Remember that story about how a private detective working for Sen. David Vitter got caught recording a high-powered GOP sheriff and his political pals talking shop at a local diner a few days ago? The Sheriff of Jefferson Parish, Newell Normand, caught seemingly hapless gumshoe Robert J. Frenzel red-handed. Frenzel jammed out of the diner. Normand and his pals chased after him. Then Normand called in a few of his Sheriff’s Deputies who finally apprehended Frenzel cowering under an AC unit. Well, guess what? The story just got a lot weirder. Yes, really!
Turns out among those shooting the shit with Normand in the diner was John Cummings, a major donor to Democrat John Bel Edwards, Vitter’s opponent in the Governor’s race. Cummings, for some reason was identified as the “man with the white beard”, was allegedly the guy Frenzel was there to record. But aha! … also there was another private investigator named Danny DeNoux. And he just happens to be the guy who discovered a woman named Wendy Ellis, a prostitute who claims Vitter was her client. She has resurfaced in recent weeks with new claims that she became pregnant with Vitter’s child and refused his demands that she abort the pregnancy. These allegations have turned up in the blog of a local named Jason Berry. DeNoux says it was a wealthy businessman who hired him to dig up dirt on Vitter. But he won’t say who it is other than it’s not Cummings – the “man with the white beard.”
In other words, the story is turning out to be rather awesome and a genuine mystery that the local press seems likely to spend the next several weeks trying to unravel. Catherine Thompson has the latest developments here.
