Posted on 02/10/2014 9:14:50 PM PST by smokingfrog
Closing arguments in the Ray Nagin corruption trial on Monday centered on whether the former New Orleans mayor was a predator focused on helping himself or prey for an assortment of shady operators.
The prosecution portrayed Nagin as an opportunist who pursued businessmen under pressure to win city business, targeting them to line his own pockets. The defense characterized those contractors -- some of whom suffer from their own legal and financial problems -- as scheming to use Nagin without his knowledge, and now eager to testify to help their own situations.
After the lawyers made their final pitches, the jury began working through the many questions involved in the 21-count indictment. They decided to break for the day after about three hours.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Pickens told jurors key witness Rodney Williams had proposals pending with the city for his Three Fold Consultants engineering firm when Nagin approached him. Pickens said Nagin zeroed in on Frank Fradella because his publicly traded disaster rebuilding company, Home Solutions of America, was struggling and needed a boost from work in New Orleans.
"You saw how he went after Home Depot at a time when they needed help with the community group" and buying city streets for a low price, Pickens said about Nagin pursuing orders for his family's Stone Age granite counter-top company. The retailer wanted to avoid an agreement on hiring and employee compensation with the neighborhood around its Central City store, and the store needed the streets to develop its site.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
Detroit had this same problem as well as othe blue cities.
Thanks smokingfrog.
Ah, politics is so much fun.
Umm...America has this problem. obama is running the US like kilpatrick and nagin ran detroit and no.
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