>> the fugate siblings, as the kids at school and in the neighborhood knew, bullied robert merslesslyhe was terrified of them. surely he wouldn't help them murder the neighbor lady. yet rocky fugate was going to tell the court just that. >> his lawyer advised me that rocky wanted to get a favorable sentencing and was going to be testifying against robert. >> so, big problems. rosenfield knew from long experience that any jury hearing rocky's testimony and robert's confession would certainly convict. robert would very probably get a life sentence with no parole. robert's only chance of ever getting out of prison was to agree to something called an alfred plea. >> we told robert that if you plead guilty under an alfred plea, you admit that there is sufficient evidence to prove your guilt but you do not admit that you're guilty -- >> it meant accepting a 23-year prison sentence. it also meant he could never file an appeal. >> 37 years of practice, it is the hardest decision that i've made to strongly recommend a client to take a plea for something he didn't do. >> but at least it wasn't

i talk to administrator fugate also about this. there are 143,000 claims, but people cannot find out where they stand. now, in this day of electronics most of them have mobile phones. they survived. some of them don't have access to a computer but can get to one. but they can't find the status of the claims or talk to any buddy. you dial the numbers that are given, and you find someone and they are manned by people who don't have a clue of where their case is. so for them to get their home and their act together and their lives back together, they've got to know the status. they got to get an answer. they are not getting the answers, okay? and i don't know why we can't have an app that does exactly the status of the case, the information that is being imported. we have the case descriptions. ici see mr. matthews out there, the staff director of the economic development public buildings, emergency management subcommittee on transportation. but we need a requirement almost for the agency to have some means that people finding out whe

governor edwards, administrator fugate told me he could handle this within his existing budget. now, i don't know about the cdbg grants, but he -- that's what he had told me. so i don't know about whether we'll need that. there's lots of money available, i am told. we'll have to sort that out. i'm not certain. and the cdbg grants is probably the fastest way to get some action because it comes to the local communities and they can eliminate the red tape and go for it. >> and i would like to respond to that. the administrator told me the same thing with the budget authority that he had pursuant to the previous appropriation for the agency, you can absorb the cost that fema costs even at the 90% share. governor edwards: but cdbg, that is not contemplated -- mr. mica: right. that's a different -- there are different funds here. we got some s.b.a. issues. we have -- and i'm concerned about, too, i've gotten reports of possible fraud and some of the claims for food stamps and assistance, how that's being monitored and cooperation even between state agencies is not what it should be. t

fugate is not here. this is a huge event. as i said before, we are blowing the side boards off the stanford fact. the unmeet needs package needs to be addressed to help us recover. we need a more robust project funded like the parish flood control to lower the base line in the region ft these things need to happen. mr. chairman, quickly, i want to note we are joined by a number of folks who have been down there in the trenches and in addition to the governor and mayor, the commissioner of agriculture, state senator chairman of the homeland security committee birdie white, and a number of other leaders from the state of louisiana and folks in the trenches and are tireless in their efforts to help recover. looking forward to working with my friend congressman richmond over there. >> and according to our unanimous consent request i recognize the gentlemen from louisiana mr. richmond. >> thank you, chairman mica, for convening this hearing and thank you for taking the time to come to louisiana. let me thank you representative duc

fugate is not here today. i don't understand that i don't understand why he does not hear your this is a huge event. stafford act as i said before, we're going to sideboards off the stafford act at the white house needs to send a request including the unmet needs package to help address this to help us recover. we need a more robust flood protection project funded to help lower the base flood elevation in this region. these things need to happen any to happen right now. i will yield back. i want to very quickly note we are joined by a number of folks that have been down in the trenches, in addition to the spam coming together and the mayors, lieutenant governor billy nungesser. whenever commissioner of agriculture, state senator chairman of the homeland security committee, a number of other leaders from the state of louisiana and and folks have been in the trenches and i was in their efforts to help recover, and looking for to work with my friend congressman richmond on a full recovery package. yield back. >>

>> pacitti fugate get we been here a long time so it's been anglicized. my name is barbara fugate and am named member of a neighborhood association in the outer mission >> which one? >> which one? he was [inaudible] i belong to the association for more than 20 years. as of the number 30 position on the board of directors begun currently the editor of our newsletter and the chair of our safety compliance committee. i'm asking to be reaffirmed this position because i think the neighborhood support -neighborhood will support some of this legislation if the education is that. but our big concern is the sequestering issue in that something of an speaking on the most. and a lot of other things to say but in the interest of time if you have questions we happy to answer them >> i have no questions >> not that easy. i do have one. this is more around the clustering issue and the issue i think really have grown sensitive to largely due to the advocacy of supervisor avalos. recently, there was a very long i think contingent contentious [inaudible] 100 [inaudible] if

the administrator of fema, craig fugate, declined to be interviewed. but amid the controversy, he replaced the leadership of the program and promised a wide-ranging overhaul. the new head of the flood program is roy wright. what do you think was happening with these examples of forged signatures, and not just changed conclusions, but changed observations? >> of all the issues in front of me, i find these engineering reports to be the most maddening. many of them were done right, but i've seen reports where they took pictures of damage, they described the damage, and when you get to the conclusion on page 32, they said there was no damage. that's shoddy, sloppy work. >> sullivan: is it sloppy work, or is it fraud? >> so the questions of fraud i need to leave to the legal investigators to play out. i look forward to what the states' attorney generals can bring to me. >> sullivan: this was happening across multiple engineering companies represented by multiple insurance companies. how was this happening across so many different platforms if it was just sh

>> pacitti fugate get we been here a long time so it's been anglicized. my name is barbara fugate and am named member of a neighborhood association in the outer mission >> which one? >> which one? he was [inaudible] i belong to the association for more than 20 years. as of the number 30 position on the board of directors begun currently the editor of our newsletter and the chair of our safety compliance committee. i'm asking to be reaffirmed this position because i think the neighborhood support -neighborhood will support some of this legislation if the education is that. but our big concern is the sequestering issue in that something of an speaking on the most. and a lot of other things to say but in the interest of time if you have questions we happy to answer them >> i have no questions >> not that easy. i do have one. this is more around the clustering issue and the issue i think really have grown sensitive to largely due to the advocacy of supervisor avalos. recently, there was a very long i think contingent contentious [inaudible] 100 [inaudible] if