New Orleans murder defendant alleges his lawyer’s fiance set up the killing
New Orleans murder defendant alleges his lawyer’s fiance set up the killing
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Witness in fraud case was allegedly killed in a scheme set up by the fiance of a former stuntwoman turned attorney. In a blockbuster development in a long-running case that exposed a multimillion-dollar staged-accident fraud scheme, a man linked to the murder of a key federal witness recently pleaded guilty – and alleged that his attorney’s fiance, a disbarred lawyer, set up the killing.
With his family looking on, Ryan “Red” Harris agreed to a 35-year sentence in the murder in exchange for his cooperation in the massive case, which has led to more than 50 guilty pleas by people who admitted to intentionally ramming into 18-wheel trucks then collecting money from fraudulent lawsuits.
In addition to the wholesale fraud, Harris’s confession – contained in a six-page “factual basis” that he signed – directly implicates two other men as being responsible for ordering and carrying out the murder, dramatically raising the stakes for those defendants. Under federal law, killing a federal witness could be punishable by death.
Harris, 36, claims that Leon “Chunky” Parker was the triggerman, fatally shooting cooperating witness Cornelius Garrison in 2020 in the house he shared with his mother. Garrison had been cooperating with the FBI for months and, shortly before his death, told close confidants that he feared for his life.
“On September 22, 2020, Parker murdered Garrison as part of a scheme with Harris and Alfortish to prevent Garrison from further cooperating with the federal government and exposing the scheme to stage collisions,” the factual basis states. “Shortly before the murder, Harris saw Parker in possession of a firearm, mask and gloves that Harris believed Parker would use to murder Garrison.”.
