In court records, federal prosecutors said they weren’t aware Roby and Crinel were carrying on an affair, or even that Roby was Crinel’s lawyer, when they brought their search warrant to Judge Roby in March 2014. Investigators did tell the judge that her husband served on a charitable board with one of the targets of the investigation. Judge Roby told them she could handle the warrant so long as her husband didn’t represent the target of the warrant.
Prosecutors say they became aware of the Roby-Crinel affair after reviewing records seized during the search, but that what they found shows that Roby took pains to hide the affair from his wife.
In court records, federal prosecutors refer to numerous personal emails between Crinel and Clarence Roby that “discuss an intimate relationship, Judge Roby, and many details of their physical and emotional relationship,” and that a cooperating witness told them after the search that said Crinel called Roby “her boo.”
But Roby comes off as more discreet in the exchanges, prosecutors said. In messages, Crinel complains that Roby won’t make their relationship more public, writing “we can’t stay locked up in this house,” and that she wants to go on dates even if “we have to drive to BR or Slidell sometimes.”
In the two-page message, Crinel also gripes that Roby doesn’t call her during the day or make contact with her the morning after their trysts, prosecutors said. Roby’s two-sentence reply came 12 hours later, prosecutors noted. He asked Crinel to send her messages to his personal email, not his business account.
“Nothing about this email suggests that Clarence Roby or Crinel actively flaunted their affair,” prosecutors wrote.
Crinel’s case is not the first time Judge Roby’s marriage has complicated her work on the federal bench. In 2008, Judge Roby recused herself from dozens of criminal and civil cases involving the federal government, after her husband’s client, former state Sen. Derrick Shepherd, entered a plea deal with federal prosecutors.
New Orleans Scandal Involves Judge, Prominent Lawyer And Businesswoman Facing Federal Charges was originally published on blackamericaweb.com
