A jury was impaneled Tuesday afternoon in the blockbuster staged-crash conspiracy trial of two New Orleans personal injury attorneys accused of scheming years of staged wrecks with big rig trucks.
That outcome sets up prosecutors and defense attorneys to argue their theories of the case to jurors for the first time Wednesday, kicking off the main portion of a trial that stems from a sweeping federal probe years in the making.
On trial are Vanessa Motta, a Hollywood stuntwoman-turned-lawyer, and Jason Giles and the King Firm. They are accused of working with dozens of other defendants while paying drivers to fill cars with passengers and ram them into 18-wheelers on New Orleans highways. The lawyers then sued for big insurance payouts, federal prosecutors allege…