NEW ORLEANS (Court TV) — More than one year after a reporter covering the 2025 Super Bowl was found dead in a hotel, two people have been convicted in connection with his death.
Danette Colbert booking photo (Kenner Police Department)
Danette Colbert, 49, and Rickey White, 35, were convicted of racketeering on Thursday. Both had also been charged with manslaughter for the death of Adan Manzano, 27, a reporter who was in New Orleans covering the Super Bowl. The jury acquitted White of manslaughter and convicted Colbert of the lesser-included charge of negligent homicide.
Manzano, originally from Kansas, was a widower and father of a young child when he came to the city to cover the game for Telemundo. On Feb. 4, 2025, he and some colleagues went out in the city’s French Quarter, where Manzano met Colbert and she convinced the “seemingly intoxicated” man to take her to his hotel room, prosecutors said.
Once alone, investigators said Colbert gave Manzano Xanax after the two drank tequila. On Feb. 5, 2025, Manzano’s body was found facedown on his hotel bed; an autopsy determined he had been dead for at least eight hours.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I could tell you something different, but the truth is, there is nothing anybody in this room can do to bring Adan Manzano back to his family,” Assistant District Attorney Brendan Bowen said in his closing argument to the jury. “What you can do is make his death mean something. Let Adan Manzano be the last victim that Rickey White and Danette Colbert ever get to target.”
Prosecutors said Colbert and White had been working together for years, luring men back to their rooms, drugging them and robbing them of cellphones, credit cards and any other valuables. White, known as “King Rickey,” would collect the stolen property and then disperse it. Among the evidence introduced at trial were tens of thousands of text messages, images and videos that showed Colbert, White and others working together to target men in the city.
This photo provided by Telemundo Kansas City shows television reporter Adan Manzano, who was found dead in his hotel room Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025 while visiting New Orleans to cover the Super Bowl. (Telemundo Kansas City via AP)
Among the videos shown to the jury were ones that Colbert made while she was still in Manzano’s room, “where she practiced using the swipe code to open Manzano’s cellphone and tried to log into his bank accounts,” prosecutors said. This all happened while Manzano lay “dying or dead” nearby. “She’s dripping with pride as she speaks about her abilities as a thief and her pride in her relationship with Rickey White,” Bowen said. “She’s practically swearing fealty to him over the internet, because he’s ‘King Rickey.'”
A third co-defendant in the case, Christian Anderson, 35, pleaded guilty as part of an agreement with prosecutors that required him to testify against Colbert and White. Anderson laid out the details of how the criminal enterprise worked and testified that he had seen Colbert put drugs into victims’ drinks.
Judge Nancy Miller is scheduled to sentence Colbert and White on Sept. 28.
