Thread: Ray Nagin .... in the news again

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin under investigation
By Kathy Finn | Reuters – 8 hrs ago

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the colorful and controversial spokesman for the city after the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005, is under investigation by federal authorities, a source with direct knowledge of the probe said.

The source told Reuters on Friday that several people linked to Nagin or the New Orleans city administration during his two terms as mayor ending in 2010 were cooperating with the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI.

The investigation includes whether Nagin received favors or items of value from vendors to the city in return for contracts they received while Nagin was in office, the source said.

Nagin, who was in Minnesota for a speaking engagement on Friday, spoke to a WWL-TV reporter at the New Orleans airport on his return. Asked about allegations he benefited personally while in office, he said: "They're three years old, and they keep coming up. I only want an opportunity to finally deal with them. Hopefully we can have an honest, open approach where truth and justice can prevail, but I'm starting to worry about that now," Nagin said.

A Justice Department spokeswoman in Washington had no comment. The U.S. attorney in New Orleans, Jim Letten, did not return a call requesting comment. A spokeswoman for FBI Special Agent in Charge David Welker declined to comment on whether an investigation is underway.

Nagin was thrust into the national spotlight in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed levees and flooded 80 percent of the city, killing 1,500 people and causing more than $80 billion in damage.

Thousands of New Orleans residents were displaced, especially poor African-Americans, and many were relocated to other cities in the region for months or left New Orleans permanently. As mayor during the crisis, Nagin publicly clashed with federal and state officials over relief efforts and was accused of making statements during the crisis that inflamed passions.

Nagin, who is black, was criticized for racial divisiveness after Katrina for urging residents to rebuild a "chocolate New Orleans," referring to its majority African-American population. He was re-elected mayor in 2006 but critics said he did not do enough to revive the city in his second term.

Since leaving office in 2010, speculation has swirled that Nagin would eventually become the target of a federal probe after a former associate and close personal friend pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the city.

Gregory Meffert, the city's former chief technology officer under Nagin, pleaded guilty in 2010 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bribery in connection with a city program receiving federal funds, and filing a false tax return. He is scheduled to be sentenced in May.

New Orleans attorney and Loyola University law professor Dane Ciolino said a probe of Nagin was no surprise. "Ever since Meffert pleaded guilty there has been serious speculation that he was cooperating against Ray Nagin," Ciolino said Friday.

http://news.yahoo.com/former-orleans...074941066.html




See also : http://www.bigbigforums.com/vent-whi...lieve-guy.html http://www.bigbigforums.com/vent-whi...w-orleans.html
http://www.bigbigforums.com/vent-whi...des-again.html

Classic Chocolate City.

Originally Posted by dv8grl

Classic Chocolate City.

Sad ... but true....

Ex-New Orleans mayor Nagin charged with bribery
Jan 18, 2013 5:18 PM CST By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - More than a decade ago, Ray Nagin was elected mayor of New Orleans on a vow to root out corruption in a city plagued by decades of it. On Friday, the former mayor was indicted on charges he lined his pockets with bribe money, payoffs and gratuities while the chronically poor city struggled to recover from Hurricane Katrina's punishing blow.

The federal indictment alleges that city contractors paid Nagin more than $200,000 in bribes and subsidized his trips to Hawaii, Jamaica and other places in exchange for his help securing millions of dollars in work for the city. The charges against Nagin are the product of a City Hall corruption investigation that already has resulted in guilty pleas by two former city officials and two businessmen and a prison sentence for a former city vendor.

The case also punctuates the reversal of political and personal fortune for Nagin, who had what New Orleans Magazine editor Errol Laborde called "rock star status" soon after his election in 2002. Nagin, a former cable television executive, took office with an image as a largely apolitical businessman ready to root out corruption. "The media bought into that 100 percent. They used the term 'crackdown on corruption,'" Laborde said Friday. But Nagin's popularity and support waned in the years after Katrina. The federal investigation of his administration was mushrooming by the time he left office in 2010.

Rafael Goyeneche, head of the nonprofit watchdog agency the Metropolitan Crime Commission, remembers Nagin entering office with a call for the public to let authorities know about corruption. "To go from the mandate that he was elected with to reading this indictment today and finding out that he was in many respects, if these allegations are true, a complete fraud, is eye-opening," Goyeneche said Friday.

In inauguration remarks May 6, 2002, Nagin promised a City Hall "where permits and licenses are provided quickly, predictably and honestly; where contracts are awarded based on what you can do, not who you know."

Soon afterward, his administration's probe into alleged corruption in taxi cab regulation resulted in numerous arrests. "We're basically trying to send the signal ... that what has happened in the past, and the way people played in the gray areas, is no longer acceptable," Nagin said at the time. "We need to get in step with what's done in the rest of the country."

Friday's indictment accuses Nagin of accepting more than $160,000 in bribes and truckloads of free granite for his family business in exchange for promoting the interests of a local businessman who secured millions of dollars in city contract work after the 2005 hurricane. The businessman, Frank Fradella, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit bribery and has been cooperating with federal authorities.

Nagin, 56, also is charged with accepting at least $60,000 in payoffs from another businessman, Rodney Williams, for his help in securing city contracts for architectural, engineering and management services work. Williams, who was president of Three Fold Consultants LLC, pleaded guilty Dec. 5 to a conspiracy charge. The indictment also accuses Nagin - who now lives in Frisco, Texas - of getting free private jet and limousine services to New York from an unidentified businessman who owned a New Orleans movie theater. Nagin is accused of agreeing to waive tax penalties that the businessman owed to the city on a delinquent tax bill in 2006.

From several city contractors, Nagin is accused of accepting free travel and vacation expenses for trips to Hawaii, Chicago, Las Vegas and Jamaica while in office. The alleged bribery plot isn't limited to Nagin's tenure as mayor. Prosecutors say Nagin, a Democrat, accepted monthly payoffs from Fradella totaling $112,250 after he left office.

In 2010, Greg Meffert, a former technology official and deputy mayor under Nagin, pleaded guilty to charges he took bribes and kickbacks in exchange for steering city contracts to businessman Mark St. Pierre. Anthony Jones, who served as the city's chief technology officer in Nagin's administration, also pleaded guilty to taking payoffs. Meffert cooperated with the government in its case against St. Pierre, who was convicted in May 2011 of charges that include conspiracy, bribery and money laundering. The indictment says Nagin accepted bribes from St. Pierre, including free travel and lodging, cellphone service for relatives, and campaign funding.

Nagin's attorney, Robert Jenkins, didn't immediately return cellphone calls seeking comment on the indictment. No one answered the door at Nagin's home in Texas on Friday afternoon.

Nagin was a political novice before his first term as mayor in 2002, buoyed by strong support from white voters. He cast himself a reform-minded progressive who wasn't bound by party affiliations, as he snubbed fellow Democrat Kathleen Blanco and endorsed Republican Bobby Jindal's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2003.

Katrina elevated Nagin to the national stage, where he gained a reputation for colorful and sometimes cringe-inducing rhetoric. During a radio interview broadcast in the storm's early aftermath, he angrily pleaded with federal officials to "get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their -sses moving to New Orleans." In January 2006, he apologized for a Martin Luther King Day speech in which he predicted New Orleans would be a "chocolate city" and asserted that "God was mad at America."

Strong support from black voters helped Nagin win re-election in 2006 despite widespread criticism of his post-Katrina leadership. But the glacial pace of rebuilding, a surge in violent crime and the budding City Hall corruption investigation chipped away at Nagin's popularity during his second term.

Nagin could not seek a third consecutive term because of term limits. Mitch Landrieu, who ran against Nagin in 2006, succeeded him in 2010.

Aaron Bennett, a businessman awaiting sentencing in a separate bribery case, told The Times-Picayune that he introduced Nagin to Fradella specifically to help the mayor get Home Depot granite installation work for a business that he and his sons founded. Fradella's company received more than $4 million in city contracts for repair work at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and in the French Quarter after Katrina, the indictment says.

Some of the allegations in the indictment have been the subject of state ethics complaints.

In April 2010, the Louisiana Board of Ethics charged Nagin with two possible violations of state ethics law. One charge involved Nagin's "use of a credit card and/or gifts" from St. Pierre. In the other charge, the Ethics Board said Stone Age LLC, the Nagin family's business, was compensated for installation services provided to Home Depot while the home improvement retailer was negotiating tax breaks from the city.

The indictment doesn't mention Home Depot by name but says Nagin approved a 2007 ordinance that allowed city property to be sold to an unidentified "major retail corporation" at the same time he was soliciting the retailer for work for his granite business.

Nagin has largely steered clear of the political arena since he left office. On his Twitter account, he describes his current occupations as author, public speaker and "green energy entrepreneur." He wrote a self-published memoir called "Katrina's Secrets: Storms After the Storm."

A few hours before his indictment, Nagin retweeted a post by Texas megachurch pastor Joel Osteen that says, "You are closest to your victory when you face the greatest opposition."

Landrieu, Nagin's successor, called Friday a "sad day" for the city. "Today's indictment of former Mayor Ray Nagin alleges serious violations of the public's trust," he said in a statement. "Public corruption cannot and will not be tolerated."

Nagin's indictment is another blemish on the reputation of the city, which has been plagued by decades of corruption. "I was really disappointed in him," said Norlita Parker Wells, a city employee. "I expected more from him. I think it's funny only because when he was entering office he said he was going to run such a tight ship. What happened?"


Read more: http://www.myfoxhouston.com/story/20...#ixzz2IN9GQVEr

It is painfully obvious that this guy was a Democrat because nowhere in this story does it state what party he belongs to.

Most corrupt mayor in New Orleans history finally indicted
by Jeff Crouere 3 hrs 9 mins ago : ZacharyToday.com

C. Ray Nagin, the man who was elected mayor of New Orleans as a reformer has finally been indicted by federal prosecutors after a multi-year investigation.

With this 21-count indictment on bribery, conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering charges, Nagin has been revealed as the most corrupt mayor in New Orleans history. No other mayor in the almost 300 year history of New Orleans has been indicted for corruption charges by a federal grand jury.

This marks a new low for New Orleans politics. Nagin promised citizens clean, pro-business, policies that would be the envy of the country. Instead it is alleged that he took payoffs of $50,000 in granite for his Stone Age LLC company. He was also charged with taking bribes from businessmen looking to score contracts with the city of New Orleans. The federal government alleges that Nagin illegally received $50,000 from Frank Fradella, formerly of Home Solutions of America, and $72,500 from Rodney Williams of Three Fold Consultants.

In the 2002 campaign, Nagin claimed he would search the world for the best and brightest employees to lead City Hall. Instead he hired cronies from Cox Cable and unstable personalities like Kimberly Williamson Butler, who emerged from a short jail stint comparing herself to Gandhi and Martin Luther Jr. His top assistant was a law breaking egomaniac, Greg Meffert, who as technology director and deputy mayor enriched himself at the public’s expense and pleaded to conspiracy charges.

Nagin associated with corrupt business people like Fradella and technology vendor Mark St. Pierre, who is serving a 17 year jail sentence. St. Pierre provided Nagin with $1,500 in free lawn services, access to a luxurious yacht and free vacations to exotic destinations like Hawaii and Jamaica. Along with being corrupt, St. Pierre was incompetent as well. One of his foremost missions was to install crime cameras in New Orleans. After years of out of control crime, camera malfunctions, and other disappointments, the high priced cameras were eventually abandoned. The only people to benefit from the high tech crime fighting tools were St. Pierre and Nagin. Sadly, the citizens of the Murder Capital of the nation remained under assault on the crime ridden streets of New Orleans.

When the exasperated citizens of New Orleans marched on City Hall to demand action on the crime issue, Nagin was so disinterested that he practically ignored the massive rally and spent his time texting business associates regarding his granite business. His preoccupation in the granite company led Nagin to deliver favors for Home Depot in exchange for Stone Age receiving granite contracts with the company.

Overall, his leadership of the city post-Katrina was a nightmare. After refusing to order the use of school buses to evacuate citizens in New Orleans, Nagin spent precious hours in the aftermath of the storm on the top floor of the destroyed Hyatt Hotel. During the crucial post-Katrina period, Nagin retreated to a vacation home in Dallas so often that he became a fixture in that city. Today, Nagin lives in Dallas, not his home town of New Orleans.

In maybe his worst personnel decision, Nagin hired maybe the most delusional “recovery director” imaginable in Ed Blakely, a self described worldwide expert who promised “cranes in the sky” within a year of his hiring. Sadly, Blakely spent much of his time bashing the citizens of New Orleans, collecting his lucrative salary and traveling back and forth to his home in Australia.

Nagin impeded the growth of New Orleans with his corruption, arrogance and incompetence. To members of the media who tried to expose his corruption, Nagin acted like a street thug. In fact, he even threatened to fight the news director of WWL-TV in the station’s parking lot.

In this re-election campaign, his shameless descent into racism with the “chocolate city” comments was a stunning blow to unity in New Orleans and served to further impede the recovery of the city post-Katrina. He was only re-elected in 2006 after he delivered racist appeals, for he could not run on any accomplishments.

In his final term, Nagin worked to enrich himself at the expense of the people of New Orleans. His final project, the Armstrong Park renovations, was a fitting end to his disastrous second term. Nagin hired a convicted felon to oversee the project, which ended in a total mess with the expensive sculptures in disrepair and even the sidewalks improperly installed.

Throughout his second term, Nagin made stunningly embarrassing comments that made citizens cringe. He said he wanted to send the homeless on a one-way ticket out of town. Nagin referred to himself as a “vagina friendly” mayor in introducing the “Vagina Monologues” to New Orleans. The mayor even traveled to New York and criticized their recovery from the 9/11 attacks by calling the sacred site a “hole in the ground.”

In short, Nagin was a public relations disaster for New Orleans. He delivered nothing but corruption and broken promises.

Hopefully, he will be receiving what he deserves; justice for the many crimes he is charged with committing.

Ray Nagin is a sad reminder that elections matter, they truly matter.

http://zacharytoday.com/bookmark/21519745

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin might deserve the biggest FYA of the week. For all the finger pointing that he is doing, he’s ignoring the obvious…the first 2-3 days of a natural disaster should be handled by the local agencies before national agencies can mobilize and begin helping. Nagin failed his city miserably. And now he’s looking for someone else to blame:

•Mayor Nagin ordered the refugees to the Superdome and Convention Center without adequate security and no provisions for food, water and sanitary conditions.

•Mayor Nagin failed in his responsibility to provide public safety and to manage the orderly evacuation of the citizens of New Orleans.

•The federal government does not have the authority to intervene in a state emergency without the request of a governor. President Bush declared an emergency prior to Katrina hitting New Orleans.

•Governor Blanco failed to send a timely request for specific aid.

•The federal government’s role is to offer aid upon request.

http://urbangrounds.com/2005/09/fy-awards/



The 5 Worst People of 2005
Posted by Robbie Cooper on 12/22/2005


TIME magazine just named their Person of the Year (persons as it turned out). But there were a lot of not-so-great people in 2005. So, here’s my list of the Top 5 Worst People of 2005:

1.New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin — along with Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, Mayor Nagin was the person most responsible for planning, preparing, and executing an evacuation plan of New Orleans in case of a major hurricane or levee breach. And when Hurricane Katrina hit his city, he was the single person most responsible for the human suffering that followed. That’s enough to put Mayor Nagin on this list. But Nagin makes numero uno because of his defiant finger pointing and inability to accept any responsibility or criticism.

2.Cindy Sheehan — opposing the war is one thing, but to defile the life and memories of your dead child to do so is disgusting. Cindy Sheehan started off as a media darling when it was conceivable that her protest was all about her dead child. But the more she carried on, the more she appeared at the side of celebrities, the more she grinned her way through staged-arrests, and the more she spewed antisemitic rhetoric, the more it became obvious that it wasn’t about her son — rather it was all about her.

3.The Reverend Jesse Jackson — Every time there was camera shining on some undeserving idiot, you could count on the Right-Reverend Jesse Jackson to make an appearance and to preen for the cameras. Before Cindy Sheehan jumped the shark, Jesse was there smiling for the cameras and criticizing the Republican President. When convicted murderer Tookie Williams was set to be executed, there was Jesse criticizing the Republican Governor. Jesse is an opportunistic racist, and has done more to damage race relations than he has to repair them in this country.

4.Howard Dean — More than any single person this year, Howard Dean sh-t on the work and morale of our Soldiers, and gave hope to our terrorist enemies. Howard Dean doesn’t even pretend to like the heart of this country — conservative Christians. Luckily for Republicans, Howard Dean will be the single largest factor in the Democrats not winning in 2008. ( Missed that one ! )

5.Terrell Owens — first Terrell claimed he couldn’t afford to feed his family on his paltry multi-million dollar a year salary. And then one year into a very lucrative 7-year contract, Terrell decided to call out and criticize his coaches and fellow players. When, surprisingly, that didn’t get Terrell more money, he decided to fight his own teammates. Instead of getting a new contract, Terrell got suspended and then kicked off the team. Sadly, this is exactly what the prima donna wanted. For being a cancer to your team because of your unrivaled selfishness, Terrell, you are on this list.

Others receiving votes: Michael Schiavo (for starving his wife to death), John Murtha (for being a cut-and-run defeatist), the rest of the Democratic party (excluding Joe Biden), Al Franken and the rest of Air America radio (for stealing money from at-risk children), and Hollywood’s Limo-Liberals.

http://urbangrounds.com/2005/12/top-5-worst-people/

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleads not guilty to corruption charges
Wednesday, February 20, 2013 - 2:35pm

NEW ORLEANS, LA (WDSU-CNN) — Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appeared in before magistrate judge Sally Shushan on Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to corruption charges.

Before former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin appears before a judge, he'll have to go through the swath of reporters first.

A federal judge has postponed an arraignment for former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on charges he accepted bribes and gratuities from city contractors in exchange for helping them secure millions of dollars in work for the city.
More

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin sends out a tweet one day after his indictment with a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The man who helped the city of New Orleans get through Hurricane Katrina is now charged in a 21-count corruption case.

In magistrate court, a defendant can only plead not guilty. A magistrate judge then sets bond, hearing dates and a tentative trial date. A not guilty plea in front a magistrate judge is required as a formality for anyone indicted on criminal charges.

Nagin's trial was set for April 29 at 10 a.m. His bond was set at $100,000.

Nagin was charged in a 21-count indictment on Jan. 18. The charges include bribery, conspiracy, money laundering and more.

The indictment says Nagin accepted bribes from Frank Fradella, including $50,000, granite inventory, and nine payoffs in the form of wire transfers from Fradella totaling $112,500. The indictment also said that Nagin accepted approximately $72,250 in bribes from Rodney Williams and his company, Three Fold Consultants, LLC.

The indictment charges Nagin with accepting bribes and payoffs from consultants and contractors, money laundering conspiracy and filing false tax returns from 2005 to 2008.

http://www.nbc33tv.com/news/crimetra...rleans-mayor-0

Eyewitness News investigator David Hammer has uncovered another alleged quid-pro-quo involving indicted Mayor Ray Nagin and Businessman A.

http://www.wwltv.com/news/nagin-indi...195170261.html

UPDATE - Jurors find former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin guilty of 20 out of 21 counts against him.
Feb 12, 2014 11:52 AM
http://www.wbrz.com/news/jury-reache...n-nagin-trial/

Jury finds ex-New Orleans mayor guilty in bribery case
The federal jury found Ray Nagin guilty of 20 of 21 counts against him. He sat quietly at the defense table after the verdict was read
4 hr ago |By Kevin McGill of Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Former News Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, best remembered for his impassioned pleas for help after the levees broke during Hurricane Katrina, was convicted Wednesday of accepting bribes in exchange for helping businessmen secure millions of dollars in city work, including after the devastating storm.

The federal jury found Nagin guilty of 20 of 21 counts against him, involving a string of crimes before and after the storm. He sat quietly at the defense table after the verdict was read and his wife, Seletha, was being consoled in the front row.

Before the verdict, the 57-year-old Ray Nagin said outside the New Orleans courtroom: "I've been at peace with this for a long time. I'm good."

Sentencing was set for June 11. Nagin left the courthouse more than an hour after the verdict was read, and after U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan ordered that his bond be modified to provide for "additional conditions of electronic monitoring and home confinement."

The Democrat, who left office in 2010 after eight years, was indicted in January 2013 on charges he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes — money, free vacation trips and truckloads of free granite for his family business — from businessmen who wanted work from the city or Nagin's support for various projects.

The granite and some of the money came from developer Frank Fradella. More money came from another contractor, Rodney Williams, for Nagin's help in securing city contracts. Convicted former city vendor Mark St. Pierre, who got a no-bid contract with the city in Nagin's first term, provided trips to Jamaica and Hawaii.

A movie theater owner seeking tax breaks provided a trip to New York, prosecutors said. In a conspiracy count, prosecutors also said Nagin sought and got granite work for his business from a major retailer, identified in court as The Home Depot, while helping the retailer work out details related to the opening of a new store in post-Katrina new Orleans. The company was not accused of any wrongdoing.

Nagin had vehemently denied it all during several hours of testimony that spanned two days of trial. But the jury didn't believe him. The only not-guilty verdict came on one count of bribery involving a portion of the money from Williams.

Nagin had testified that key witnesses lied and prosecutors misinterpreted evidence including emails, checks and pages from his appointment calendar linking him to businessmen who said they bribed him.

As Nagin and defense attorney Robert Jenkins left the courthouse Wednesday, walking with a throng of media, photographers and video cameras, Nagin could be heard saying: "I maintain my innocence."

The defense repeatedly said prosecutors overstated Nagin's authority to approve contracts. His lawyer said there is no proof money and material given to the granite business owned by Nagin and his sons, Stone Age LLC, was tied to city business.

The charges against Nagin included one overarching conspiracy count along with six counts of bribery, nine counts of wire fraud, one count of money laundering conspiracy and four counts of filing false tax returns.

The charges carry a variety of maximum sentences ranging from three to 20 years, but how long he would serve was unclear and will depend on a pre-sentence investigation and various sentencing guidelines.

Jenkins said Nagin's testimony didn't hurt the case and that an appeal would be filed after sentencing.

The conviction wasn't a surprise to Rainelle Smith, 64, of New Orleans, who said she voted for Nagin. "I don't believe he served the city as well as he should have," she said. "He was supposed to come in and prevent the corruption the city was known for. We, in my family, thought of him as the 'cleanup man.' Instead he gets in office and he soiled it more."

The charges resulted from a City Hall corruption investigation that had resulted in several convictions or guilty pleas by former Nagin associates by the time trial started on Jan. 27.

Fradella and Williams, both awaiting sentencing for their roles in separate bribery schemes alleged in the case, each testified that they bribed Nagin.

Nagin's former technology chief, Greg Meffert, who also is awaiting sentencing after a plea deal, told jurors he helped St. Pierre, bribe Nagin with lavish vacation trips. St. Pierre did not testify. He was convicted in the case in 2011.

http://news.msn.com/crime-justice/ju...ocid=ansnews11

Our Views: A mayor for himself
February 13, 2014

When New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was spending a lot of his time padding his bank account, thousands of New Orleanians were stuck in FEMA trailers, or bunking a dozen to a house with relatives in Baton Rouge or Houston or Atlanta, or working into the night repairing flooded houses.

They have a right to feel betrayed by their mayor.

His conviction on 20 counts of bribery and fraud showed a mayor out to use his office for private gain.

When New Orleanians needed the best mayor that Ray Nagin could be, they got a man spending hours on himself. It’s not just the violations of the law, but the damning portrait of a long series of meetings and phone calls that were devoted not to the suffering of the people of New Orleans but the concerns of city vendors who just happened to be investors, as he put it, in Stone Age, the family granite business. There was a series of festive family meals charged to the city, after he’d laid off thousands of employees. He offered to help Home Depot avoid city obligations to workers at the new Central City store in exchange for city concessions, just as he was begging company officials to send installation jobs in Stone Age’s direction.

Avarice is as old as humanity, and $130,000 a year was clearly not enough to sustain the lifestyle that Nagin wanted from the beginning of his terms in public office. The pre-Katrina dealings unveiled in U.S. District Court suggest that the financial pressures on Nagin were not a consequence of the devastating storms of 2005.

What is infuriating is that the crisis of Katrina and Rita that year did not call him to sacrifice for the city that had taken him from complete political obscurity to make him mayor.

Instead, the jury in U.S. District Court saw emails and appointment books filled with time spent on contract-fixing and payments that he implausibly construed before the jury as gifts from acquaintances, who just happened to be dealing with the city all the time. Many of them sang to prosecutors when they were caught, and Nagin’s defense assailed their integrity. But the mayor’s precarious personal finances of the time were on display in the record, and the jury was obviously not convinced that the mayor’s excuse of inattention to details could have accounted for $500,000 in kickbacks and “gifts.”

If Nagin is the first mayor of New Orleans to be convicted of an official crime, he is hardly the first public official in Louisiana to face this kind of verdict. Perhaps some will latch onto this as another example of the old style of Louisiana corruption, but such cases are not unique to Louisiana. We applaud the federal prosecutors for their investigation and for the thoroughness of their case, obviously quite convincing to the jury.

If there is a larger lesson in this tawdry story, it is about the people Nagin was supposed to be leading at a historic and tragic juncture, those people scattered by the winds of Katrina and flooded out of their homes when the levees failed, those whose possessions and lifestyles were far more modest than the mayor’s.

That community and those across the state and the South who took them in acted far more nobly, and the recovery of the city of New Orleans since 2005 is a tribute to their goodness and grit in the face of horrendous hardships.

The people and the city were better than their leader. By far.

http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/...ws-a-mayor-for