New Orleans judge files criminal case against CBS affiliate over reporting

The Orleans parish criminal district court building in New Orleans, Louisiana. Photograph: Edmund D Fountain/The GuardianView image in fullscreenThe Orleans parish criminal district court building in New Orleans, Louisiana. Photograph: Edmund D Fountain/The GuardianNew Orleans judge files criminal case against CBS affiliate over reportingKimya Holmes’ lawsuit over a news segment on a real-estate transaction invokes law that no longer exists

A New Orleans state court judge filed a police complaint against a local CBS affiliate after it aired a segment scrutinizing a real-estate transaction in which she was involved, with the jurist invoking a section of law that no longer carries criminal penalties, according to the journalist who reported the story.

The situation centering on New Orleans criminal court judge Kimya Holmes and investigative reporter David Hammer was only the latest in a series of high-profile matters pitting Louisiana journalists against members of the state’s court system.

Deputies at the New Orleans criminal courthouse handcuffed Hammer’s WWL Louisiana colleague, investigative producer Danny Monteverde, and an attorney for their station – Elana Beiser – in early July while the outlet covered an indictment filed against the state’s attorney general, which was ultimately dismissed.

And in August, a state court jury awarded a $300,000 verdict to Louisiana supreme court justice Jeff Hughes, who sued the Advocate newspaper for libel over an editorial – an outcome some US press freedom defenders fear could weaken the “actual malice” legal standard which has long governed such cases.

View image in fullscreenWWL Louisiana investigative reporter David Hammer and New Orleans criminal court judge Kimya Holmes. Composite: WWL LousianaHammer, whose channel is a Guardian reporting partner, published a 24 August story exploring how a $765,000 home was donated to Holmes in 2025 by a man to whom she was engaged at the time.

Holmes’ then-fiancee, accountant Arthur Allen, had been criminally charged weeks earlier with fraudulently collecting more than $712,000 in Covid-19 pandemic relief that was taxpayer-funded.

The judge told Hammer she didn’t start dating or become engaged to Allen until four years after he had committed the crime for which he was charged. She maintained she didn’t learn about his charges until close to the time he pleaded guilty in April – after the couple had broken up.

Hammer’s report on Holmes, Allen and the gated community home he donated to her – in which she continued to live while he paid the mortgage – arrived as she prepared for a tough 3 November re-election race against a fellow judge whose section of court was eliminated by a new law.

And on 10 September, a little more than two weeks after Hammer’s story, the New Orleans criminal courthouse’s judicial administrator sent WWL a letter demanding it remove a public record showing the address of the house Allen gave Holmes, the outlet reported on Tuesday.

Judicial administrator Robert Kazik’s letter furthermore demanded that WWL remove images of the license plate number of a Corvette leased by Allen that had been photographed by a station source while it was parked in the courthouse garage in August. Kazik’s letter also requested that WWL reveal who photographed the Corvette.

Kazik’s letter cited a Louisiana law that gave “third parties” including the news media three days to unpublish certain kinds of personal information about a judge once a judicial administrator requested it. It also made violations of that law a misdemeanor crime punishable by up to 90 days’ imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.

Yet the Louisiana legislature repealed both the portions of the law requiring news outlets to remove published information and making it a misdemeanor if they don’t do so. Those repeals took effect on 1 August – before Hammer’s reporting on Holmes’ donated house as well as Kazik’s letter.

Hammer reported on Tuesday that WWL reacted to Kazik’s letter by having videos with the information that the judicial administrator mentioned taken offline on the morning of 11 September. The outlet reposted them later with the address and license plate numbers blurred.

Nonetheless, WWL said it refused to disclose who photographed the Corvette. And on 11 September, Holmes filed a criminal complaint with the New Orleans police department (NOPD) against WWL for allegedly “revealing her home address and vehicle information”.

The outlet sought comment on the police complaint from New Orleans media lawyer Scott Sternberg, who lobbied for the repeals that took effect in the beginning of August.

Sternberg, who represented the Advocate newspaper against the state supreme court justice Hughes, said he believed the repeals were necessary because those portions were “wildly unconstitutional”, with press freedom being a fundamental US right.

“I can’t imagine a public official filing a criminal complaint in response to reporting that, based on my own opinion of it, seems to be accurate,” Sternberg remarked. “I mean – it was a real estate transaction.”

Hammer confirmed that the accuracy of his reporting on Holmes and Allen was never challenged, prompting Sternberg to say “it wouldn’t warrant a criminal complaint” even if it had been inaccurate.

Sternberg added that neither Kazik’s letter nor the police complaint “had any force or effect and that’s probably why … NOPD isn’t coming down here to arrest you – because there hasn’t been a crime”.

Hammer said WWL asked Holmes’ campaign spokesperson what the legal basis of the criminal complaint against the station was. The outlet also asked if Holmes knew that her complaint relied on a section of law that was no longer on the books.

The spokesperson replied with an email forwarded by Holmes that in part had an out-of-date version of the relevant law attached to it. That version of the law – still carrying the criminal penalties – came from Louisiana’s legislative website which had not been updated according to records from the state legislature’s most recent session.

A state legislature spokesperson told WWL that updating laws on the legislative website can take “many months”. The spokesperson also pointed to a website disclaimer which made “no guarantee … to its accuracy” – and said “these provisions and annotations have not been edited for publication and are not official or authoritative”.

The email which Holmes forwarded originally came from state appellate court judge Tiffany Gautier Chase on 26 August, two days after Hammer’s report on the house donated by Allen. Chase’s email notified judges of “protections against the dissemination of certain personal information”.

WWL reported that its attorney, Mary Ellen Roy, wrote to the NOPD to make sure the detective assigned to Holmes’ complaint was aware of the updated law.

Roy also wrote to the NOPD that WWL expected the detective’s investigation into the judge’s complaint “to be closed, forthwith”.

The NOPD said on Tuesday that its investigation into WWL was continuing.