Richard Huye

Introduction

Richard William Huye III is a 34-year-old former New Orleans attorney who became the first person criminally charged in the federal investigation of an alleged property insurance fraud scheme built around Hurricane Ida’s aftermath, the Category 4 storm that devastated south Louisiana in August 2021. Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Louisiana charged Huye on August 28, 2026, by bill of information with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, tied to his work as an attorney for the Texas law firm McClenny Moseley & Associates (MMA). Federal court records indicate he is headed toward a guilty plea, with a rearraignment hearing set for September 28, 2026. No plea has been entered, and Huye remains presumed innocent unless and until he pleads or is proven guilty.

Background Information

Huye worked as an attorney at McClenny Moseley & Associates, a Texas law firm that prosecutors say rushed into Louisiana almost immediately after Ida made landfall on August 29, 2021. Prosecutors allege Huye helped MMA open a New Orleans office within days of the storm, which struck as a Category 4 hurricane and caused widespread devastation. MMA went on to handle storm victims’ insurance claims on a large scale. Before the criminal charge, Louisiana federal judges and a state insurance department fraud investigation had already scrutinized the firm’s client-gathering practices, and MMA was later forced to forfeit its clients. Huye lived and practiced in New Orleans at the time of the alleged conduct, and he has since moved to Austin, Texas.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Allegations. The claims in this section are allegations from federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Louisiana, laid out in a bill of information — a charging document that does not require a grand jury vote. No guilty plea has been entered as of the latest reporting, and Huye is presumed innocent unless and until he pleads or is proven guilty in court.

According to the charging document and related court filings, the alleged scheme centered on routing Hurricane Ida insurance claims from homeowners to MMA through a roofing contractor. Prosecutors contend that MMA encouraged an Alabama roofing company, Apex Roofing and Restoration, to begin operating in Louisiana, and convinced Apex it could use assignment of benefits (AOB) forms to take control of homeowners’ insurance claims, though most Louisiana homeowners’ policies restricted AOBs or required insurer approval first. Prosecutors allege Apex persuaded hundreds of homeowners to sign over their insurance claims and send them to MMA, and that in some instances Apex signed legal agreements on behalf of homeowners without their knowledge.

The bill of information further alleges that Huye and MMA sent hundreds of letters to insurance companies claiming the firm exclusively represented homeowners, without disclosing that those clients had signed their claims over to Apex. Prosecutors put the number of false or misleading letters of representation at 856, affecting at least eight homeowners named in the charging document. Most of those victims either never received money meant to repair their storm-damaged roofs or saw their recoveries reduced after unauthorized attorneys’ fees were withheld. Prosecutors also allege the scheme involved unauthorized attorney representation agreements and Hurricane Ida insurance proceeds.

Separately, MMA used an online advertising agency named Velawcity to sign up thousands of storm victims, per Louisiana federal judges and a state insurance department fraud investigation. Louisiana’s legal ethics code forbids paying non-attorneys to sign up clients, placing that recruitment model at odds with the state’s professional conduct rules. The bill of information also refers to an unnamed MMA associate of Huye’s only as “co-conspirator 1”; reporting has noted the description closely matches MMA managing partner Zach Moseley, though prosecutors have not named or charged that person.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The fallout preceded the criminal charge. MMA was forced to forfeit its entire client base, and Louisiana disbarred Huye from practicing law in the state. Louisiana’s insurance commissioner also imposed a record $2 million in fines on Huye, Moseley, and MMA. MMA filed for federal bankruptcy protection in Houston in 2024 in an effort to liquidate, and in July 2026 the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the firm could not collect fees from the law firms that took over its former clients’ cases if those clients were proved to have been signed up illicitly or unethically.

The charge itself drew attention because of its procedural posture. Commentators and reporters observed that a bill of information, filed in place of a grand jury indictment, frequently signals that a defendant intends to waive indictment and plead guilty, and possibly to cooperate with prosecutors pursuing other targets. Huye’s attorney, Sean Toomey, could not immediately be reached for comment when the rearraignment schedule became public. The case is one of two significant federal insurance fraud prosecutions in Louisiana, the other having produced more than 60 convictions in a staged-accident scheme involving 18-wheelers.

Current Status

Huye is charged by bill of information with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and has not yet entered a plea. Court filings in New Orleans’s federal courthouse show he is scheduled to appear at an arraignment — the hearing at which an initial plea is entered — and at a separate rearraignment roughly 90 minutes later on September 28, 2026, before federal magistrate Karen Wells Roby and US district court judge William Crain. Rearraignments are typically, though not always, held when a defendant agrees to abandon a not-guilty plea as part of a deal with prosecutors rather than proceed to trial. The charge carries up to five years in prison and a fine of about $250,000, though defendants who plead guilty before trial do not usually receive the harshest punishment.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The consequences for Huye’s legal career are already severe in Louisiana: he has been disbarred in the state where he practiced, and his former firm has collapsed into bankruptcy after forfeiting every client it held. If he enters the expected guilty plea, a conviction for conspiracy to commit wire fraud would add a federal criminal record carrying up to five years in prison and a fine of roughly $250,000, though a plea agreement would likely reduce his exposure and could include cooperation against others connected to MMA, where reporting indicates the investigation’s focus could then intensify. Personally, Huye has left New Orleans and now lives in Austin, Texas. Because no plea or verdict exists yet, all potential outcomes remain open until the court resolves the charge.