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Subscribe to RSSRay Nagin has been indicted on 21 counts of corruption. NewsNation's Tamron Hall reports.
NEW ORLEANS -- Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was indicted Friday on charges that he used his office for personal gain, accepting payoffs, free trips and gratuities from contractors while the city was struggling to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
The charges against Nagin are the outgrowth 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 federal 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 bribery conspiracy and securities-fraud charges 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 of getting free private jet and limousine services to New York from an unidentified businessman. Nagin is accused of agreeing to wave tax penalties that the businessman owed to the city on a delinquent tax bill in 2006.
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.
Nagin, a former cable television executive, was a political novice before being elected to 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 asses 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."
Enrique De La Osa / Reuters file
Ray Nagin, then mayor of New Orleans, in October 2009.
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 millions of dollars in city contracts for repair work at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and in the French Quarter after Katrina, the newspaper reported.
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 involves Nagin's "use of a credit card and/or gifts" from St. Pierre and his technology firm, NetMethods, while the company was working for the city. NetMethods paid for Nagin and his family to travel to Jamaica in 2005 and to Hawaii in 2004, according to newspaper reports.
In the other charge, the Ethics Board says 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.
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."
Nagin's attorney, Robert Jenkins, didn't immediately return cellphone calls seeking comment on the indictment.
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In 4 years, a chocolate flavored pardon.
LuckV hates black people.
"We will take all guns..." Maybe he had something bigger in mind...
You have to love how history rewrites itself.While this guy was mayor during Katrina he was a dismal failure.What was it,he allowed 300 buses to go under water instead of using them to move the people to higher ground.Law and order failed under his watch but just like our current national failure he was voted back in by the ignorant and mentally challenged.
Right now, the Govt. should all be studying the fall of the Roman Empire. We never seem to learn by our mistakes.
Gee ..... I am absolutely shocked! Thank goodness there aren't any other corrupt politicians in large and small cities, counties and the federal government ..... just think of the taxpayer money that would be wasted.
Yeeeah...You ARE being facetious, aren't you?
Old Gasser, no kidding, if there was that much corruption going on we might rack up a huge deficit, and have to make people pay higher taxes. Thank god that isn't the case though.
Any one with a little common sense knew he was dirty. Libs loved him. Had plenty of buses available to move people and did nothing. And all those fools that stayed after being told to leave have no one to blame but themselves. Corrupt leading stupid, what a combination.
Damyou, corruption is corruption regardless of party. It is not a liberal or conservative thing. I say we let this go to trial and hear the evidence. If he did as charged, convict him as you would any crook. That being said, Louisiana has always been at or near the top of the list of most corrupt states.
Shocking news that the incompetent who ignored the evacuation warnings about Katrina, doesn't know the meaning of the word leadership, but is real good at handwringing on national news, is a crook.
LMAO.
I remember when the left was railing against GWB for the Katrina debacle, and the press was raining down praises on this guy.
I guess Ray Nagin hates black people too.
I guess whatever bad Nagin did automatically goes to the good of George Bush regarding Katrina?... I believe you've just put yourself in the running for the lifetimeachievement award in False Equivalency! Congratulations on being a world class imbecile!
Guess if he's convicted, they will really send him to the Big Chocolate City! Pick up the soap.
Nagin and Blanco totally screwed up during Katrina. Everyone blamed Bush, but he had FEMA there and the Red Cross. Blanco wouldn't let them in. I was there helping out at a relief center and saw the incompetence first hand.
Nagin is finally getting what he deserves.
No, an apology isn't enough. He only apologized because public opinion of him is so low and he figured coming clean would be the first step toward trying to build some sort of future where will be accepted. He's a lying schmuck who got caught.
To Random,
There will always be corrupt PEOPLE. I hear stories corrupt lawyers, bankers, doctors and College Professors all the time. To simply state all politicians are crooks keeps so many good people from ever considering public service because they do not want that stigma attached to their name. And now more than ever we need good people who are loyal to the USA and want to see America succeed to run. We should embrace their campaigns not malign them so much they never enter the race to begin with. I believe a better statement is most crooked politicians get caught.
Hey being government is like winning the lottery the higher you are the bigger the jackpot. If Nagin hadn't gotten so greedy he would have gotten away with it.
Typical. Where else might we find corruption amongst that certain demographic? Of course, being objectively critical will bring on cries of racism and the like so that it remains where it should...
Yeah Patrick, I knew right off he was a (D), if he was a (R) it would have been repeated 40-300 times in the short article
So true.
The press always shows party affiliation if the scandal involves the GOP.
So, not only was Nagin incompetent, he was also crooked. I guess the two traits go together. He betrayed the people of New Orleans in more ways than one. He betrayed their trust by failing to call an evacuation earlier and blaming federal officials for his own failure to do his job. And then he betrayed the people's trust by pocketing relief money instead of spending it where it was supposed to be spent.
Obviously, we are only at the indictment phase. There needs to be a trial. But it sounds bad for the former mayor. After all this time the people of Nola deserve justice.
How is that Chocolate City working for you Nagin?
No way, No way Nagan, the DemocRAT could be guilty of any corruption. DemocRATs never do this kind of stuff, only the GOP. The "chocolate" city mayor rates right up there with another black elected official - Jesse Jackson Jr. They're all crooks and they want us all to just shut up and go away.
Good. He came off an an arrogant prick, who did nothing but point fingers at other people.
Power corrupts! Absolute power corrupts absolutely! Been that way since the first public official was elected! What else is new?
Not true low information voter.......
George Washington was not corrupt, nor his first appointment David Rittenhouse the first director of the US Mint.
Nagin stealing money from those affect by Katrina? Hmm... Hey Kanye -- it looks like Ray Nagin doesn't care about black people, either.
looks like the chocolate mayor is going to go to chocolate prison and get his chocolate packed really good.
Cant trust iggers and iggers. A wigger is a white version,very cunning...like a chink
holy @!$%# tell us how you really feel.
Do we have any elected officials in this country that aren't bent?
thumbs up suckers...i mean sheep ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^