BODENHEIMER REPEATS INNOCENT PLEA

Ex-Judge Ronald Bodenheimer pleaded innocent to federal drug and conspiracy
charges Thursday for the second time in six months, and his attorney began
previewing their attack on the government's use of covert wiretaps to
investigate a sitting jurist.

Bodenheimer, whose term on the 24th District Court in Gretna ended Dec. 31,
calmly reasserted his innocence before Magistrate Judge Louis Moore Jr.
Bodenheimer is charged with conspiring to plant three prescription
painkiller pills on a frequent critic of his Venetian Isles Marina. The
plea came in response to a slightly amended indictment issued this month by
a grand jury. The indictment alleges that Bodenheimer tried to recruit two
police officers to assist with the frame-up.

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Bodenheimer said little during the five-minute hearing, which occurred in a
courtroom not unlike the one in which he presided for three years. After
the hearing, defense attorney Eddie Castaing told reporters outside the
federal courthouse in New Orleans that he is preparing a motion to suppress
the wiretap evidence in the government's case. He says the wiretap approval
never should have been granted by Judge A.J. "Buddy" McNamara in 2001.

Castaing says the government failed to show sufficient justification in its
application for electronic surveillance. He said the surveillance, which
included telephone taps and audio and video monitoring of Bodenheimer's
private chambers, should be allowed only when conventional investigative
measures can't be used.

Prosecutors' application for the wiretaps is under seal, on orders from the
trial judge, Ginger Berrigan.

Castaing also might ask to move Bodenheimer's trial, now scheduled for
March 31, to another federal court district if he thinks his client cannot
get a fair trial because of widespread publicity in the New Orleans area.