Vanessa Motta files appeal, seeks new trial in staged crash scheme
The scheme was first uncovered in 2019 by former WWL Louisiana investigator Mike Perlstein in his investigative collection Highway Robbery.
Days after she was convicted of fraud for her function in a scheme involving phoney accidents and lawsuits, Vanessa Motta has filed an attraction and requested a new trial.
“While no trial is perfect, procedural issues at the March 2026 trial undermined the fairness of the proceedings and resulted in a miscarriage of justice,” Motta’s lawyer, Sean Toomey, wrote in a new submitting on Friday.
Motta was convicted with lawyer Jason Giles of the King Law Firm on March 20 of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, a number of mail fraud counts, and obstruction of justice. Motta and his regulation agency had been additionally discovered responsible of witness tampering after the three-week trial.
Among the arguments Toomey made was that prosecutors threatened throughout the trial to deliver up the homicide of Cornelius Garrison, a so-called “slammer” who had been cooperating with the FBI’s investigation into the scheme. He argued that menace “crippled Ms. Motta’s ability to defend herself.”
“No defendant tried in the March 2026 trial was charged with the murder of Cornelius Garrison,” Toomey wrote. Motta’s fiancé, Sean Alfortish, will stand trial in Garrison’s loss of life in August. He can also be accused in the scheme.
Toomey additionally argued that the jury obtained “improper” instruction on the witness tampering rely, that Giles’ closing arguments had been “prejudicial” towards Motta and the federal government was allotted extra time and “focused extensively on Ms. Motta.”
Diamanike Stalbert, a 3rd defendant, was convicted of mendacity to federal brokers about recruiting passengers for a staged wreck. She was acquitted of a wire fraud cost.
No different appeals or requests for new trials had been filed Friday afternoon.
US District Judge Wendy Vitter despatched Motta and Giles to jail after their convictions. Sentencing has been set for July.
The huge federal case uncovered multimillion-dollar staged accident fraud in which individuals would pack into automobiles, crash into 18-wheel vans, after which file lawsuits to gather fraudulent settlements, generally for phantom accidents.
The scheme was first uncovered in 2019 by former WWL Louisiana investigator Mike Perlstein in his investigative collection Highway Robbery.
