When a New Orleans federal jury deadlocked this week on murder-conspiracy counts against two men accused in a staged-wrecks insurance scheme, it struck a blow to a yearslong federal investigation and triggered plans for a rare second trial for the killing of FBI informant Cornelius Garrison III.
U.S. District Judge Wendy Vitter declared a mistrial Thursday on the murder charges prosecutors had sought against Sean Alfortish and Leon “Chunky” Parker, whom the government accuses of orchestrating Garrison’s September 2020 murder.
The jury heard three weeks of evidence of the sweeping fraud scheme, plus the alleged hit, and deliberated for nearly another week before reaching a stalemate on the murder counts…