NEW ORLEANS - Could two trips Mayor Ray Nagin took right around Hurricane Katrina lead to troubles with federal authorities? It's a question some legal experts have been asking recently after two high-profile indictments.
408771Former St. John Parish President Bill Hubbard will go to federal prison for asking three contractors to help pay for a car for his girlfriend. For former Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price, the federal charges include taking golf trips to Pebble Beach from contractors.
That's two guilty pleas that some legal analysts say could mean trouble for another elected official, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.
"It certainly shows that this U.S. Attorney's Office is making an effort to go at this sort of governmental corruption -- that is dealings between government officials and contractors," said Loyola Law University Professor Dane Ciolino.?
"Indeed if I am the mayor, I would say that I was confident, definitely yes I would blooking at this maybe nervous about it," said criminal defense attorney Robert Jenkins.
Nagin has already admitted to taking two trips with his family - one to Jamaica and the other to Hawaii - the airfare for both was paid for by a company whose owner had city contracts at the time of the trips.
"The federal government is going to look at it very closely in terms of whether or not the so-called contracts for cameras and crime cameras, in lieu of what? Trips?" Jenkins said.
But since April, a New Orleans city attorney and the mayor have said Nagin didn't know a contractor paid the bill.
"The mayor when he went to Hawaii and accepted that trip, he accepted the trip from Greg Meffert," Ellis said. "He did not know Netmethods paid for it."
Jenkins said if that's the truth, it may be hard for federal prosecutors to move forward with charges against the mayor.
"It's not just enough for them to say it. There has to be some evidence as well," Jenkins said.
Ciolino said for Nagin, it could come down to how far U.S. Attorney Jim Letten wants to take it. Ciolino said even if Nagin didn't know who paid for the trip, the law could still allow prosecutors to hit him with charges.
"In an honest services prosecution, the government really needs to prove in this case the mayor received some gratuities, that receipt violated some state law, in this case the state ethics code, and that conduct deprived the citizens of New Orleans of the honest services of their mayor," Ciolino said.
In May the Metropolitan Crime Commission filed a complaint against Nagin with the state board of ethics, seeking an investigation into the trips.
