Judgement in anti-white discrimination case cited.
Mayor Ray Nagin says the state could take over the New Orleans district attorney’s office as early as Monday as the agency faces a multimillion-dollar civil judgment.
A federal judge ruled this past week that district attorney office assets could be seized to pay off a $3.65 million judgment pending from a 2005 case in which dozens of white office workers successfully sued District Attorney Eddie Jordan for replacing them with black workers.
Jordan is not personally responsible for the payment.
And in an opinion released Friday, City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields concluded after reviewing state and federal laws that “the city of New Orleans has never been required to fund any judgments rendered against the Orleans Parish District attorney or any other state official.”
Kris Wartelle, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Charles Foti, said Saturday she did not know whether the office is defined as a state or city agency.
Council President Arnie Fielkow said the DA’s office gets money from city, state and federal sources.
Members of the City Council noted that the judgment isn’t against the city itself and resources are spread thin as New Orleans struggles to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs said this past week that they are ready to seize assets from the district attorney’s office if the judgment isn’t paid. If payroll accounts are seized, aides to Jordan said prosecutors would quit and the office would shut down.
Nagin told the council Friday that Foti is ready to step in and take over management of the office. Nagin said after the meeting that Foti is willing to do “whatever it takes” to ensure the office doesn’t shut down.