- Dec 8, 2013
- 22,712
- 16,930
- 2,415
In New Orleans, a 10-Year Sentence for Ray Nagin
NEW ORLEANS Jul 9, 2014, 5:09 PM ET
By KEVIN McGILL and ALLEN G. BREED Associated Press
When Ray Nagin was elected mayor in 2002, there was real hope that he was a break from the city's sleazy past.
Three years later, with his city awash in foul water and rotting corpses, he became something of a national cult hero, raging against the slow, incompetent federal response to his crippled city's plight.
"Excuse my French everybody in America but I am pissed," he shouted during a radio appearance three days after Hurricane Katrina swamped the Crescent City.
In the end, though, Ray Nagin turned out to be a feckless mayor and, as a federal judge saw it, a lightweight criminal.
"He started out as a rock star and he ended up as just another crass, corrupt politician," said University of New Orleans Political Science Professor Ed Chervenak.
Nagin, a 58-year-old former cable television manager, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Wednesday for bribery, money laundering, fraud and tax violations stemming from his two terms as New Orleans' mayor from 2002-2010. To longtime civil rights attorney Mary Howell, who watched the Democrat with cautious optimism during his 2002 campaign, Nagin seemed to promise at least something new.
She, like so many others, was wrong.
"I think people were really just kind of worn out by the same old, same old. And he really appeared on the horizon as something that was new and fresh," she said. "I think it would be fair to say, almost across the board, that for many people he was, his administration turned out to be a deep disappointment and then a disaster. "
Prosecutors had been pushing for a sentence in the neighborhood of 20 years for Nagin, convicted in February of 20 criminal counts. The crimes, his repeated lies about them, the damage heaped on a city reeling from the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina and a longtime reputation for corruption all merited more prison time, prosecutors said at his Friday sentencing hearing.
U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan acknowledged the seriousness, including the betrayal of a city at a time when it most needed a strong and honest leader.
But she also cast Nagin as something less than a kingpin. She noted that some of the businessmen involved in bribing him won millions of dollars in city business. Nagin is believed to have cleared only about a half million in money, free trips, granite for a foundering family business over his eight years.
"Mr. Nagin was not the organizer or leader of the group," Berrigan said. At times, she said, the crimes appeared to be motivated by a desire to impress and provide for his loved ones, something "less than ordinary greed."
And she said there were times when Nagin demonstrated "a genuine if all too infrequent" desire to help a city knocked on its heels after Katrina's levee breaches and catastrophic flooding.
At no time was his passion more clear than during that rambling, profane and angry tirade on WWL radio the night of Sept. 1, 2005, when he lashed out at the federal government for a slow response to the desperate city.
In New Orleans, a 10-Year Sentence for Ray Nagin - ABC News
The disasters better known as the democrats continue to reveal what they are truly all about.
NEW ORLEANS Jul 9, 2014, 5:09 PM ET
By KEVIN McGILL and ALLEN G. BREED Associated Press
When Ray Nagin was elected mayor in 2002, there was real hope that he was a break from the city's sleazy past.
Three years later, with his city awash in foul water and rotting corpses, he became something of a national cult hero, raging against the slow, incompetent federal response to his crippled city's plight.
"Excuse my French everybody in America but I am pissed," he shouted during a radio appearance three days after Hurricane Katrina swamped the Crescent City.
In the end, though, Ray Nagin turned out to be a feckless mayor and, as a federal judge saw it, a lightweight criminal.
"He started out as a rock star and he ended up as just another crass, corrupt politician," said University of New Orleans Political Science Professor Ed Chervenak.
Nagin, a 58-year-old former cable television manager, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Wednesday for bribery, money laundering, fraud and tax violations stemming from his two terms as New Orleans' mayor from 2002-2010. To longtime civil rights attorney Mary Howell, who watched the Democrat with cautious optimism during his 2002 campaign, Nagin seemed to promise at least something new.
She, like so many others, was wrong.
"I think people were really just kind of worn out by the same old, same old. And he really appeared on the horizon as something that was new and fresh," she said. "I think it would be fair to say, almost across the board, that for many people he was, his administration turned out to be a deep disappointment and then a disaster. "
Prosecutors had been pushing for a sentence in the neighborhood of 20 years for Nagin, convicted in February of 20 criminal counts. The crimes, his repeated lies about them, the damage heaped on a city reeling from the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina and a longtime reputation for corruption all merited more prison time, prosecutors said at his Friday sentencing hearing.
U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan acknowledged the seriousness, including the betrayal of a city at a time when it most needed a strong and honest leader.
But she also cast Nagin as something less than a kingpin. She noted that some of the businessmen involved in bribing him won millions of dollars in city business. Nagin is believed to have cleared only about a half million in money, free trips, granite for a foundering family business over his eight years.
"Mr. Nagin was not the organizer or leader of the group," Berrigan said. At times, she said, the crimes appeared to be motivated by a desire to impress and provide for his loved ones, something "less than ordinary greed."
And she said there were times when Nagin demonstrated "a genuine if all too infrequent" desire to help a city knocked on its heels after Katrina's levee breaches and catastrophic flooding.
At no time was his passion more clear than during that rambling, profane and angry tirade on WWL radio the night of Sept. 1, 2005, when he lashed out at the federal government for a slow response to the desperate city.
In New Orleans, a 10-Year Sentence for Ray Nagin - ABC News
The disasters better known as the democrats continue to reveal what they are truly all about.
