy” Dotson’s office cited Louisiana Supreme Court confidentiality rules in declining to comment on any plans to investigate attorneys accused of misconduct during the trial.
A conviction wasn’t necessary for Dotson’s office to discipline Motta, Giles or other lawyers, said attorney Clare Roubion, a legal ethics specialist. It “can act based on the underlying conduct itself, whether or not a lawyer has been formally charged,” she said.
Stiff sentences
Questions remained about the impact of the jury’s decision to convict not only Motta and Giles, but also their law firms. The King Firm’s founders — Giles, Milazzo and Brian King — all could be vulnerable.
“The firm was convicted, and they’re the firm,” Scheckman said. “This isn’t some magic, or there’s a big company with boards of directors and stockholders. These are two or three lawyers.”
Walter Becker, a former federal prosecutor, said the firms can expect hefty fines and could be barred from future government work.
“You can’t imprison a law firm, but you can fine it,” Becker said.
Attorney Michael Magner, another former federal prosecutor, expects U.S. District Chief Judge Wendy Vitter to show little mercy to Motta and Giles, who each face up to 20 years in prison based on the guilty verdicts.
Magner noted Vitter’s tart diatribe as she ordered Motta and Giles jailed until sentencing, scheduled for July.
“I have no reason whatsoever to believe she is naive or under the influence of anyone else,” Vitter said of Motta. “In fact, I believe Ms. Motta knew exactly what she was doing at all times.”
Vitter added that she’d already “made a determination and a ruling in this trial that Ms. Motta acquiesced in the death of a witness, Mr. Cornelius Garrison.” She was referring to the slammer’s slaying in Gentilly in 2020 four days after he was named in a federal indictment, and her decision to allow the jury to hear his statements.
High tallies
Based on an estimate of about $10 million in alleged fraud, Magner said the federal sentencing guidelines for a first offender run 188 to 235 months. Vitter can veer above or below that range. Magner said he expected both of the convicted lawyers to receive sentences of at least 10 years.
“She will no doubt consider the potential for serious bodily harm to the participants in the crashes as well as the societal harm stemming from the effects of this brazen scheme on insurance rates in Louisiana,” Magner said.
On the flip side, Vitter could credit Motta as a first-time offender with a young child, he said.
Motta might help herself by cooperating with the government in the upcoming trial of Sean Alfortish, the father of her younger child, and co-defendant Leon Parker over Garrison’s slaying. Vitter scheduled the trial for August.
“However, the Government may conclude that they do not need her cooperation to obtain convictions in the next trial,” Magner said.
