The grand jury investigation into Sulphur businessman Joe Palermo may continue, an appeals court has ruled.

The 3rd Third Circuit Court of Appeal ended a stay of grand jury proceedings instituted by Judge Ron Ware.

Palermo has already been charged with crimes related to his alleged possession of stolen equipment, but now he is being investigated for other crimes — the “potential crimes of racketeering and money laundering,” according to the appeal, written by prosecutor Carla Sigler.

During a raid of Palermo offices in Lake Charles and Sulphur on XXXX, a U-haul truck worth of documents was seized. Defense attorneys for Palermo said that included in the seized items were documents protected by attorney-client privilege. When an agreement could not be reached on how the documents were to be determined whether they were privileged, Ware issued a stay of the investigation and said neither side was to look at the documents.

Calling the stay eroneous, the 3rd Circuit said “a grand jury is free to meet on its own initiative and does not require the permission of a court to investigate crime.”

The District Attorney’s Office and the investigating agency is free to examine the evidence.

Judge Sylvia Cooks partially dissented from Judges James Genovese and Shannon Gremillion, saying that “evidence protected by the attorney-client privilege is not subject to Search and Seizure.”

 

In a separate ruling from another three-judge panel, 3rd Circuit Judges John Saunders, Elizabeth Pickett and Phyllis Keaty overturned a ruling by Ware allowing the defense the search warrant affidavit.

“Search warrant affidavits are not public records, and discovery is available only after the institution of criminal proceedings by the filing of an indictment of a bill of information,” the ruling reads.

 

denied a defense request for the search warrant affidavit.

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“the state has been stifled from examining all those documents since July, it’s been almost four months now,” DeRosier said. “Some of those documents were and are time sensitive so the defense has gained somewhat of an advantage in that four-month delay in the trial court allowing them to keep us from looking at those items that were seized.”

 

Defense attorneys for Palermo could not be reached for comment.(Rick Hickman/American Press)

Rick Hickman