Brown: Justice Wasn't Served
Monday, November 29, 2004
Ken Stickney
The News-Star
His political career a memory, his prison sentence behind him, former Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Brown will tell you clearly and emphatically that the justice system did him wrong.
After 32 years in public service to his adopted state, the former self-described "country lawyer" from Ferriday has a new case to plead and a new campaign to wage.
This time, his mission is to restore his legacy and to right what he says was an injustice delivered to him in the form of his guilty verdict two years ago. The six months that he served in federal prison in Oakdale, he said, no one can repay.
Brown will take his personal case and some ready-to-inscribe volumes of his "Justice Denied" published by The Lisburn Press, to Windows a Bookshop at 609 Park Ave., Monroe at 5 p.m. Tuesday. The book retails for $24.95.
"I think I have a story to tell," Brown said in an interview last week. His story began with a financially troubled insurance company, Cascade, and its battle with a Baton Rouge judge. It ended with a 56-count indictment in 1999 against Brown, who was eventually cleared of all charges save those that said he had lied to the FBI during its long-running investigation of Cascade.
Brown tells his story in a 400-page book, just released, that is surprisingly breezy in tone and compelling in content. He's got plenty of beefs about how his case was handled - including an anonymous jury, a gag order on the defendant, and a trial with too much secrecy for Brown's taste - and he has no shortage of supporters.
His chief complaint is that the evidence he believes would have saved him, the 14 pages of personal notes taken by an FBI agent who interviewed him ,were never turned over to the defense. When the notes were later revealed to one juror, she publicly said if she knew then what she learned later, she'd have voted for acquittal.
