A
jury has just returned guilty verdicts on 20 of the 21 counts of
corruption and bribery that Ray Nagin faced in a nine-day trial.
Barring a favorable appeal, Nagin, 57, could be sentenced to as much
as two decades in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors used 26 witnesses
and reams of documents to detail how Nagin accepted more than $500,000
in payouts, including first-class trips to Jamaica and Manhattan, in
exchange for millions of dollars in city contracts.
Nagin’s spectacular plunge from upstart politician and post-storm
persona to convicted felon is more than just another case study in
public service gone awry. American history – Louisiana’s in particular –
is littered with similar cases of politicians on the take.
What makes Nagin’s case unique is that it occurred amid one of the
worst catastrophes to hit a U.S. city. The floods unleashed by faulty
federal levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, led to
the deaths of 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, caused a
record-breaking $135 billion in damage and devastated New Orleans.
- See more at: http://www.blackmediascoop.com/guilty-new-orleans-mayor-faces-20-years-in-prison/#sthash.rcGXFJyy.dpuf
A
jury has just returned guilty verdicts on 20 of the 21 counts of
corruption and bribery that Ray Nagin faced in a nine-day trial.
Barring a favorable appeal, Nagin, 57, could be sentenced to as much
as two decades in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors used 26 witnesses
and reams of documents to detail how Nagin accepted more than $500,000
in payouts, including first-class trips to Jamaica and Manhattan, in
exchange for millions of dollars in city contracts.
Nagin’s spectacular plunge from upstart politician and post-storm
persona to convicted felon is more than just another case study in
public service gone awry. American history – Louisiana’s in particular –
is littered with similar cases of politicians on the take.
What makes Nagin’s case unique is that it occurred amid one of the
worst catastrophes to hit a U.S. city. The floods unleashed by faulty
federal levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, led to
the deaths of 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, caused a
record-breaking $135 billion in damage and devastated New Orleans.
- See more at: http://www.blackmediascoop.com/guilty-new-orleans-mayor-faces-20-years-in-prison/#sthash.rcGXFJyy.dpuf
A
jury has just returned guilty verdicts on 20 of the 21 counts of
corruption and bribery that Ray Nagin faced in a nine-day trial.
Barring a favorable appeal, Nagin, 57, could be sentenced to as much
as two decades in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors used 26 witnesses
and reams of documents to detail how Nagin accepted more than $500,000
in payouts, including first-class trips to Jamaica and Manhattan, in
exchange for millions of dollars in city contracts.
Nagin’s spectacular plunge from upstart politician and post-storm
persona to convicted felon is more than just another case study in
public service gone awry. American history – Louisiana’s in particular –
is littered with similar cases of politicians on the take.
What makes Nagin’s case unique is that it occurred amid one of the
worst catastrophes to hit a U.S. city. The floods unleashed by faulty
federal levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, led to
the deaths of 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, caused a
record-breaking $135 billion in damage and devastated New Orleans.
- See more at: http://www.blackmediascoop.com/guilty-new-orleans-mayor-faces-20-years-in-prison/#sthash.rcGXFJyy.dpuf
A
jury has just returned guilty verdicts on 20 of the 21 counts of
corruption and bribery that Ray Nagin faced in a nine-day trial.
Barring a favorable appeal, Nagin, 57, could be sentenced to as much
as two decades in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors used 26 witnesses
and reams of documents to detail how Nagin accepted more than $500,000
in payouts, including first-class trips to Jamaica and Manhattan, in
exchange for millions of dollars in city contracts.
Nagin’s spectacular plunge from upstart politician and post-storm
persona to convicted felon is more than just another case study in
public service gone awry. American history – Louisiana’s in particular –
is littered with similar cases of politicians on the take.
What makes Nagin’s case unique is that it occurred amid one of the
worst catastrophes to hit a U.S. city. The floods unleashed by faulty
federal levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, led to
the deaths of 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, caused a
record-breaking $135 billion in damage and devastated New Orleans.
- See more at: http://www.blackmediascoop.com/guilty-new-orleans-mayor-faces-20-years-in-prison/#sthash.rcGXFJyy.dpuf
A
jury has just returned guilty verdicts on 20 of the 21 counts of
corruption and bribery that Ray Nagin faced in a nine-day trial.
Barring a favorable appeal, Nagin, 57, could be sentenced to as much
as two decades in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors used 26 witnesses
and reams of documents to detail how Nagin accepted more than $500,000
in payouts, including first-class trips to Jamaica and Manhattan, in
exchange for millions of dollars in city contracts.
Nagin’s spectacular plunge from upstart politician and post-storm
persona to convicted felon is more than just another case study in
public service gone awry. American history – Louisiana’s in particular –
is littered with similar cases of politicians on the take.
What makes Nagin’s case unique is that it occurred amid one of the
worst catastrophes to hit a U.S. city. The floods unleashed by faulty
federal levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, led to
the deaths of 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, caused a
record-breaking $135 billion in damage and devastated New Orleans.
- See more at: http://www.blackmediascoop.com/guilty-new-orleans-mayor-faces-20-years-in-prison/#sthash.rcGXFJyy.dpuf
A
jury has just returned guilty verdicts on 20 of the 21 counts of
corruption and bribery that Ray Nagin faced in a nine-day trial.
Barring a favorable appeal, Nagin, 57, could be sentenced to as much
as two decades in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors used 26 witnesses
and reams of documents to detail how Nagin accepted more than $500,000
in payouts, including first-class trips to Jamaica and Manhattan, in
exchange for millions of dollars in city contracts.
Nagin’s spectacular plunge from upstart politician and post-storm
persona to convicted felon is more than just another case study in
public service gone awry. American history – Louisiana’s in particular –
is littered with similar cases of politicians on the take.
What makes Nagin’s case unique is that it occurred amid one of the
worst catastrophes to hit a U.S. city. The floods unleashed by faulty
federal levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, led to
the deaths of 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, caused a
record-breaking $135 billion in damage and devastated New Orleans.
- See more at: http://www.blackmediascoop.com/guilty-new-orleans-mayor-faces-20-years-in-prison/#sthash.rcGXFJyy.dpuf
A
jury has just returned guilty verdicts on 20 of the 21 counts of
corruption and bribery that Ray Nagin faced in a nine-day trial.
Barring a favorable appeal, Nagin, 57, could be sentenced to as much
as two decades in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors used 26 witnesses
and reams of documents to detail how Nagin accepted more than $500,000
in payouts, including first-class trips to Jamaica and Manhattan, in
exchange for millions of dollars in city contracts.
Nagin’s spectacular plunge from upstart politician and post-storm
persona to convicted felon is more than just another case study in
public service gone awry. American history – Louisiana’s in particular –
is littered with similar cases of politicians on the take.
What makes Nagin’s case unique is that it occurred amid one of the
worst catastrophes to hit a U.S. city. The floods unleashed by faulty
federal levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, led to
the deaths of 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, caused a
record-breaking $135 billion in damage and devastated New Orleans.
- See more at: http://www.blackmediascoop.com/guilty-new-orleans-mayor-faces-20-years-in-prison/#sthash.rcGXFJyy.dpuf
Former New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin who became the face of a
desperate, drowning city during Hurricane Katrina was convicted today on charges of accepting bribes from city contractors while in
office.
Nagin, a Democrat, was found guilty by a federal jury on 20 of
21 criminal counts, including bribery, conspiracy and wire fraud. He was
acquitted on one count of bribery.
Prosecutors said that Nagin accepted illegal gifts from contractors,
beginning before Katrina hit and continuing afterward. Among the gifts:
money, free vacation travel and truckloads of granite for Stone Age LLC,
a business Nagin and his sons owned.
Nagin had moved to Frisco,
Tex., after leaving office as mayor. He has been ordered to remain on
home confinement, subject to electronic monitoring, while he awaits
sentencing. Several of the 20 charges carry a sentence of up to 20 years
in prison.
Those convictions ended a remarkable fall for Nagin, a
former cable TV executive who denounced New Orleans’s culture of
corruption when he ran for mayor in 2002.
Nagin was mayor when the
storm hit in August 2005 and served as a kind of human metaphor for the
city’s collapse. The country watched the mayor break down, just as his
city did.
“They don’t have a clue what’s going on down here,” Nagin told a radio interviewer
several days after the storm, expressing outrage that federal
authorities had not sent enough help. “I need reinforcements, I need
troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. . . . This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans.”
But
through it all, prosecutors said, Nagin seemed to be absorbing the
corrupt ethos he had promised to fight. This year in a New Orleans
courtroom, they described how Nagin had taken a variety of things from
contractors seeking business with the city.
In court, Nagin denied
taking bribes and said instead that he had only approved contracts from
low-bidding vendors, or contracts selected by a committee of others.
Nagin denied the contracts were tied to the benefits given to either
himself or his family business, the Associated Press reported.
Nagin
left office in 2010, replaced by Mitch Landrieu (D), the brother of
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). Mitch Landrieu was reelected this year
to another term.
A
jury has just returned guilty verdicts on 20 of the 21 counts of
corruption and bribery that Ray Nagin faced in a nine-day trial.
Barring a favorable appeal, Nagin, 57, could be sentenced to as much
as two decades in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors used 26 witnesses
and reams of documents to detail how Nagin accepted more than $500,000
in payouts, including first-class trips to Jamaica and Manhattan, in
exchange for millions of dollars in city contracts.
Nagin’s spectacular plunge from upstart politician and post-storm
persona to convicted felon is more than just another case study in
public service gone awry. American history – Louisiana’s in particular –
is littered with similar cases of politicians on the take.
What makes Nagin’s case unique is that it occurred amid one of the
worst catastrophes to hit a U.S. city. The floods unleashed by faulty
federal levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, led to
the deaths of 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, caused a
record-breaking $135 billion in damage and devastated New Orleans.
- See more at: http://www.blackmediascoop.com/guilty-new-orleans-mayor-faces-20-years-in-prison/#sthash.N17Ctrwc.dpuf
A
jury has just returned guilty verdicts on 20 of the 21 counts of
corruption and bribery that Ray Nagin faced in a nine-day trial.
Barring a favorable appeal, Nagin, 57, could be sentenced to as much
as two decades in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors used 26 witnesses
and reams of documents to detail how Nagin accepted more than $500,000
in payouts, including first-class trips to Jamaica and Manhattan, in
exchange for millions of dollars in city contracts.
Nagin’s spectacular plunge from upstart politician and post-storm
persona to convicted felon is more than just another case study in
public service gone awry. American history – Louisiana’s in particular –
is littered with similar cases of politicians on the take.
What makes Nagin’s case unique is that it occurred amid one of the
worst catastrophes to hit a U.S. city. The floods unleashed by faulty
federal levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, led to
the deaths of 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, caused a
record-breaking $135 billion in damage and devastated New Orleans.
- See more at: http://www.blackmediascoop.com/guilty-new-orleans-mayor-faces-20-years-in-prison/#sthash.rcGXFJyy.dpuf
A
jury has just returned guilty verdicts on 20 of the 21 counts of
corruption and bribery that Ray Nagin faced in a nine-day trial.
Barring a favorable appeal, Nagin, 57, could be sentenced to as much
as two decades in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors used 26 witnesses
and reams of documents to detail how Nagin accepted more than $500,000
in payouts, including first-class trips to Jamaica and Manhattan, in
exchange for millions of dollars in city contracts.
Nagin’s spectacular plunge from upstart politician and post-storm
persona to convicted felon is more than just another case study in
public service gone awry. American history – Louisiana’s in particular –
is littered with similar cases of politicians on the take.
What makes Nagin’s case unique is that it occurred amid one of the
worst catastrophes to hit a U.S. city. The floods unleashed by faulty
federal levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, led to
the deaths of 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, caused a
record-breaking $135 billion in damage and devastated New Orleans.
- See more at: http://www.blackmediascoop.com/guilty-new-orleans-mayor-faces-20-years-in-prison/#sthash.rcGXFJyy.dpuf
A
jury has just returned guilty verdicts on 20 of the 21 counts of
corruption and bribery that Ray Nagin faced in a nine-day trial.
Barring a favorable appeal, Nagin, 57, could be sentenced to as much
as two decades in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors used 26 witnesses
and reams of documents to detail how Nagin accepted more than $500,000
in payouts, including first-class trips to Jamaica and Manhattan, in
exchange for millions of dollars in city contracts.
Nagin’s spectacular plunge from upstart politician and post-storm
persona to convicted felon is more than just another case study in
public service gone awry. American history – Louisiana’s in particular –
is littered with similar cases of politicians on the take.
What makes Nagin’s case unique is that it occurred amid one of the
worst catastrophes to hit a U.S. city. The floods unleashed by faulty
federal levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, led to
the deaths of 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, caused a
record-breaking $135 billion in damage and devastated New Orleans.
- See more at: http://www.blackmediascoop.com/guilty-new-orleans-mayor-faces-20-years-in-prison/#sthash.rcGXFJyy.dpuf
