Two men have been indicted for scheming to murder a federal witness as part of a sweeping probe into staged semi truck crashes in the New Orleans area.
On April 25, 2025, a grand jury returned a thirteen-count second superseding indictment that includes new allegations against two defendants for their participation in the homicide of a federal witness.
Sean Alfortish, 57, and Leon Parker, 51, have been charged for conspiring to murder federal witness Cornelius Garrison, who was a participant in the staged truck crash scheme.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana, “Garrison had been a “slammer” in the scheme to stage automobile collisions, including by sideswiping 18-wheeler tractor-trailers and other commercial vehicles. Garrison was cooperating with the FBI when he was murdered on September 22, 2020, at his mother’s home in New Orleans. Ryan J. Harris, a former codefendant in this case, pleaded guilty in January 2025 to causing death through the use of firearm, for his role in Garrison’s homicide, along with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.”
A total of sixty-three defendants, including multiple law firms, have now been charged in connection with a scheme to defraud insurance companies and commercial trucking companies through fraudulently staged automobile collisions in New Orleans.
Federal authorities describe the staged semi truck crash scheme:
“The scheme included individuals who rode in automobiles as passengers knowing they would be part of staged collisions. Those individuals later lied as part of fraudulent insurance claims and fraudulent lawsuits based on the staged collisions. Additionally, the scheme included individuals who drove automobiles and intentionally collided with 18-wheeler tractor-trailers and other commercial vehicles, to stage collisions (“slammers”). After the staged collisions, the slammers would flee the scene, and a passenger would falsely claim to have been driving at the time of the collision … The scheme included individuals (“spotters”) who drove getaway cars that allowed the slammers to flee the scene after causing a collision and evade detection by law enforcement. The spotters would sometimes also pretend to be eyewitnesses and would flag down the commercial vehicles after the staged collisions, alleging that the commercial vehicles were at fault.“
