Michael Hanley O'Keefe Sr. (December 1, 1931 – January 31, 2021) was an American lawyer who served in the Louisiana State Senate for Orleans Parish from 1960 to 1983.
[6] In February 1983, O'Keefe was convicted of mail fraud and two counts of obstruction of justice in connection with his actions as a general partner in a New Orleans real estate concern.
The court determined that O'Keefe cheated business partners out of $900,000, used forged evidence, and implored a witness to lie about the matter.
[7] In 1999, O'Keefe was sentenced to 19.5 years in prison - his third conviction since 1983 - for stealing from a failed medical malpractice insurance company, an action which left hundreds of physicians without coverage.
O'Keefe said that he and his co-defendants would attempt to pay $4.7 million in restitution by taking money from the liquidation of another company involved in the case.
[8] While behind bars in the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina, O'Keefe became involved with a diploma mill operated via the Internet.
The phantom school offered for approximately $3,000 to $4,000 diplomas, law degrees and even doctorates though according to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation the "university" had only one professor, a Dr. Mary Martin, who was also the registrar.
[10] Journalist and political analyst Clancy DuBois noted how much faith the people of New Orleans had once placed in the senior O'Keefe: "His downfall was one of the most spectacular, in the sense of how big it was, how powerful he was, and how far he fell, in my lifetime.
"[9] In 2009 his son, Michael O'Keefe Jr. (born c. 1959), then the president of Citywide Mortgage Company of New Orleans, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court before Judge Ivan L.R.
The real estate scam involved fraudulent appraisals, credit documents, loan applications, and straw buyers.
From the duplex on Hickory Street, FBI agents seized computers and hard drives, bank/payroll records, and boxes of documents which linked to the business dealings of the junior O'Keefe.