Louisiana staged accident murder: Harris pleads guilty but fingers others for the shooting

One of the two people indicted for the shooting death of Cornelius Garrison, who was cooperating with the investigation into the Louisiana staged accident scam, has pleaded guilty to participation in Garrison’s murder while fingering two men he says are the actual shooter and the disbarred lawyer who directed it to occur.

In a bombshell guilty plea reported Thursday by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Ryan Harris, 36, who is known as Red, pleaded guilty in a superseding indictment that replaced an earlier pair of charges against him. The original indictment for murder was in May.

The original indictment charged Harris and his girlfriend with the murder of Garrison. (His co-defendant, Jovanna Gardner, was later found to be only tangentially involved in Garrison’s death. Her case was disposed of with a guilty plea to witness tampering).

Harris’ guilty pleas were for two counts related to mail and wire fraud, the same charges leveled against all the individuals involved in the staged accident scam, and causing death through the use of a firearm.

However, it is the Statement of Facts filed in connection with the guilty plea, also known as the proffer, that provide detail on Garrison’s death, at least as the U.S. Attorney sees it based on the cooperation of witnesses. And while what’s in the proffer may be sensational, it has not yet led to new indictments.

Earlier indicted defendants now seen as involved in Garrison murder

The shooter, according to the proffer, was Leon Parker, known as Chunky. Parker was indicted in December in a move that brought in two lawyers, two law firms and several other on-the-ground participants in the accidents, where a car would create a collision with a truck in order to set up the possibility of an insurance payout.

In a twist, the proffer also lists several staged accidents where high-value cars were targeted, including a Mercedes-Benz GLB 250.

Parker was indicted on charges of mail and wire fraud with nothing in the December indictment suggesting Parker was involved in Garrison’s murder.

The other person identified as a planner in the case is Shawn Alfortish, a disbarred lawyer who also was indicted in December. Like Parker, the December indictment did not suggest involvement in Garrison’s death; he did get hit with obstruction of justice and witness tampering charges.

According to the prosecutors, Harris did not actually kill Garrison; Parker did. And it was Alfortish who made it happen. Both men are in custody.

(Alfortish’s lawyer, Shaun Clarke, declined comment when contacted by FreightWaves. An attorney for Parker had not responded to FreightWaves by publication time.)

A ‘rat’ and ‘snitch’

When several of the participants learned in 2020 that Garrison, after having been indicted, was cooperating with federal prosecutors, according to the proffer, “Alfortish told Harris that he and (Vanessa Motta, one of the lawyers indicted in December) had offered to pay Garrison to convince (him) not to cooperate with the investigation.” Alfortish, Motta and Parker considered Garrison a “rat” and a “snitch” and that it would be better for the three of them if Garrison was dead, according to the proffer.

(Another twist: Parker, 51, was involved in a romantic relationship with Harris’ mother).

“Alfortish asked Harris if he knew anyone who could assist Alfortish in killing Garrison,” the proffer says. “Harris arranged for Alfortish to meet Parker. Harris knew that by arranging the meeting between Alfortish and Parker, he was assisting Alfortish and Parker’s scheme to murder Garrison.”

Harris met with Parker “multiple times” and provided him with a burner phone, according to prosecutors. He also recruited Gardner, but according to the document, she was not aware that the preparations were to kill Garrison; she thought the visit to Garrison’s house was to pay him for his silence.

Prosecutors have dubbed the staged accident scheme as Operation Sideswipe. After the December indictment, they said the investigation had led to 63 indictments. No indictments have gone to trial; all the charges that have been adjudicated came through guilty pleas.

The longest sentence handed down so far is for a husband and wife who got four years.

The U.S. Attorney’s office, in announcing the Harris guilty plea, said he faces 20 years on the first two counts, and life imprisonment on the third one related to the murder.

Prosecutors said only of Garrison’s death that Parker murdered Garrison on September 22, 2020, “as part of a scheme with Harris and Alfortish to prevent Garrison from further cooperation.” They add that, “shortly before the murder, Harris saw Parker in possession of a firearm, mask and gloves that Harris believed Parker would use to murder Garrison.”

“Thus it was reasonably foreseeable to Harris that a firearm would be used to murder Garrison,” the document says. “After the murder, Parker told Harris that he murdered Garrison and that Alfortish paid him for the murder.”