New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL is letting viewers know it doesn’t have an opinion about who should win or lose the race for Criminal District Court Judge, despite what a mailer may show.
The warning came after voters began receiving a flyer about candidate Diedre Pierce Kelly that has the WWL logo and a reference to a story the station reported about Kelly, saying, “Diedre Pierce Kelly seeks redemption from ‘mistake,’ former rival urges voters to reject ‘admitted forger.'”
“We want to make it clear that WWL-TV does not endorse any candidate in that race nor does it take any position on any candidate seeking political office,” the station said in a statement. “The PAC for Justice has no relationship with WWL-TV and we neither endorse nor condemn any of its positions.”
Kelly is running in the March 25 election for the Section A judge seat.
The station did a story about Kelly on January 30, which included “her admission, under oath and in court records, that she forged her bosses signature on several legal documents, including a multi-million-dollar will in 2009 and her own application to the Louisiana Bar to practice law in 2011.”
The admitted forgeries led to Kelly’s 19-month suspension from the Louisiana Bar in 2015-2016 and upended her last opportunity to run for Criminal Court judge in 2020. One of her opponents, defense attorney Gary Wainwright, successfully challenged her candidacy by showing that the suspension left her with less than the required eight years’ experience in the Louisiana Bar to be a judge.