Today I received this press release:

The City of New Orleans has sought an injunction against the Louisiana Technology Council for one simple reason — it has no assurance that LTC returned a complete copy of the City’s confidential data and destroyed all other copies of data created by LTC or its subcontractors. It also cannot confirm whether this confidential data was shared with any third parties.

LTC signed a nondisclosure agreement that prohibited it from disclosing any information about its work. Mr. Lewis and his subcontractor, Mr. Reade, violated that agreement when they chose to discuss the preliminary findings of their forensic audit — an audit they now admit was flawed. The City has tried to resolve this dispute amicably, and I personally met with officials from LTC and its subcontractors last week. However, LTC and its subcontractors refuse to make a promise in writing, or before the Court. It seems they are more interested in garnering headlines than in fulfilling their obligations to the City of New Orleans.

The City of New Orleans must turn to the legal system to resolve this issue and protect the public’s information. We look forward to the preliminary injunction hearing at 10 a.m. on August 11.

In addition to LTC, the suit also names Mark S. Lewis, Carrollton Technology Partners, L.L.C., Christopher Reade, Communications And Technologies Industries, Inc., Wayne Latour, Digital Forensics Solutions, LLC, and Daryl Pfeif.

Penya Moses-Fields
City Attorney

 Besides this being a horrible message to anyone who might do business with the city, how can this be proved? And why would the city assume the data hasn’t been returned, or that it has been copied or shared? The paranoia is really depressing for anyone who at one time or another thought Nagin was a reasonable choice for mayor.