A woman facing a second-degree murder charge for the death of a television reporter who traveled to New Orleans to cover the Super Bowl in February was sentenced to 25 years in an unrelated case on Thursday.
Danette Colbert, 48, had previously been given a suspended sentence by a New Orleans state court judge last year after being convicted of theft and fraud charges.
The office of the Louisiana attorney general, Liz Murrill, successfully argued in court that Colbert, who has multiple prior felony convictions involving fraud, was a habitual offender and deserved a harsher sentence.
Colbert had been on probation when police arrested her for allegedly stealing the cellphone and bank cards of a reporter found dead in his hotel room on 5 February. He was in town to cover Super Bowl LIX weekend in New Orleans.
Adan Manzano, a 27-year-old reporter and television anchor based in Kansas City, Missouri, whose Chiefs were playing in the Super Bowl, suffocated while lying face down on a pillow.
Alcohol and the depressant Xanax were later found in his system. Colbert was captured on security footage leaving Manzano’s hotel room in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner, police said.
Colbert and another person still face second-degree murder charges in Jefferson parish, Louisiana, which includes Kenner.
“The evidence was overwhelming that this woman was a serial fraudster and took advantage of multiple tourists and innocent people over many years in the French Quarter,” Murrill said in an emailed statement.
Colbert’s attorney Jerome Matthews did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Stavros Panagoulopoulos, the lawyer representing Colbert in the second-degree murder case, declined to comment.
