NEW ORLEANS — In a surprise blockbuster indictment in the sprawling federal investigation into more than 100 truck accidents staged for insurance fraud that netted millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains, authorities indicted a man and a woman for the murder of a federal witness, a crime that could carry the death penalty.
Ryan Harris and Jovanna Gardner were indicted Monday for witness tampering through murder and conspiracy to retaliate against a witness through murder in addition to mail and wire fraud for their alleged participation in the staged wrecks.
The pair are accused in the Sept. 22, 2020, execution-style shooting of Cornelius Garrison, who had secretly been cooperating with the FBI, was a major setback as authorities tried to climb the ladder from small-time scammers and street-level organizers to the attorneys and doctors whom they say raked in millions of dollars through bogus lawsuits and even unnecessary surgeries.
So far, the case has led to 52 people being indicted and 44 of them pleading guilty, but only a single attorney, Danny Patrick Keating, has entered a guilty in exchange for his cooperation. That has sparked some criticism of the five-year probe's slow pace and lackluster results, but multiple delays in Keating’s long-awaiting sentencing led to speculation of bigger bombshells.
That bomb was dropped on Monday.
“Ryan J. Harris aka “Red” and Jovanna R. Gardner did kill, and aid and abet the killing of Cornelius Garrison, such killing constituting first-degree murder,” the indictment states.
The explosive new development unfolded without fanfare late Monday at a first appearance in federal court on Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Wells Roby. The eight-page indictment against Harris and Gardner was not entered into the federal court database until Tuesday.
Both defendants were clients of Hollywood stuntwoman-turned-attorney Vanessa Motta, a central figure in the staged accident probe after five truck accident lawsuits she filed on behalf of clients were frozen because of the long-running federal investigation.
Motta is listed as “Attorney B” in federal court documents. Her fiancé, Sean Alfortish, a disbarred attorney who served time in federal prison in an unrelated fraud case, is listed as “Co-conspirator A,” language that is usually a clear signal by prosecutors of criminal implications.
Neither has been charged.
The prevalence of accident fraud in Louisiana is estimated to add at least $600 a year in car insurance costs for every Louisiana driver. While some were hopeful that the case, dubbed “Operation Sideswipe,” would help lower those costs, suspicious lawsuits still litter the courts and those savings have not been realized.
The ups and downs of the massive federal case have been chronicled in an ongoing series by WWL Louisiana called “Highway Robbery.” The station was the first to list Motta, Keating, and the King Firm as the law firms potentially caught up in the probe.
As the case unfolded, dozens of clients of those attorneys were indicted, accused of packing into cars with mid-level “slammers” at the wheel to intentionally sideswipe 18-wheel trucks. The vast majority of the risky accidents were staged on stretches of Interstate 10 and other major thoroughfares in New Orleans East. This was one of the first red flags to draw intense scrutiny defense attorneys for the trucking companies and insurers first exposed the lawsuits as fraudulent.
Now, more than five years after the scheme surfaced and millions have been paid out in settlements, all eyes are focused back on federal authorities and whether indictments of higher-level defendants will be forthcoming.
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