Murder-for-hire trial tied to staged crash scheme begins

(Legal Newsline) — A murder-for-hire trial has begun for a disbarred attorney and his alleged hitman that was spawned from a staged-collision insurance fraud scheme.

Sean Alfortish, who also is a former Kenner magistrate judge, and Leon “Chunky” Parker are on trial in federal court on charges including conspiracy to commit witness tampering by murder. After two days of jury selection, opening statements took place August 12.

Authorities say Alfortish learned Cornelius Garrison secretly was cooperating with the FBI and paid Parker to silence Garrison, who was shot and killed outside his mother’s Gentilly home in September 2020 just four days after he was named in a federal indictment in “Operation Sideswipe.” Garrison’s murder went unsolved until Alfortish and Parker were charged in 2025.

“Operation Sideswipe” was an FBI investigation that exposed a scheme in which “slammers” packed cars with passengers to deliberately sideswipe commercial trucks and file fraudulent insurance claims. Garrison was a s...