NEW ORLEANS - Greg Meffert was one of Ray Nagins first hires as New Orleans Mayor.
The 44-year-old technology whiz left his own multi-million dollar business to take on the task of updating the aging computer systems at City Hall.
Instead, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten says Meffert used his position as chief technology officer to line his pockets and steer contracts to Imagine Software and Netmethods owned by businessman Mark St. Pierre.
Letten says between 2004 and 2007, Meffert and his wife Linda received more than $860,000 in kickbacks from St. Pierre.
Specifically, the indictment alleges that Meffert changed city procedures in order to insure that St. Pierre's companies would receive city business without participating in a competitive bid process," said Letten.
A federal indictment, handed up on Friday, charges Meffert, his wife and St. Pierre with conspiracy, wire fraud, bribery, money laundering and other crimes. 24 counts deal with alleged monthly credit card kickbacks payments to the Mefferts.
During a civil trial, Meffert was questioned about his use of a Netmethods credit card to pay to fly Mayor Nagin to Hawaii and Jamaica.
According to the indictment, Meffert charged close to $30,000 on the credit card during the months surrounding the two trips in December 2004 and November 2005.
Letten says the investigation is ongoing, but he did not want to say if Nagin is a future target.
"I'm not at liberty to discuss anyone, or the status of anyone out there who's not actually charged here," said Letten.
Investigators say as part of the kick-back scheme, Meffert directed the purchase of crime cameras for the City of New Orleans.
"Which permitted St. Pierre to purchase cameras from an out of state manufacturer and resell them to Dell Inc, which resold them to the city for St. Pierre to install," said Letten.
If Greg Meffert is convicted of all 63 charges, he could face up to 480 years in prison, but federal sentencing guidelines, he would likely get 15 to 20 years.
"Hopefully, indictments like this, prosecutions as they move forward will send a clear message that we will continue and absolutely continue to root out corruption where ever it's found in the state and follow the evidence as it goes," said the FBI's top agent in New Orleans Dave Welker.
Meffert and his co-defendants were not arrested.
Instead, they will get a summons to appear in federal court to formally answer the charges next Thursday.
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