[StBernard] Retired Plaquemines judge Michael Kirby to preside over St. Bernard president's divorce case

[Westley Annis]

Retired Plaquemines judge Michael Kirby to preside over St. Bernard
president's divorce case
Print Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Benjamin
Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 
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on February 06, 2014 at 1:24 PM, updated February 06, 2014 at 1:40 PM

The Louisiana Supreme Court on Thursday appointed retired state Fourth
Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Michael E. Kirby to preside over St. Bernard
Parish President Dave Peralta and his wife's divorce case, along with the
related restraining order requests that have been filed in the parish.

On Wednesday, all five St. Bernard Parish district judges agreed to recuse
themselves from the case after Sharon Schaefer Peralta filed motions citing
their professional or political ties with Dave Peralta. 

A hearing on both the Peraltas' restraining orders is scheduled for Friday
in front of Kirby at the Chalmette courthouse.

Sharon Peralta has accused her husband of raping her in their Meraux home on
her 49th birthday, Oct. 27.

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell's office confirmed on Thursday that it still
is reviewing the criminal case. St. Bernard Parish District Attorney John
Rowley recused his office on Dec. 30.

Kirby represented Plaquemines on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal from
1999 to 2010. Prior to being elected to the appeals court, he served as a
council member and president of two different forms of Plaquemines parish
councils, and then as a district judge in Plaquemines.

He presided over a tumultuous period during which the powerful Perez family,
led by brothers Chalin and Leander Perez Jr., was eventually ousted from
power and stripped of the parish oil holdings, from which the Perez family
had secretly profited by diverting public royalties.

Kirby first was elected in 1975, with Chalin Perez's blessing, to a
five-member Commission Council that Perez ruled. He later was one of three
members on the council who ousted Perez as council president, and then Kirby
was elected president in Perez's place.

Kirby then presided over the transition to a new nine-member Parish Council
ordered by a federal desegregation lawsuit that challenged the
constitutionality of the five-member council system.

Kirby, a native of Port Sulphur, was elected president of that new
nine-member council in 1982. The new council soon voted to file suit against
the Perez family, accusing Chalin Perez and his brother Leander Perez Jr. of
secretly profiting from parish-owned oil royalties to the tune of millions
of dollars. Kirby was elected as a judge for the 25th Judicial District
Court in 1984 and so served in that role for about 15 years before being
elected to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal.