Fred Heebe, New Orleans: River Birch, Collapsed Probe, and Civil Case

Fred Heebe is a New Orleans-area businessman and co-owner of the River Birch landfill in Waggaman, Louisiana, who spent roughly four years as the central target of a federal bribery and monopolization investigation that ended without a single charge against him. The Fred Heebe and River Birch case fell apart in 2013 after Heebe’s attorneys exposed that senior federal prosecutors in the New Orleans U.S. Attorney’s Office had been posting anonymous online comments attacking their own targets. The Justice Department dropped the related criminal charges, the U.S. Attorney resigned, and Heebe was formally told he would not be prosecuted.

Who Fred Heebe Is

Heebe is a Gretna-based lawyer who co-owns the River Birch landfill with his stepfather, Jim Ward. Ward founded the operation and served as its president; Heebe served as vice president and ran the political side of the business. By 2004, River Birch had expanded to 497 acres with a projected 50-year lifespan, and a court filing valued the company at $250 million.¹

Heebe has also been one of Louisiana’s most prolific political donors, giving more than $250,000 to candidates in both parties, including Governor John Bel Edwards, Mayor LaToya Cantrell, Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser, and Treasurer John Schroder.² Heebe and River Birch executives also routed money through a PAC called New Horizons USA PAC, which contributed at least $200,000 to Gumbo PAC in support of Edwards’ reelection.³ That pattern of giving eventually forced multiple judges to recuse themselves from litigation involving River Birch.⁴

What Federal Prosecutors Were Investigating

The core allegation traced back to Hurricane Katrina. Storm debris was massive, and the competition to handle it was fierce. In April 2006, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin used emergency authority to open the Chef Menteur landfill in New Orleans East, operated by Waste Management of Louisiana.⁵ By August 2006, Nagin let the zoning waiver expire, effectively closing Chef Menteur and redirecting debris to River Birch.

Investigators looked at whether that closure was tied to $20,000 in campaign contributions Heebe and Ward allegedly funneled to Nagin’s 2006 reelection campaign through four shell companies. According to later civil filings, the checks were hand-delivered to the mayor by Heebe’s chauffeur, and Ward followed with a fax reminding Nagin of the contributions.³⁶ The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana, then led by Jim Letten, and the FBI spent roughly four years examining campaign finance violations, bribery of public officials, and alleged efforts to monopolize landfill operations in the region.

How Prosecutors Went After Heebe Indirectly

No charges were ever brought against Heebe himself. Instead, prosecutors built cases around people connected to him.

Henry Mouton, a former Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries commissioner, pleaded guilty in June 2011 to accepting $463,970 in bribes from an unnamed landfill owner in exchange for lobbying against competing landfills. His indictment said he had “touted River Birch” in that lobbying.⁷ Mouton was sentenced to six months of home detention, three years of probation, and a $100,000 fine.⁸

Prosecutors also charged River Birch’s CFO, Dominick Fazzio, with conspiracy to embezzle nearly $1 million from a construction management firm and with plotting to illegally reduce a client’s tax liability by more than $3.5 million.⁹ Fazzio’s brother-in-law Mark Titus pleaded guilty to mail fraud in 2011 and was sentenced to five years under a cooperation agreement that required him to help build cases against Fazzio, and ultimately against Heebe and Ward.¹⁰ Titus was the only person tied to the River Birch probe to serve prison time.

How the Case Collapsed

The investigation came apart in the comments section of NOLA.com. In early 2012, Heebe’s attorneys filed a civil defamation lawsuit alleging that Senior Litigation Counsel Sal Perricone had been posting anonymous comments under the handle “Henry L. Mencken1951” that disparaged Heebe and other targets of active federal investigations.¹¹ Heebe’s team identified Perricone through forensic analysis of his writing, including distinctive vocabulary like “dubiety” and heavy alliteration.¹² Perricone admitted to hundreds of anonymous posts and resigned in March 2012.

A second Heebe defamation suit named First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jan Mann, who had posted under the alias “eweman.” Mann admitted the posting and was demoted, and evidence suggested she and Perricone had coordinated their commenting, since their posts frequently appeared adjacent to one another.¹¹ The DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility later found both prosecutors had committed “intentional professional misconduct” that caused “significant damage” to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the DOJ. Both surrendered their federal law licenses.¹³

Jim Letten, then the nation’s longest-serving U.S. Attorney at 11 years, resigned in December 2012 as the fallout spread. The New Orleans U.S. Attorney’s Office recused itself from the River Birch case entirely.¹¹

In March 2013, the Justice Department moved to dismiss all charges against Fazzio and Titus with prejudice, citing “evidentiary concerns and in the interests of justice.”⁹ The government also agreed to return property seized from River Birch’s offices in 2010.¹⁴ The DOJ’s Public Integrity Section separately informed Heebe he would not face criminal charges. His statement was brief: “Mr. Heebe and his family are grateful that this matter has been concluded.”¹⁵ Defense attorney Arthur Lemann told reporters “the case was a mess” and suggested there were “more skeletons in the closet of the government.”

The commenting scandal reached well beyond River Birch. U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt cited Perricone and Mann’s conduct as part of what he called “grotesque prosecutorial misconduct” when he overturned the guilty verdicts against police officers in the Danziger Bridge shootings case and ordered a new trial, an order the Fifth Circuit affirmed.¹³¹⁶

The Civil Case That Survived

The end of the criminal probe did not end the allegations. In September 2011, Waste Management of Louisiana filed a federal civil RICO lawsuit against Heebe, Ward, River Birch, and related entities, alleging “unfair competition and outright corruption” and seeking at least $50 million in compensatory damages. The suit covered the alleged bribery of Nagin to close Chef Menteur and allegations that River Birch conspired with former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard to rig a 25-year, $160 million parish garbage-disposal contract.⁷

In 2017, Judge Engelhardt granted partial summary judgment for the defendants, calling the bribery claims “far too speculative and conclusory.”⁴ The Jefferson Parish claims were settled on confidential terms. In April 2019, a Fifth Circuit panel reversed the Chef Menteur ruling, finding the circumstantial evidence sufficient for a jury to consider whether the campaign contributions amounted to a bribe.⁶ River Birch petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied review in December 2019.

Trial was set to begin on June 21, 2021. The Friday before, the parties settled on undisclosed terms, and Judge Carl Barbier dismissed the case.¹⁷¹⁸ River Birch had consistently denied any quid pro quo and maintained that the campaign donations were lawful.

Where River Birch Stands Now

Heebe has since repositioned the company as River Birch Renewable Energy. It operates what the company describes as the third-largest renewable natural gas plant in the United States, converting methane from decomposing waste into pipeline-quality gas sold to Atmos Energy and BP.¹⁹ The facility runs Louisiana’s only commercial Class I non-hazardous injection wells, with a disposal capacity of 1.2 million gallons per day, and lists solar, hydrogen, and carbon capture among its initiatives.²⁰ The company still operates the largest Subtitle D landfill in Louisiana and provides garbage collection across Jefferson Parish, St. Charles Parish, Lafourche Parish, and the City of Gretna.²¹

In March 2026, River Birch named Billy Gibbens, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, as its president and general counsel. Heebe moved to Chairman of the Board.²¹ The company is seeking permits to expand by incorporating the adjacent Greater New Orleans Landfill, a proposal that has drawn community opposition.²²

1
NOLA.com. Savvy Political Maneuvers Turn Troublesome Piece of Swamp Into Lucrative Landfill
2
NOLA.com. King, Queen Announced for 2023 Washington DC Mardi Gras
3
The Advocate. New Orleans Landfill Owners Re-Emerge as Top Political Donors as Bribery Allegations Go Unresolved
4
Waste Dive. Supreme Court Allows Waste Management Landfill Suit to Move Forward
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U.S. Government Accountability Office. Hurricane Katrina Disaster Debris Removal
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NOLA.com. Bribery Lawsuit Involving Landfill Owners, Ex-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin Gets New Life
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New Orleans CityBusiness. Landfill Company Sued Over Bribery Scandal
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NOLA.com. Last River Birch Probe Defendant Henry Mouton Avoids Jail Time at Sentencing
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Twin Cities Pioneer Press. US Prosecutors Drop Charges in LA Fraud Case
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NOLA.com. Mark Titus, Figure in Bungled River Birch Probe, Asks Appeals Court to Let Him Out
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NOLA.com. U.S. Attorney Jim Letten Resigns Amid Online Commenting Scandal in His Office
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ABA Journal. Anonymous Blog Comments Snag Another US Prosecutor
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NOLA.com. Online Commenting Scandal Involving Ex-New Orleans Prosecutors Shrouded in Secrecy
14
FOX 8. Investigation Dropped in Case of River Birch Landfill and Fred Heebe
15
NOLA.com. Landfill Owner, Probe Target Fred Heebe Thanks Feds for Declining to Charge Him
16
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. United States v. Bowen et al.
17
WDSU. Settlement Avoids Trial in 2011 Katrina Trash Lawsuit
18
NOLA.com. River Birch Owners Settle 10-Year Civil Racketeering Case on Eve of Trial
19
River Birch Renewable Energy. Gas Plant
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River Birch Renewable Energy. About
21
Biz New Orleans. River Birch LLC Names New President and General Counsel
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WWL-TV. Why Area Residents Oppose Plan to Make Jefferson Parish Landfill Largest in State