Former prosecutor faces sentencing in sex solicitation case
NEW ORLEANS — A former Louisiana prosecutor who was accused of soliciting sex from at least 20 women in exchange for favourable treatment faces his own sentencing Wednesday in federal court on an obstruction charge.
Harry Morel, 73, was district attorney for 33 years in St. Charles Parish, about 20 miles west of New Orleans. Now he faces a maximum of three years in prison after pleading guilty to the single charge.
The deal closed the case, reflecting the difficulty of balancing the scales of justice between a powerful defendant and vulnerable victims.
U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite said that statutes of limitations on some alleged crimes, and the death of a key witness played into the eventual plea bargain.