The Louisiana woman linked to the death of a Super Bowl reporter has faced a series of allegations from other men accusing her of drugging and robbing them — and she shouldn’t have been on probation when the reporter was found dead last month, the state’s top prosecutor said.
Danette Colbert, 48, was convicted in October on charges of computer fraud, theft and illegal transmission of monetary funds in connection with a November 2021 scheme that the victim said targeted his life savings.
David Butler said in court records and an interview with NBC News that Colbert left him for dead after drugging and robbing him of more than $80,000 in cryptocurrencey in New Orleans’ French Quarter. He did not get drug tested, and no charges linked to that drugging allegation were filed.
Last fall, Colbert was sentenced to five years of probation and was ordered to pay Butler $50,000 in restitution, court records in the case show.
The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office is working to revoke that sentence and impose a harsher one, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement Monday. The AG said that Colbert “was not eligible for probation” when she was sentenced.
In the statement, Murrill noted Colbert’s status as a “habitual offender” — a classification that allows prosecutors in the state to pursue stiffer penalties based on a defendant’s criminal history.
In a separate statement, Jefferson Parish District Attorney Jason Williams said he requested Murrill’s help because Colbert’s alleged crimes span multiple jurisdictions.
“I firmly believe this approach will ensure the most unified and focused prosecution of each of these serious cases,” Williams said.
Colbert’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A lawyer representing her on a separate case said last month that she should not be judged on her criminal history.
A spokesperson for the judge who handed down the sentence in November has declined to comment and directed NBC News to Butler’s victim impact statement.
In that statement, Butler said Colbert’s “continued disregard for others” should have prompted the maximum prison sentence allowed.
Before Colbert’s October conviction, she had pleaded guilty in two previous cases that involved similar allegations of fraud and theft in nearby Jefferson Parish, court records show. While awaiting trial in Butler’s case, she was charged in Clark County, Nevada, with grand larceny and administering a drug to aid in the commission of a felony in two separate cases.
According to Daniel Lippmann, the attorney who represented her, the charges in Nevada were dismissed after the victims said they did not want to testify in court, The Associated Press reported.
In two other cases, alleged victims told NBC News that they believe they were targeted by Colbert in October 2021 after she posed as an Uber driver in the French Quarter. The men went to authorities, according to a police report and a New Orleans Police Department spokesperson, but no charges have been filed in either case.
New Orleans police have said the agency investigates each and every case filed with it. A suspect has not been identified in either case.
Last month, Colbert was accused of fraud and other property crimes linked to the death of the Telemundo reporter, Adan Manzano. She has been charged with simple robbery, purse snatching, computer fraud, illegal transfer of monetary funds, access device fraud, bank fraud.
Manzano’s body was discovered in a hotel room in Kenner, west of New Orleans, on Feb. 5, and a preliminary toxicology report showed he had a drug commonly sold under the brand Xanax in his system at the time of his death. He did not have a prescription for the drug, a police investigator said during a hearing last month, and the drug was found at Colbert’s Slidell home.
Authorities have said Colbert could face additional crimes after an autopsy and toxicology testing in the case are complete.
After Manzano’s death, authorities in Kenner said they fielded a dozen complaints from people who believe they or a loved one may have been a victim of Colbert’s, including the death of a Maryland man who was found unresponsive in a French Quarter hotel room in December. That investigation remains ongoing.
