An Orleans Parish magistrate court judge reduced the bonds for three Loyola students facing five counts of attempted armed robbery during their court appearance on the afternoon of Oct. 18. He also ordered each of them to surrender their passports.

Judge Gerald Hansen reset each defendant’s bond at a total of $35,000 – $7,000 for each count. He identified Chukwuemeka Anigbo, a finance junior and one of the three Loyola students facing charges of holding several pedestrians up with toy pistols, as a “flight risk.” Therefore, he ordered each defendant to hand his passport over to his lawyers, who would then hand them over to the court.

“If they have a passport I want it,” Hansen said.

Anigbo was born in the United States and has an American guardian, public defender Joshua Perry told the court. However, Anigbo, a finance junior whose father is a diplomat, was raised in Nigeria and has a home there.

“He may not have the popularity of an O.J. (Simpson), but he’ll be treated no differently,” he said. Without the passports in the court’s custody, Anigbo, whose listed address is in Arlington, Texas, could hop on a plane to his home in Nigeria and “we’d never see him again.”

Perry argued that Anigbo, an 18-year-old junior who started taking classes at Loyola when he was just 16 and had no prior arrests or convictions, has a “bright future” in finance and business.

“He knows if he doesn’t come back, that future is gone,” Perry said. “It was a student prank. His future shouldn’t be compromised.” Perry also told the court that he hasn’t been able to get in touch with Anigbo’s parents, but Hansen refused to relent on his passport demands.

“I don’t understand, your honor,” Perry said.

“You’ll understand it tomorrow morning,” Hansen responded, drawing laughter from the crowded courtroom but blank stares from the defendants.

‘THE WHOLE CITY IS IN FEAR’

The other two defendants, management freshman Mohamed Diakite and biology freshman John A. White, hired two private criminal defense lawyers based in New Orleans.

Raleigh L. Ohlmeyer III is representing Diakite while Townsend M. Myers is representing White.

Myers, in pleading for his clients’ bail reduction, argued that White’s record had no prior arrests or convictions and that his actions were meant as a joke.

“It was a prank. It was perceived to be so by the arresting officer,” Myers told Hansen.

Hansen replied, “Criminal law 101: If you have a play gun and the person is in fear, it’s a robbery.”

Myers called it a “fact” that none of the three defendants took any money because it wasn’t their intent. Their intent was to play a prank.

Hansen then said that this wasn’t the trial, but the initial appearance, and moved the proceedings onward.

Speaking on behalf of Diakite, whose father works for UNICEF, Ohlmeyer echoed Myers in informing the court of his client’s unblemished prior record.

Hansen cut him short, saying, “You can’t play (pranks) like that in the environment New Orleans is in right now.” With several murders and robberies reported in the news media week in and week out, “the whole city is in fear.”

Hansen added that the Uptown area near Loyola and Tulane universities is populated by students whose parents “sent them to school here from other states” despite the grim criminal reality in modern-day New Orleans. They shouldn’t have to phone back home, telling them about a group of students orchestrating pranks so dangerously imitating real life.

If the defendants make their reduced bail and when they surrender their passports, Hansen said, the city will place them under house arrest and release them to Center Intake for Alternative Programs, a program known as CINTAP that the Orleans Parish sheriff’s department employs to monitor non-violent or first offender suspects.

One of the many stipulations to enter into the program requires that suspects have a stable home address.

Anigbo’s guardian’s residence is in Arlington, Texas, while Diakite’s parents list their address in Jakarta, Indonesia.

“If you don’t (have a stable home address), you remain in orange,” Hansen said.

Ramon Antonio Vargas can be reached at [email protected].