Jury convicts woman of negligent homicide in death of reporter covering Super Bowl in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana jury convicted a woman of negligent homicide on Thursday in the death of a Telemundo television reporter who had been visiting New Orleans to cover the Super Bowl, according to the Jefferson Parish district attorney’s office.

Danette Colbert, 49, was also convicted of racketeering, as was her accomplice, 35-year-old Rickey White, according to Paul Purpura, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office. Racketeering carries up to a 50-year sentence in Louisiana.

The two had spent years carrying out a criminal enterprise that drew in victims in the city’s historic French Quarter with the promise of sex, then used drugs to knock them out and drain their bank accounts using stolen cards and phones, according to prosecutors.

Colbert was the last person seen leaving the room of Adan Manzano, a 27-year-old reporter and anchor for Telemundo based in Kansas City, Missouri, who was found dead in his hotel room Feb. 5 in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner days before the Super Bowl last year.

An autopsy revealed that Manzano died lying face down on a pillow, unable to breathe after ingesting a combination of alcohol and the depressant Xanax.

Prosecutors had sought to convict both…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business