Feds dropped charges this morning against two major players in the River Birch landfill probe, and they've abandoned their investigation into owner Fred Heebe. Documents from the U.S. Attorney’s Office show that Public Integrity Chief Jack Smith dismissed indictments against Dominick Fazio and Mark J. Titus. According wwltv, undisclosed sources have confirmed that the abandoned suit means Heebe is free from the feds.  

In 2012, the New Orleans political arena was full of close elections, resignations and, as ever, ladies in red. In no particular order, NoDef looks back at the debates and dirty tricks that marked the people's business this year:

A federal judge gave a new indication Monday that Fred Heebe's dig through the trash at Jim Letten's office could end up putting important federal investigations in jeopardy. But it wasn't the probe into Heebe's River Birch Landfill that was addressed. Instead, Heebe's trash could be the treasure of the ex-NOPD convicted for their roles in the post-K killing and cover-up at the Danziger Bridge.

The tale of Mann and eweman is set to continue. The second federal prosecutor to be accused of commenting anonymously on nola.com by a landfill magnate in the feds's sites was indeed a commenter, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said in a statement released Thursday morning. Jan Mann, who was Letten's lieutenant and apparently remains an Assistant U.S. Attorney, is no longer serving in a supervisory role, Letten said.

Since the storm, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten brought plenty of officials down from the heights of power, and even their big benches. Over the past few years, Letten has been finding that going all the way to the top of the landfill, however, is another matter altogether. Fed target and trash baron Fred Heebe already forced the resignation of longtime Assistant U.S. Attorney Sal Perricone for commenting on nola.com as Henry L. Mencken 1951. Today, the River Birch landfill owner who is widely believed to be the target of a federal influence-peddling investigation is going after another commenter: eweman.

After he was outed by trash baron Fred Heebe as Henry L. Mencken1951, Sal Perricone came clean, and hung up his spurs in the U.S. Attorney's office, as well as the nola.com comment boards. This weekend, Perricone's words appear in a public forum for the first time in an interview conducted by New Orleans Magazine's Allen Johnson. Among other things, we learn that he actually uses "redoubt" when speaking, and that he also appeared on the nola.com comment boards as "legacyusa" and "dramatis personae." But above all, Perricone has a message: Don't use the Internet to blow off steam. Full story & statement here.

Jim Letten gets the Heebes in today's Friday afternoon news dump, brought to you by the local U.S. Attorney's office. In a statement releaed at the very end of business hours, Letten announced his office was recusing from the feds' investigation of the River Birch Landfill. The move, which is almost surely tied to the outing of one of the prosecutors on the case as a nola.com commenter, transfers the probe, which has already yielded indictments of a former state official and the landfill's chief financial officer, to the federal Department of Justice, which is based in Washington.

Sal Perricone survived a spat with the Canal Street Brothel, and fleeing the scene of a hit-and-run. But the Internet proved to be too much for the now-former Assistant U.S. Attorney. The man who commented as "Henry L. Mencken1951" on nola.com resigned this morning, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Jim Letten.

The sins at the center of the latest scandal to erupt from New Orleans' halls of power were not carried out in a back alley, or even on a yacht. Instead, they were simply the work of a man sitting down at his desk and writing out his thoughts. At the behest of trash tycoon Fred Heebe, NOLA.com commenter Henry L. Mencken1951 was outed today. The man hiding behind the curmudgeonly cloak was indeed one of the federal prosecutors figured to be leading the effort to bring Heebe down from the top of the landfill.

Like so many scribes in the past who attempted the act in vain, Fred Heebe has gone to war with H.L. Mencken. But it's not the acerbic, early 20th century journalist of Scopes-Monkey Trial fame that the controversial landfill baron is after. It's a nola.com commenter who has taken the great writer's name as a pseudonym. Heebe, who is under investigation over a deal that gave his River Birch Landfill all of Jefferson Parish's garbage business, suspects the T-P affiliated website's Henry L. Mencken1951 is actually the federal prosecutor who is leading a Jefferson Parish corruption probe against him, Da Paper reports.