Woman found guilty of negligent homicide in Super Bowl reporter death

A Louisiana jury convicted a woman of negligent homicide on Thursday in the death of a Telemundo television reporter who had been visiting New Orleans to cover the Super Bowl , according to the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office .

The woman, named Danette Colbert, 49, was also convicted of racketeering, as was her accomplice, 35-year-old Rickey White, according to Paul Purpura, a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office. Racketeering carries up to a 50-year sentence in Louisiana.

Both were also charged with manslaughter in Adan Manzano’s death, a 27-year-old reporter and anchor for Telemundo based in Kansas City, Missouri, who was found dead in his hotel room Feb. 5 in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner days before the Super Bowl last year.

Jurors found Colbert guilty of negligent homicide, a lesser charge, and White not guilty of manslaughter, according to the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office.

In a press release, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office said that Colbert and White had targeted “seemingly affluent men in New Orleans tourism spots and drugged them in hotel rooms during their trysts before stealing their belongings as they slept it off.”

The two had allegedly spent years carrying out a criminal enterprise that drew in victims in the city’s historic French Quarter with the promise of sex, then used drugs to knock them out and drain their bank accounts using stolen cards and phones, according to prosecutors.

Colbert was the last person seen leaving the room of Manzano and an autopsy revealed that he died lying face down on a pillow, unable to breathe after ingesting a combination of alcohol and Xanax.

“They and others were engaged in a years-long scheme in which Colbert and other prostitutes lurked in New Orleans’ tourist areas in search of men whom they could lure to their rooms. Along the way, they secretly provided their unwitting victims with sedatives that would cause them to fall asleep. They then would steal their cell phones, credit cards and other items of value, including pricy watches,” the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office said.

Assistant District Attorney Jenny Voss told jurors that Colbert “has been doing this for years, and she has not been doing it alone.”

“Enterprise, a group of people associated in fact. Danette Colbert was not doing this by herself. Danette Colbert was doing this with Rickey White (and others). They were not just pals. They were partners. All of them together had a separate role,” Voss said during closing arguments on Thursday.

Voss alleged that White was the one the alleged group went to “for instruction.”

Manzano, a widower and the father of a young child, was working for Spanish-language Telemundo network when he went to New Orleans to cover the Super Bowl.

“On Feb. 4, 2025, he and his colleagues partied in the French Quarter’s tourist areas where he met Colbert. She convinced the seemingly intoxicated man to take her to his hotel room in Kenner.