{"id":22736,"date":"2016-04-21T18:21:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T01:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=22736"},"modified":"2016-04-21T18:21:44","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T01:21:44","slug":"22736-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=22736","title":{"rendered":"Former D.A. Admits to Trying to Prevent Individual from Testifying Before Grand Jury Investigating D.A. Sex Scandal (News Video)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\"><strong>LOUISIANA<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border-width: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/interactive.tegna-media.com\/video\/embed\/embed.html?dfpposition=Video_prestream_external&amp;id=2166760&amp;title=911%20calls%20released%20in%20Harry%20Morel%20case&amp;site=289&amp;station=la-neworleans-WWL-B3347&amp;api=prod&amp;playerid=6918249996581&amp;dfpid=32805352\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Former St. Charles District Attorney Harry Morel<\/strong> plead guilty Wednesday to harassing and trying to prevent a female witness from testifying before a federal grand jury that was looking into allegations that Morel allegedly solicited sex from defendants and their families, according to officials.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0<strong>Morel<\/strong>, age 73, pled guilty to obstruction of justice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">According to court records, Morel was elected prosecutor of St. Charles Parish, Louisiana from on or about January 1, 1979 until May 31, 2012. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Thereafter, he became an assistant district attorney in the Office of the District Attorney for St. Charles Parish and remained in that position until January 11, 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">As District Attorney and as an Assistant District Attorney for St. Charles Parish, Morel was responsible for prosecuting individuals charged with criminal and traffic offenses. Morel had the authority and\u00a0discretion to, among other things, make bail recommendations, make sentence recommendations and bring dismiss or reduce charges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Morel admitted that he harassed Individual &#8220;A&#8221; and attempted to prevent and dissuade a person identified as &#8220;Individual A&#8221; from attending or testifying before a federal grand jury, by telling Individual A to &#8220;get rid of\u201d and to &#8220;destroy&#8221; the evidence of a meeting they had and to deny the inappropriate nature of the meeting to law enforcement officials. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Furthermore, based on Individual &#8220;A&#8221;&#8216;s representations, \u00a0Morel believed there would be a federal Grand Jury investigation, and as a result asked her to conceal information that would have likely led to her being a witness before that body.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Morel also admitted that on other occasions, between 2007 and 2009, he solicited sex from people who were defendants or who had family members who were defendants in the St. Charles Parish criminal justice system.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">While soliciting sex from these individuals, Morel used the office of the District Attorney to provide benefits to these other individuals, including falsifying community service reports.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Morel faces \u00a0up to three years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and one year of supervised release following any term of imprisonment. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Morel acknowledges that federal prosecutors will recommend that the court impose the maximum sentence of three years in prison.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">U.S. District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt set sentencing for August 17, 2016.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite noted that the investigation has not implicated any other former or current employees of the St. Charles Parish District Attorney&#8217;s Office.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former St. Charles District Attorney Harry Morel plead guilty Wednesday to harassing and trying to prevent a female witness from testifying before a federal grand jury that was looking into allegations that Morel allegedly solicited sex from defendants and their families, according to officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-main-slider","category-u-s-department-of-justice"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Former D.A. 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