NEW ORLEANS ? When Eddie Price resigned as mayor of Mandeville a week ago, he did so at the urging of federal agents.
It was part of an agreement that had him before a federal judge Friday morning, pleading guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion.
"He in fact accepted as mayor of Mandeville, some $45,000 worth of gifts and transportation and related benefits from an engineering company that depended on him for lucrative contracts for a very long time with the city of Mandeville," said U.S. Attorney Jim Letten. "He also accepted the same benefits from a developer."
The wrongdoing included yearly golf trips to Pebble Beach, California between 2003 and 2007.
The engineer and developer were not named in the Bill of Information.
But, they were identified in a state audit as Rick Meyer, who owns Meyer Engineers and Don McMath, a developer who did work in Mandeville.
Price also pleaded guilty to using his about $76,000 worth of campaign funds to pay off golfing bets and to buy personal items.
"Including various memberships, food, drink and other personal benefits and failure to disclose and concealment of those misapplications in his reports to the state," said Letten.
Price also admitted that he did not report the gifts and other gratuities as income.
Prosecutors say that is the basis of the tax evasion charge.
U.S. Attorney Letten says as part of the plea agreement, Price agreed to cooperate with other pending cases.
The executive director of the independent Metropolitan Crime Commission says tips to his watchdog group led to the Price investigation.
Rafael Goyeneche says there may be more investigations to come.
"Some of the names that we're seeing in Mandeville are also present in St. John Parish," said Goyeneche. "They're present in Jefferson Parish. They're present throughout the region. This is nothing that is confined to a specific geographic area or a specific city."
Price now faces up to 25 years in prison.
While he will likely get less jail time than that, it will be up to the judge to decide.
"We have not predicted what sentence he'll receive, stipulated what sentence he'll receive or made any recommendation as to what sentence he'll receive," said Letten.
Price is now expected to be sentenced on January 28.
He is still facing an unrelated state "perjury" charge.
