An Orleans Parish grand jury indicted Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill on 16 felony counts Wednesday, escalating a dispute over letters she sent to New Orleans city leaders in May. The indictment set a $400,000 bond and turned a fight over city government and state power into a criminal case against the state’s top law enforcement officer.
The charges include eight counts of public intimidation and eight counts of malfeasance in office. Sources told 8 Live WVUE the grand jury’s probe centered on letters Murrill sent to Mayor Helena Moreno, District Attorney Jason Williams and five city councilmembers during the clash over the city’s criminal clerk of court office, which the state legislature moved to eliminate and fold into the civil clerk’s job.
That move set off a chain of events in New Orleans. The City Council voted to appoint former judge Calvin Johnson as interim clerk and called for a special election, while Moreno and Williams backed the council’s plan. The Louisiana Supreme Court later struck down the council’s resolutions, blocked the election and ordered Chelsey Richard Napoleon to serve as the consolidated clerk under the new law. The letters at the center of the indictment were part of that battle.
In those letters, Murrill warned city officials their actions could trigger serious consequences under Louisiana law, including possible removal from office. Moreno responded in May that Louisiana criminal law bars threats or intimidation aimed at influencing public officials’ policy decisions, and after the indictment she said the matter belongs in court. Murrill, for her part, said she had no direct knowledge of any grand jury inquiry into the letters and denounced the case as retaliatory, meritless and unconstitutional.
She also said she would immediately file an emergency supervisory writ with the Louisiana Supreme Court. That puts the next move back in the courts, where the immediate question is whether the state’s highest court will intervene before the indictment is tested in Orleans Criminal Court. For now, the grand jury has done what Murrill said it could not do: it found enough to charge her.
