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NEW ORLEANS — Former Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans was found guilty on Wednesday of accepting payoffs for city contracts, becoming the first mayor in the city’s history to be charged and convicted of corruption.
The jury, deliberated for about six and a half hours in total before finding Mr. Nagin, 57, the Democratic mayor for two terms and the face of the city’s leadership during the Hurricane Katrina disaster, guilty in 20 of the 21 counts against him.
Tania Tetlow, a Tulane University law professor and a former federal prosecutor, said Mr. Nagin could receive a sentence of as many as 20 years under federal sentencing guidelines. He will remain free on bond until sentencing, but was placed on home detention.
After the verdict was read, Mr. Nagin stood at the defense table, his hands in his pockets; his wife wept as she sat in the front row of the gallery.
The verdict came after a seven-day trial, during which more than 30 witnesses testified, including some businessmen who had pleaded guilty to bribing Mr. Nagin in return for contracting work with the city. The most compelling days of the trial, and the ones that filled a courtroom that was half-empty most of the time, were those when Mr. Nagin himself took the stand, sparring with the prosecutor and dismissing the charges against him as misleading and misinformed.
With multiple witnesses and an extensive paper trial, federal prosecutors described a sequence of transactions between the mayor and various business interests, all following a similar pattern. The owner of a company would be trying to get city work, and would at some point make contact with Mr. Nagin. Mr. Nagin would ask for a favor, often in the form of payments to the granite countertop business Mr. Nagin ran with his two sons.
Sometimes the perk for Mr. Nagin would be less direct than cash — a trip to Jamaica or Hawaii or Chicago, free cell service for his family or shipments of valuable granite slabs. But around the same time that Mr. Nagin received money or something else of value, the businessman would be awarded contracts for city projects, or would find that certain municipal obstacles had gone away.
In all, prosecutors said Mr. Nagin received more than half a million dollars in illicit benefits, while the contractors found themselves with millions of dollars’ worth of city work.
The jury, deliberated for about six and a half hours in total before finding Mr. Nagin, 57, the Democratic mayor for two terms and the face of the city’s leadership during the Hurricane Katrina disaster, guilty in 20 of the 21 counts against him.
Tania Tetlow, a Tulane University law professor and a former federal prosecutor, said Mr. Nagin could receive a sentence of as many as 20 years under federal sentencing guidelines. He will remain free on bond until sentencing, but was placed on home detention.
After the verdict was read, Mr. Nagin stood at the defense table, his hands in his pockets; his wife wept as she sat in the front row of the gallery.
The verdict came after a seven-day trial, during which more than 30 witnesses testified, including some businessmen who had pleaded guilty to bribing Mr. Nagin in return for contracting work with the city. The most compelling days of the trial, and the ones that filled a courtroom that was half-empty most of the time, were those when Mr. Nagin himself took the stand, sparring with the prosecutor and dismissing the charges against him as misleading and misinformed.
With multiple witnesses and an extensive paper trial, federal prosecutors described a sequence of transactions between the mayor and various business interests, all following a similar pattern. The owner of a company would be trying to get city work, and would at some point make contact with Mr. Nagin. Mr. Nagin would ask for a favor, often in the form of payments to the granite countertop business Mr. Nagin ran with his two sons.
Sometimes the perk for Mr. Nagin would be less direct than cash — a trip to Jamaica or Hawaii or Chicago, free cell service for his family or shipments of valuable granite slabs. But around the same time that Mr. Nagin received money or something else of value, the businessman would be awarded contracts for city projects, or would find that certain municipal obstacles had gone away.
In all, prosecutors said Mr. Nagin received more than half a million dollars in illicit benefits, while the contractors found themselves with millions of dollars’ worth of city work.
I doubt that this comes as a shock to anyone.
Details of the verdict at the Times-Picayune.
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