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发帖数: 29846 | 1 When Ray Nagin left office in mid-2010 after a disastrous second term as
mayor, the focus was mainly on his failure to lead New Orleans' post-Katrina
recovery. In the four years after he left City Hall, though, it became
clear that he not only had neglected his duties as mayor, he had set about
to enrich himself by selling his office.
The jury in his federal public corruption trial made that judgment official
Wednesday, finding him guilty on 20 of 21 counts of bribery, wire fraud and
tax evasion.
The picture painted by the government's 26 witnesses was of a man consumed
with the need for other people to pay his bills -- contractors, friends,
employees and the public.
Mr. Nagin's defense was that everyone else was lying. He claimed not to know
that a city technology vendor and people seeking business or permits from
the city were paying for flights on private jets and lavish vacations for
him. He said he only courted contractors to further the city's recovery.
Hearing him claim on the stand that he was looking out for the needs of his
constituents was especially galling. Mr. Nagin's disinterest in city
government was obvious soon after he was elected to his second term in May
2006, nine months after floodwaters swamped 80 percent of the city.
When frustrated residents marched on City Hall in January 2007 to demand
action on crime, one wore a shirt with the question "C Ray?" and the answer,
"Not Lately."
Even his own staffers were frustrated by Mr. Nagin's lack of focus. One put
it this way in a Times-Picayune interview in February 2007: "If you don't
have a goal, how do you know what to do when you wake up in the morning?"
Now New Orleanians know what Mr. Nagin's goal was: Setting himself and his
family up financially. He started before Hurricane Katrina and accelerated
his take after the disaster left his city in ruins.
An IRS special agent testified during the trial that Mr. Nagin failed to
report more than $340,000 on his taxes between 2005 and 2008 -- the sum of
bribes paid to him. As expected, businessmen Frank Fradella and Rodney
Williams testified to the bribes they had already confessed to paying Mr.
Nagin in exchange for city work. Mr. Williams, the founder of Three Fold
Consultants, said he provided the then-mayor $72,000 in cash. Mr. Fradella,
former head of disaster management firm Home Solutions of America, ponied up
$50,000 in cash -- which was half of what Mr. Nagin wanted. He also
provided free granite worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Nagin
family's countertop business, Stone Age LLC, and paid Mr. Nagin $112,500 in
monthly installments of $12,500 after he left office.
The countertop business, which was incorporated a few months before Katrina,
was integral to the corruption case. Multiple prosecution witnesses
described how the then-mayor helped kill a city proposal that would have
required Home Depot to pay above-market wages all the while he was
soliciting contracts from the big box retailer for Stone Age.
A lobbyist for Home Depot testified he warned in an email to company
officials that Mr. Nagin was a "shakedown artist."
The prosecution's witnesses provided example after example of a mayor on the
take.
Mr. Nagin's attempts to shift the blame away from himself sounded much like
his excuses for doing so little during his second term -- it was always
someone else's fault then too, supposedly.
Addressing jurors Monday in his closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney
Matt Coman summed up the importance of this trial: "Now it's time for Ray
Nagin to be held accountable for his own actions."
Wednesday's verdict did just that. |
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