Ex-Big Law Partner Dies After Life-Changing Assault, Robbery
Sanford Kaynor Jr. was left paralyzed and brain damaged following a 2012 shooting in New Orleans. He died Thursday.
April 20, 2018 at 02:45 PM
4 minute read
Sanford “Sandy” Kaynor Jr., a former special counsel at Jones Walker and one-time Ropes & Gray partner, died Thursday at 58.
His death came a little more than two years after one of his assailants received a 362-year prison sentence in a New Orleans criminal court.
On Oct. 2, 2012, Kaynor was left critically injured outside his home in the Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans after an armed robbery and carjacking. Kaynor's spine was severed as he was shot twice in the chest and back and left for dead by attackers who made off with his Cadillac sport utility vehicle and ransacked his home for other valuables while his wife and 8-year-old daughter slept.
Kaynor was found by his wife and taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced clinically dead while in surgery, having lost some 30 pints of blood and suffered a brain hemorrhage. While he survived, the injuries that Kaynor sustained in the assault left him brain damaged, mute and paralyzed.
The Times-Picayune, in a story about Kaynor's death Thursday, noted that the three members of the so-called Marley Gang that attacked Kaynor—Charles “Mob Chuck” Carter Jr., Devante “Tae Banger” Billy and Byron “Poodie Man” Johnson—all received decades-long prison sentences for their roles in the crime. All three men were also implicated in the subsequent shooting death of a former University of New Orleans student before their arrest and incarceration. The trio could face additional charges and longer prison sentences if Kaynor's death is posthumously determined to be a homicide.
“The scourge of juvenile crime in New Orleans is real, and Mr. Kaynor's prolonged death at the hands of teen gunmen serves as a stark reminder that the plights of victims should take preeminence in public safety decisions,” said a statement from Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro Jr.
Kaynor was born in Connecticut, the son of Sanford Bull Kaynor, a former general counsel at U.S. Industries Inc. Kaynor's uncle, William Kaynor, was a lawyer-turned-investment banker who spent 30 years as a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell. Kaynor worked at a Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman predecessor firm and Ropes & Gray, where he was a partner in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the hometown of his wife, Grace Kaynor. She testified at Johnson's trial in 2015 that she regretted relocating to the city with her husband and family.
In 2008, Kaynor left Ropes & Gray to join Jones Walker in New Orleans as special counsel, a role where at the time he said he looked forward to growing a “significant Gulf Coast practice.” In 2010, Kaynor led a Jones Walker team that advised Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners LP on Louisiana law aspects of its $1.2 billion purchase of a pair of natural gas gathering and treatment systems.
But the 2012 assault and robbery ended Kaynor's legal career. In the aftermath of the devastating attack, Kaynor was confined to a wheelchair and unable to care for himself. Family, friends and Jones Walker held periodic fundraisers to raise money for his long-term care. A Facebook page, Friends of Sandy Kaynor, chronicled those events, as well as pictures of Kaynor and his family from happier times.
Grace Kaynor, an interior designer whose New Orleans home was once profiled in lifestyle magazine “Southern Living,” became a vocal advocate for victims of violent crime after the attack on her husband. Kaynor is survived by his widow; a daughter, Phoebe; and a son, Granville, who publicly forgave his father's eventual killers. He died at home Thursday, a month before what would have been his 59th birthday, and nearly five months to the day after his mother, Laura Sanford Kaynor, who died at 88 on Nov. 20.
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