NEW ORLEANS — A federal prosecutor in New Orleans has been removed from cases after acknowledging he has been anonymously posting comments on a newspaper’s website about targets of federal probes, politicians, judges and even his own colleagues, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten announced Thursday.
Letten said Assistant U.S. Attorney Salvadore Perricone told him Tuesday that he made hundreds of posts at nola.com, the companion website of The Times-Picayune, under the username “Henry L. Mencken1951.”
One of the cases he has commented on — and worked on — involves a suburban New Orleans landfill at the center of a federal investigation. On Monday, River Birch landfill owner Fred Heebe sought a state court order to question Perricone under oath about whether he posted negative comments about him under the Mencken username.
Full story: Federal prosecutor taken off cases after Web posts