🚀 go-pugleaf

Impuning George Bush bought you a whole truckload of trouble, 
didn't it nigger?

Laugh! Laugh! Laugh!

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57564746-504083/ray-nagin-
former-new-orleans-mayor-indicted-on-21-corruption-charges/

AP) NEW ORLEANS - Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was 
indicted Friday on charges that he used his office for personal 
gain, accepting payoffs, free trips and gratuities from 
contractors while the city was struggling to recover from the 
devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

The charges against Nagin are the outgrowth of a City Hall 
corruption investigation that already has resulted in guilty 
pleas by two former city officials and two businessmen and a 
prison sentence for a former city vendor.

The federal indictment accuses Nagin of accepting more than 
$160,000 in bribes and truckloads of free granite for his family 
business in exchange for promoting the interests of a local 
businessman who secured millions of dollars in city contract 
work after the 2005 hurricane. The businessman, Frank Fradella, 
pleaded guilty in June to bribery conspiracy and securities-
fraud charges and has been cooperating with federal authorities.

Nagin, 56, also is charged with accepting at least $60,000 in 
payoffs from another businessman, Rodney Williams, for his help 
in securing city contracts for architectural, engineering and 
management services work. Williams, who was president of Three 
Fold Consultants LLC, pleaded guilty Dec. 5 to a conspiracy 
charge.

The indictment also accuses Nagin of getting free private jet 
and limousine services to New York from an unidentified 
businessman. Nagin is accused of agreeing to wave tax penalties 
that the businessman owed to the city on a delinquent tax bill 
in 2006.

In 2010, Greg Meffert, a former technology official and deputy 
mayor under Nagin, pleaded guilty to charges he took bribes and 
kickbacks in exchange for steering city contracts to businessman 
Mark St. Pierre. Anthony Jones, who served as the city's chief 
technology officer in Nagin's administration, also pleaded 
guilty to taking payoffs.

Meffert cooperated with the government in its case against St. 
Pierre, who was convicted in May 2011 of charges that include 
conspiracy, bribery and money laundering.

Nagin, a former cable television executive, was a political 
novice before being elected to his first term as mayor in 2002, 
buoyed by strong support from white voters. He cast himself a 
reform-minded progressive who wasn't bound by party 
affiliations, as he snubbed fellow Democrat Kathleen Blanco and 
endorsed Republican Bobby Jindal's unsuccessful gubernatorial 
campaign in 2003.

Katrina elevated Nagin to the national stage, where he gained a 
reputation for colorful and sometimes cringe-inducing rhetoric.

During a radio interview broadcast in the storm's early 
aftermath, he angrily pleaded with federal officials to "get 
every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their 
asses moving to New Orleans." In January 2006, he apologized for 
a Martin Luther King Day speech in which he predicted New 
Orleans would be a "chocolate city" and asserted that "God was 
mad at America."

Strong support from black voters helped Nagin win re-election in 
2006 despite widespread criticism of his post-Katrina 
leadership. But the glacial pace of rebuilding, a surge in 
violent crime and

the budding City Hall corruption investigation chipped away at 
Nagin's popularity during his second term.

Nagin could not seek a third consecutive term because of term 
limits. Mitch Landrieu, who ran against Nagin in 2006, succeeded 
him in 2010.

Aaron Bennett, a businessman awaiting sentencing in a separate 
bribery case, told The Times-Picayune that he introduced Nagin 
to Fradella specifically to help the mayor get Home Depot 
granite installation work for a business that he and his sons 
founded. Fradella's company received millions of dollars in city 
contracts for repair work at Louis Armstrong New Orleans 
International Airport and in the French Quarter after Katrina, 
the newspaper reported.

Some of the allegations in the indictment have been the subject 
of state ethics complaints. In April 2010, the Louisiana Board 
of Ethics charged Nagin with two possible violations of state 
ethics law.

One charge involves Nagin's "use of a credit card and/or gifts" 
from St. Pierre and his technology firm, NetMethods, while the 
company was working for the city. NetMethods paid for Nagin and 
his family to travel to Jamaica in 2005 and to Hawaii in 2004, 
according to newspaper reports.

In the other charge, the Ethics Board says Stone Age LLC, the 
Nagin family's business, was compensated for installation 
services provided to Home Depot while the home improvement 
retailer was negotiating tax breaks from the city.

Nagin has largely steered clear of the political arena since he 
left office. On his Twitter account, he describes his current 
occupations as author, public speaker and "green energy 
entrepreneur." He wrote a self-published memoir called 
"Katrina's Secrets: Storms After the Storm."

Nagin's attorney, Robert Jenkins, didn't immediately return 
cellphone calls seeking comment on the indictment.
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