Denette Colbert, 49, was convicted of negligent homicide Thursday in the death of Telemundo reporter Adan Manzano.
The Louisiana jury also found Colbert guilty of racketeering alongside her accomplice Rickey White, 35, after deliberating for just over five hours at the Jefferson Parish courthouse. The pair had faced manslaughter charges in the February death of Manzano, 27, but jurors returned the lesser homicide conviction for Colbert alone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I could tell you something different, but the truth is, there is nothing anybody in this room can do to bring Adan Manzano back to his family,” Assistant District Attorney Brendan Bowen told jurors in his closing argument Thursday.
“What you can do is make his death mean something. Let Adan Manzano be the last victim that Rickey White and Danette Colbert ever get to target.”
Manzano, a Telemundo Kansas City reporter, had traveled to the New Orleans area to cover the Super Bowl. He was found dead February 5, lying face down on a pillow in his room at a Comfort Suites in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans. He had ingested alcohol and Xanax and was unable to breathe.
The tragedy came just a year after Manzano’s wife was killed in a car accident. The couple left behind a toddler daughter.
Video footage captured Colbert and Manzano entering the hotel around 5 a.m. That morning. Over the following hours, cameras showed Colbert leaving the room, returning, and departing again. Manzano never emerged. He was found dead that night, his phone and credit card missing from the room.
Kenner Police Chief Keith Conley said at the time that the card was used for fraudulent charges at stores around New Orleans. Officers arrested Colbert the next day. A search of her house uncovered the credit card and phone, along with narcotics and a stolen firearm.
Prosecutors laid out a years-long criminal enterprise in which Colbert and White lured victims in the French Quarter with sex, then drugged them and stole their credit cards and phones. Locals knew Colbert as the “Bourbon Street Hustler.” Court documents described her as operating under the guise of a “prostitute or ‘party girl'” while White, known as “King Ricky,” served as her “pimp,” providing security and scouting for victims.
Christian Anderson, 35, another man who assisted in the scheme, testified against Colbert and White in exchange for reduced charges. He pleaded guilty to simple robbery and access device fraud and received a six-year prison sentence. Prosecutors presented extensive text messages among the trio showing them plotting to incapacitate and rob victims, with Manzano targeted that night.
Stavros Panagoulopoulos, Colbert’s attorney, told KLTV he was disappointed in the racketeering conviction but viewed the negligent homicide verdict as a small legal victory. He plans to appeal her conviction.
Negligent homicide carries a sentence of up to 40 years in Louisiana, while racketeering carries a 50-year sentence, according to prosecutors.
Colbert and White are scheduled to be sentenced in late September, according to the district attorney’s office.