Former Louisiana health secretary Bruce Greenstein asked a judge today to throw out his perjury indictment because the attorney general’s office released his grand jury testimony to the public.
The Associated Press reports that in a motion filed in state district court, lawyers for Greenstein say the release of the testimony violated Louisiana’s grand jury secrecy laws. They argue the attorney general’s office didn’t follow the proper process for unsealing the transcript and called its release “prejudicial” to Greenstein’s case.
Lawyers Brent Stockstill and John McLindon wrote that if “the obligation of secrecy no longer applies, then the proffered protection of secrecy is nothing more than a sham.”
Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell says he gave the more than 200-page transcript to McLindon in an open hearing in which he also filed the document into the court record. Caldwell says he did nothing wrong.
“I don’t really understand what the big deal is. It’s a fairly routine thing,” Caldwell says. “We discussed it with the court on the record and obtained court approval and the defense didn’t object.”
Greenstein was indicted in September on nine perjury charges stemming from an investigation into a canceled $200 million state Medicaid contract awarded to Maryland-based Client Network Services Inc., known as CNSI. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A trial date hasn’t been set in the case. Judge Louis Daniel is expected to consider Greenstein’s motion to have the charges dismissed at a March 19 hearing.
