NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED FEDERAL LAWYERS
New Orleans, Louisiana Federal Target Letters
|Last Updated on: 5th October 2025, 02:06 pm
The target letter from USA Duane Evans’ office references 18 U.S.C. § 1001, false statements, but what it really means, what nobody’s telling you yet, is they’ve been investigating your Road Home grant application from 2008, cross-referencing it with FEMA payments from Katrina, finding discrepancies in damage claims you filed fifteen years ago when your Gentilly house sat under eight feet of water. The Eastern District of Louisiana prosecutes more disaster fraud per capita than any federal district, they’ve built an entire unit around it, and that knock on your door at 6 AM wasn’t random – they’ve been building this case for months, maybe years, using data analytics that flag duplicate benefits between state and federal programs, between insurance and assistance, between what you claimed and what aerial photos showed.
You’re sitting in the Hale Boggs Federal Building on Poydras Street, nineteenth floor, where AUSA Michael Magner runs the Fraud Unit, and he’s explaining, with that practiced prosecution cadence they teach at DOJ, how your target letter isn’t really an invitation to cooperate, it’s a countdown clock, because the grand jury meets every other Thursday in Courtroom C501, Judge Susie Morgan presiding, and they’ve already presented three days of evidence about you, about your neighbors who got similar letters, about the contractor who did your repairs and kept two sets of books. The investigation started with that contractor, actually, flipped him six months ago, and now he’s testifying, with immunity, about every homeowner who inflated damage claims, who claimed living expenses while staying with family, who got their house elevated with grant money then sold it for profit without repaying assistance.
Eastern District Prosecution Patterns Nobody Discusses
USA Evans inherited 1,400 pending hurricane fraud cases when he took office, cases stretching back to Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ida, each disaster creating new fraud opportunities, new federal money, new ways people justify taking what they think they deserve after losing everything. The office conviction rate sits at 94.7%, higher than the national average of 93%, because New Orleans juries, despite living through the same storms, show little sympathy for fraud, especially when prosecutors present evidence of multiple properties claimed, phantom damages, houses that were already condemned pre-storm claimed as total losses.
Todd Spodek here – last month, I’m in Judge Vance’s courtroom, she’s reading jury instructions in a Road Home fraud case, defendant claimed $150,000 in damages for a house worth $80,000 pre-storm, and Vance, who lost her own home in Katrina, tells the jury that suffering doesn’t justify stealing, that everyone suffered, that federal disaster money is finite. Verdict comes back in two hours: guilty on all counts, defendant gets 37 months, ordered to pay $150,000 restitution he’ll never have.
The target letter mentions potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 287, false claims, and § 371, conspiracy, but here’s what they’re really building: a RICO case under 18 U.S.C. § 1962, treating disaster fraud as organized crime, because these aren’t isolated incidents, they’re networks – contractors, adjusters, attorneys, homeowners all connected, all taking pieces of billions in federal aid. RICO predicates require just two acts of racketeering activity within ten years, and each false claim, each fraudulent application, each kickback payment counts as a predicate act, meaning your single inflated claim becomes part of a pattern they’ll present to the grand jury.
Magazine Street Magistrates vs. Poydras Street District Judges
Your initial appearance won’t be before a district judge, it’ll be at 500 Magazine Street before one of four magistrate judges, and which one matters enormously. Magistrate Judge North releases everyone on personal recognizance, believes in rehabilitation, rarely imposes location monitoring. Magistrate Judge van Meerveld treats every defendant like a flight risk, demands property bonds, requires co-signers, installs ankle monitors for anything over $50,000 in alleged fraud. Magistrate Judge Currault falls somewhere between, but if your case involves contractor kickbacks, she’ll assume you have hidden assets, freeze everything, require financial affidavits proving poverty before appointing counsel.
The criminal duty magistrate rotates weekly, you can’t choose, but timing your surrender, if indictment’s inevitable, can mean the difference between sleeping at home or sitting in St. Bernard Parish Prison, because Orleans Parish doesn’t hold federal detainees anymore, too dangerous even for federal inmates, so you’re bused forty minutes away, housed with state inmates facing murder charges, calling your family collect at $15 per call.
Parallel State Prosecution Through DA Jason Williams
What the target letter doesn’t mention, what federal prosecutors won’t warn you about, is the information sharing between EDLA and Orleans Parish DA Jason Williams’ office, because fraud over $25,000 triggers Louisiana felony theft charges under La. R.S. 14:67, and Williams, facing his own federal tax fraud acquittal, prosecutes federal target letter recipients who don’t get indicted, using the same evidence federal prosecutors developed, the same witnesses they flipped, the same financial analysis they conducted.
You beat the federal case, think you’re clear, then get arrested by NOPD on state charges, facing 0-20 years at Angola, because double jeopardy doesn’t apply between federal and state sovereigns, and Louisiana prosecutors, especially in Orleans Parish where the conviction rate hovers at 45%, will take cases federal prosecutors reject, offer worse pleas, demand trials in Criminal District Court where judges campaign on being tough on crime, where juries come from neighborhoods that didn’t get Road Home money, that didn’t get insurance payouts, that see fraud defendants as stealing from their recovery.
Oil Industry Parallel – False Claims Act Whistleblowers
Target letters in New Orleans increasingly stem from qui tam actions under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729, because whistleblowers get 15-30% of recovery, and with offshore drilling, ship repair, coastal restoration all involving federal contracts, every falsified safety report, every inflated invoice, every phantom employee becomes a potential million-dollar whistleblower payday. Your target letter might reference “contractual obligations to the United States,” which means someone inside your company, someone who knows about the BP settlement claims, the coastal restoration invoices, the GOMESA funding allocations, filed a sealed complaint, probably two years ago, and DOJ’s been investigating ever since, subpoenaing records, interviewing employees, building a case that could trigger both criminal prosecution and civil penalties of triple damages plus $11,000 per false claim.
Grand Jury Subpoena Attached – Thursday Deadline
The second page of your target letter, the grand jury subpoena for documents, demands production by Thursday at 2 PM, giving you 72 hours to gather five years of financial records, tax returns, bank statements, insurance policies, correspondence with adjusters, contractors, attorneys, anyone involved in your disaster claims. Miss that deadline, even partially, and prosecutors add obstruction charges under 18 U.S.C. § 1519, twenty years maximum, because incomplete production equals concealment in their interpretation, especially if you claim you can’t find documents that they already have from subpoenaed banks, insurance companies, contractors who kept better records than you.
But here’s what defense attorneys know that target recipients don’t: you can move to quash the subpoena, to limit its scope, to extend the deadline, but only if you file before Thursday, and EDLA local rules require specific formatting, specific grounds, specific citations to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 17, and if you file pro se, without an attorney, using the wrong format, citing the wrong rule, magistrates deny the motion automatically, deem you in contempt, issue bench warrants that trigger immediate arrest.
Hurricane Ida Fraud – The New Wave
Your target letter might reference Hurricane Katrina, but investigators are really building Ida cases, because Ida hit during COVID, when emergency programs had loosened verification requirements, when FEMA fast-tracked payments, when Small Business Administration disaster loans required minimal documentation, and now, three years later, they’re cross-referencing everything – FEMA payments against insurance claims, SBA loans against PPP forgiveness, Road Home grants against tax returns showing no storm damage deductions.
The statute of limitations, five years under 18 U.S.C. § 3282, means Katrina fraud prosecutions mostly ended, though conspiracy charges can extend the timeline if any conspirator committed an act within five years, but Ida fraud is fresh, witnesses remember, documents exist, electronic transfers leave trails that Katrina’s cash economy didn’t create. Investigators learned from Katrina, built algorithms that flag suspicious patterns, anomalies in damage claims, spikes in contractor payments, addresses that claimed damage from multiple storms despite being vacant lots.
Call Now – Grand Jury Votes Thursday at 2 PM
212-300-5196
Thursday’s grand jury session in Courtroom C501 has your case scheduled for presentation at 2 PM, after lunch when grand jurors are tired, less likely to ask questions, more likely to rubber-stamp indictments. The AUSA has blocked two hours, enough time for your contractor-turned-cooperator to testify, for the forensic accountant to present spreadsheets showing your insurance claim versus FEMA claim versus Road Home application, highlighting in red every discrepancy, every inflation, every property that appears on multiple claims.
Right now, the prosecutor is drafting the indictment, choosing between charging you alone or including you in a superseding indictment with twelve other homeowners, making you part of a conspiracy you didn’t know existed, adding defendants who’ll flip, who’ll testify against everyone else to save themselves. Single defendant cases get resolved quietly, multi-defendant conspiracies get press releases, perp walks, careers enhanced by big numbers, big recoveries.
Your target letter arrived yesterday, giving you minimum notice before Thursday’s grand jury, because they don’t want you prepared, don’t want you to hire counsel who might convince you to assert Fifth Amendment rights, might file motions to quash, might disrupt their timeline. The grand jury meets every other Thursday, if you miss this week, you wait two weeks while the investigation continues, while more witnesses flip, while your exposure multiplies, and USA Evans’ office, which measures success by recovery amounts not just convictions, adds civil penalties, asset forfeiture, tax fraud charges for not declaring disaster assistance as income. Call 212-300-5196 before Thursday’s presentation locks in charges that could’ve been negotiated down or avoided entirely.