Ray Nagin, the former New Orleans mayor who found himself in the national spotlight during the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina and the long recovery that followed, was convicted this afternoon of accepting payoffs for city contracts. NBC News has the details:
Prosecutors in the federal corruption case alleged Nagin took bribes worth more than $500,000 through various criminal acts, starting before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 and continuing through the storm’s recovery. Nagin was indicted in January 2013 on charges he took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and accepted loads of free granite for his family business, in exchange for promoting the interests of a New Orleans businessman. …
One of the most egregious charges Nagin was found guilty of was accepting $60,000 from an engineering firm, Three Fold Consulting, in exchange for special treatment. The lone charge he was found not guilty of was a separate bribery charge: accepting a $10,000 bribe arranged by a principal in Three Fold Consultants.
Nagin was convicted on 20 of the 21 charges. According to a legal expert the New York Times spoke with, the 57-year-old Democrat faces up to 20 years behind bars under federal sentencing guidlines.
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