Original subtitles

In this episode of American Greed, Ray Nagin rises to power as mayor of New

Orleans on big promises of reform.

The winds of change are blowing and they are fanning the flames of a renaissance

in our great city.

When he first came into office, he was a rock star. I mean, the guy who had

crossover support, black, white, rich, poor.

I mean, he was the guy that came into office that was supposed to.

Change New Orleans, fix New Orleans, clean up New Orleans. Until one of the

catastrophic storms in history changes everything.

Katrina strikes a heavy blow to the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 storm.

Everybody was devastated.

We had no electricity.

We had no running water.

We had no food.

This city needed a great leader, and the mayor was the logical choice.

But as billions of dollars begin to flow in for rebuilding, Nagin's anti

-corruption ideals seem to wash away like the floodwaters.

And the mayor sells out the citizens of the Crescent City for little more than

$500 ,000 in luxury trips, services, and cash.

When his financial needs and his lifestyle definitely outpaced his

income, he then chose an illegitimate income in those bribes and kickbacks.

Every person is hereby ordered to immediately evacuate the city of New

or, if no other alternative is available, to immediately move to one of

facilities within the city that will be designated as a refuge of last resort.

On August 28, 2005,

Mayor C. Ray Nagin orders the first ever mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.

as Hurricane Katrina roils in the Gulf of Mexico.

Nearly a million residents flee the metropolitan area.

Within two days, after the storm hits and the levees fail, 80 % of New Orleans

is underwater, and 100 ,000 people who remain are stranded in deadly

There are planning failures at all levels of government, as the world

horror. Get us out of here! We want to get out of here! We need help, sir. We

really need help. And Mayor Ray Nagin catapults into the national spotlight as

he attempts to triage one of the country's worst ever disasters.

But ten years after Katrina, Nagin is conspicuously absent from the national

remembrance.

It's kind of surreal to think that when the storm hit, he was elbow to elbow

with the president of the United States. And everybody who wanted to leave the

recovery, and then as we hit the 10th anniversary, he's watching in a prison

jumpsuit from federal prison.

Three years before Katrina hits, Clarence Ray Nagin Jr.

is a business executive and political outsider.

Born and raised in a working -class New Orleans family, education guides Nagin

out of the poor wards of the city to Tuskegee University.

He then climbs the corporate ladder, and by the early 2000s, he is a vice

president and general manager at Cox Communications,

earning $400 ,000 a year.

Nagin lives with his wife and three kids in the upper middle class area of Park

Island in a mid -century modern home known as the Ashtray House for the

architect's use of 1 ,200 amber ashtrays along the roofline.

And he seems to be living the American dream.

Robert Jenkins is Nagin's attorney.

He got a very, very astute business background, very educated man, and a

family man.

But apparently, Nagin wants something more.

In 2002, with strong backing from the business community, Nagin throws his hat

into the mayoral race, running as the anti -corruption, business -minded

candidate.

Salah dropped tremendously when he went to public service. He was thinking more

about what he could do to help this city and help the citizens of this city.

WDSU reporter Travers Mackle covers the election and watches Nagin come from

behind to beat a slew of seasoned politicos.

I think power is what attracted him to the position that he was already the CEO

of a large telecommunication company.

So I guess he looked at it as, hey, I can run a city.

I think most people will tell you this. When he came into office, his intentions

were good.

Thank you. Thank you.

I am so happy.

To be here doing this right now, anticipation is a wonderful thing, but

sometimes it wears you down, and I am ready.

This is a guy who had so much promise and so much potential and so much

and so much moxie that he seemed like he was a rising star in politics, and it

was going to put New Orleans in the right direction.

The winds of change are blowing, and they are fanning the flames of a

renaissance in our great city.

Nagin appears to start out strong.

Just 11 weeks into office, he implements a sweeping operation to clean up

bribery in the city's taxicab licensing and inspection programs.

After 84 arrests in one day, the mayor makes national headlines as a new kind

leader in the Crescent City.

But Gordon Russell, who covers the story for the Times -Picayune, says once the

media fades away, there is little payoff.

There was kind of showmanship more than anything. They marched these people, you

know, they kind of brought them all out for the cameras, and Frog marched them

around in front of City Hall with handcuffs on. And one of the people was

cousin of the mayor, so it kind of sent this message that, you know, nobody's

above the law.

In the end, the sweep nets not one conviction.

But in the meantime, Nagin's approval rating shoots up 80%.

Bill Roussel is a community organizer and political consultant who has worked

with Nagin's administration.

There was an effort afoot to bring about reform in

city government. He took office with that intent, and I think for the first

three years or so was relatively successful in getting people to

feel good about it.

the government.

With popular support behind him, the mayor also decides to focus on his

for technology.

I think he said something like, you know, I'm used to George Jetson and this

Fred Flintstone's world I'm living in. When he came to City Hall, everything

ancient. He said, we got to remake this place totally and, you know, start

putting things online and, you know, just kind of bring the city into the

century.

Nagin creates the city's first mayor's department of technology.

To head it up, former assistant U .S. attorney Matt Komen says Nagin reaches

outside the political sphere and chooses a local tech entrepreneur named Greg

Meffert as chief technology officer.

There was an air in the city of this would be a new day. And that was

his platform. And that was Gregory Meffert was certainly a piece of that

took office to.

modernize City Hall, to be more transparent, more accountable, and to

from those ills of corruption, fraud, waste, abuse.

What people don't yet know is that the mayor is handing enormous power to Greg

Mefford, and it will prove to be arguably the worst decision Ray Nagin

makes. He had an incredible amount of influence on Nagin. Nagin obviously is a

weak -willed individual.

to succumb to that kind of influence.

In my opinion, Greg Mefford was the single most corrupting influence on Ray

Nagin.

But even before examining the mayor's relationship with Mefford, many people

begin to question Nagin's ability to lead the city.

I don't think he truly understood the nature of how you make compromise, how

build relationships, how you work toward consensus.

in order to be able to move people together in a harmonious way.

His inexperience as a politician, he just had trouble kind of governing, and

was starting to become like, well, what is this guy, what's he doing?

Where's all the bold reform taking us? Is he actually getting anything done?

If Nagin intends to coast through the rest of his term, however, Mother Nature

has a different plan.

In late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina swings a hard right into the Gulf of

Mexico, setting her course for New Orleans.

And it seems nothing will remain the same.

He was the status quo mayor up until Katrina hit, and that changed the game

it changed everything.

Next on American Greed, a city destroyed.

Rebuilding New Orleans means big money flowing into the Big Easy, much of it

through Ray Nagin's hands.

A few years into his administration, he decided he was going to take the easy

way out and take some easy money.

It was a big storm.

On the morning of August 29, 2005, the fury of Hurricane Katrina slams into the

Louisiana -Mississippi border.

In New Orleans, the first of several levees gives way, and billions of

of water begin to flood the city.

Thousands are stranded, hundreds dead and dying. The world watches in shock as

days go by with no real plan of action, and all eyes are on Mayor Ray Nacon.

The curfew will be from dusk to dawn. There will be no one allowed to move

the city routes with the exception of security personnel. The next area that

have been dealing with is trying to recover as many of our beloved deceased

citizens as possible.

It was the faith of trying to get the federal government.

to come down and assist us quickly and not wait. And he was all over the place

trying to do this, slept a couple hours every day trying to get the city back

together. It was very, very difficult.

In this radio interview, heard around the nation five days after the storm,

Nagin is desperate.

I need reinforcements. I need troops, man.

I need 500 buses.

This is a national disaster.

Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving

to New Orleans.

That's they're taking small, man, and this is a major, major, major deal.

And I can't emphasize it enough, man.

This is crazy.

The storm's aftermath leaves New Orleans in mold and ruin.

Half a million residents are still scattered throughout 44 states.

Rebuilding will take years and billions of dollars.

We know that this is... It's been a hard and tough road that we've been on.

We'd like to move faster, but the realities are this devastation is

unprecedented and there's never been any city that has gone through this.

Mayor Nagin vows to unite the city and rebuild stronger than ever. But Howard

Schwartz, New Orleans Assistant Inspector General, who was with the

corruption team at the time, believes.

Those are empty promises.

With said great moments make great men, the city needed a fully engaged mayor.

The time to become fully engaged wasn't after the crisis and here's how we do

things. He wasn't hands -on from day one. Since he wasn't hands -on, he

prepared to handle a city on normal circumstances, let alone after this

catastrophe. It made it even worse.

One of Mayor Nagin's most disastrous moves after the storm.

is to approve a city rebuilding plan by a panel of experts that seeks to turn

several flood -prone, historically African -American areas into green

Ray Nagin was the guy who sort of first started talking about possibly redlining

parts of the city, and he sort of entertained that notion.

After an immediate public outcry, reporter Gordon Russell says that Nagin

quickly backtracks.

Because in the midst of a broken city, where more than half the population is

still scattered elsewhere,

Nagin is running for re -election, and he can't afford to alienate a key

constituency.

There was a lot of fear at the time, among blacks especially, that they were

being welcomed back with open arms, that maybe some parts of town were going to

be redlined or what have you. He changed his direction somewhat and became much

more concerned that

African -American community have more of a voice, more of a participation in

the activities of the city.

And now would you please welcome the mayor of the great city of New Orleans,

Ray Nagin. In a now infamous speech on Martin Luther King Jr.

Day 2006, Nagin appeals to the African -American electorate while leaving

offended.

It's time for us to come together.

It's time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a

New Orleans.

And I don't care what people are saying uptown or wherever they are.

This city will be chocolate at the end of the day.

This city will be a majority

African -American city.

It's the way God wants it to be.

In a sense, it was a really key piece to galvanizing the African -American vote

in his favor. There are people who think it was something off the wall.

I don't know if he had intentionally planned it that way, but it certainly

helped to galvanize the black vote for him in the 2006 election.

Eight months after Katrina, in May 2006,

Nagin ekes out a second -term win and is charged with leading the massive

recovery of New Orleans.

But within a year into his second term, as little gets accomplished, frustration

is growing across all areas of the city.

I think the black community, like the rest of the community, was disappointed

the pace of the recovery.

He was disengaged for the better part of his second term. I think...

he realized how big the rebuilding effort was.

A lot of people can easily make the argument that he checked out probably

sometime around late 2006, early 2007, that he had no interest anymore in

governing, in being the mayor, in leading the rebuilding, that he was out

himself at that point. Next on American Greed, with his city still in ruin, the

mayor chooses to focus not on rebuilding for everyone, but for him.

wasn't trying to help the city move forward.

The only time he became personally engaged was when there was something in

for him personally or his family in the granite business.

New Orleans, Louisiana, early 2007.

About 18 months after Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing floods devastate the Big

Easy, there is a growing discontent in the city about the slow pace of

And most of the blame lands squarely on the shoulders of Mayor Ray Nagin.

There was a sort of wretched anger about him having sort of the city's

collective feeling that he had been sort of mailing it in during...

a time when we needed a real leader.

Around the same time, New Orleans investigative journalist Gordon Russell

digging into a story about Mayor Nagin's partial ownership of a granite company

called StoneAge that was recently started by his two sons.

We were hearing that he was spending more time at this business and like a

bit of time, and it seems incredible that you would have a mayor who's...

faced with this incredible task of rebuilding the city after this amazing

disaster, and he's, you know, running a granite business.

But on the other hand, a lot of people needed countertops.

So that was strange, and we started looking into that a little bit more and

got a few tips here and there, and then that led us to the Home Depot.

Russell learns that after Katrina, Home Depot was anxious to open a new store in

the Central City neighborhood of New Orleans.

Kind of a tough neighborhood plagued with some violence, a lot of poverty.

This is the Superdome over on this side of you over here.

You can see a lot of abandoned lots and kind of blighted housing around us. And

then this is the Home Depot over here.

The company wants to purchase several streets from the city in order to build

the store and parking lot there.

And the city appraises the land at $850 ,000.

Local community groups are also working with the city council to require Home

Depot to hire a certain percentage of workers from the immediate area.

at a higher than normal wage.

And for the company, this is an obstacle.

That is, until Ray Nagin sees a business opportunity, according to former U .S.

Attorney Matt Komen.

Ray Nagin involved himself and actually left a voicemail for the CEO of Home

Depot offering his assistance with the community group.

At some point soon thereafter, Ray Nagin sent his chief economic development

officer to a meeting at the city council and instructed her to tell both the

community group as well as Home Depot that he would not support the community

group's efforts anymore and he wanted the project to go forward without any

agreement between Home Depot and the neighborhood group.

And so, here in an overwhelmingly poor African -American community, the mayor

his so -called Chocolate City is accused of selling out those very citizens he

promised to fight for.

About two weeks later, Stone Age lands a contract with Home Depot to be the

exclusive granite countertop installer for several of their stores.

They were obviously doing a lot of business at the time because everybody

new homes, countertops included.

Nagin also agrees to sell Home Depot the city land for a significantly reduced

price.

At first, Ray Nagin wanted the city to receive the full appraised value. At

point, we can only surmise, at some point, light bulb went off, and Ray

said, at the same time he began to pursue Home Depot for his family -owned

Age business, he then changed his mind.

He had a change of heart.

and agreed to that lower price of $100 ,000.

After securing the contract, Nagin sends emails to Home Depot executives about

giving StoneAge more business.

When he felt they weren't getting enough work from their deal, he would

complain, and he would send them a note saying, you know, it would say, from the

mayor of New Orleans. It didn't say, from Ray Nagin, this guy who owns the

business.

So he was definitely trading on the fact that he was the mayor.

He wanted and expected to receive approximately 10 to 20 jobs, countertop

installation jobs, per week from Home Depot.

That would equate to approximately total $1 million per year in gross revenues.

And his efforts to leverage and pressure them, he believed, would be a huge

windfall.

StoneAge ultimately does about $170 ,000 in business before Home Depot ends the

contract because of poor performance and customer complaints.

And that's when authorities say Ray Nagin goes looking for another illegal

revenue stream.

Next on American Greed, investigators begin to uncover the shocking extent of

corruption at City Hall.

Like going to strip clubs and paying for it with your city credit card. Like

having this yacht and inviting people and strippers out on it.

In 2008, the New Orleans Office of the Inspector General starts investigating

the mayor's Office of Technology and its contract for a problematic citywide

system of crime cameras.

Through that investigation that was conducted by our inspections and

staff, they noticed some discrepancies on the vendors, the quality of the

cameras, what was being put out, and there were just a lot of

The contract is overseen by New Orleans Chief Technology Officer Greg Mefford,

who was handpicked by Mayor Ray Nagin as soon as he took office in 2002, and who

subsequently buys a home next door to the mayor.

He became one of the mayor's most trusted aides, and eventually, by the

Katrina... He was kind of calling himself deputy mayor, which was a title

own making, I think. But he was as powerful a guy in the city government as

there was outside of the mayor.

I mean, these two were, for better or worse, they were the dynamic duo. I

these were the guys who came in and said, you know what? We're going to

City Hall. We're going to up technology.

And Greg Meffert, almost from the start, it has now been proven without to

enrich himself.

Two months after Katrina hit.

Nagin had signed an executive order giving Meffert free reign to hand out

technology contracts with no bidding required.

He literally gave the mayor's office of technology a license to steal.

He signed an executive order for them to award contracts, I'm talking millions

of dollars in contracts, without a competitive bidding process, without

of approval, without a review period. And that's when the money started coming

in. Post -Katrina, Mefford awards several huge no -bid contracts,

crime cameras, to his friend, a private tech entrepreneur named Marc St.

Pierre. And with that, Marc St. Pierre became a millionaire.

In turn, Marc St. Pierre, at the same time, was paying Gregory Mefford

of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks for his favorable treatment at

City Hall.

After the Inspector General's office issues a scathing report on Mefford and

Pierre's crime camera deal, it sparks an investigation involving the U .S.

Attorney's Office and the FBI.

Investigators learn that St. Pierre provides a credit card for Mefford's

unfettered use, and Mefford appears to have no problem using it.

Gregor Mefford charged approximately $133 ,000 in trips.

purchases and other items. He was definitely living a life beyond his

public servant.

Craig Mefford had a card. The company paid it off. The company was being paid

the city of New Orleans. So we, the taxpayers, were paying for his

According to Inspector General Investigator Eduardo Hernandez,

lifestyle includes holding staff meetings at a local strip club and

a yacht called the Silicon Bayou.

owned by Mark St.

Pierre's company.

The things that would occur on the boat, they would have their normal meeting,

but they would also have strippers come onto the boat. They would play poker.

The boat was also used at various times by other employees for someone's

birthday party.

It almost seemed like it was the mayor of technology's office for their own

personal use for whatever they'd like to do.

Greg Meffert leaves the mayor's office of technology in 2006 and promptly

receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in so -called consulting fees

his pal, St. Pierre.

Gregory Meffert then collected approximately $647 ,000 in a series of

that Mark St. Pierre wrote to him, and Gregory Meffert funneled through a

different company. So in all, it was approximately $900 ,000 that Mark St.

Pierre bribed and kicked back to Gregory Meffert over the term of their

nefarious conduct.

In November 2009,

Meffert and St. Pierre are charged with conspiracy, bribery, and money

laundering in a 63 -count indictment.

As the charges are made public, the big question is, what is Ray Nagin's

involvement?

There are reports that Nagin accepted several lavish family vacations, as well

as cell phones, lawn care, and other services paid for by Marc St. Pierre.

But for now, no proof.

Ray Nagin did some things when they were in office that called him. It called a

lot of things into question.

City vendors were paying for Ray Nagin to go on vacations. Ray Nagin claimed, I

didn't know the city vendors were paying for me to go on vacation.

Greg Meffert set this up.

Some of the records that were produced did show that Ray Nagin had some

involvement. But at that point, we did not know the extent of that involvement.

An American Greed returns.

So far, Mayor Nagin is safe.

But not for long. After they went after Greg Maverick, they had their fight set

on Ray Dagan.

See how New Orleans' music scene has bounced back after Katrina's devastation

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We'll be right back.

In 2010, five years after Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin's second and

term comes to an end. He has a dismal 24 % approval rating.

The fact of the matter is, is you have a city as large as New Orleans, and you

have everybody pulling you, we should have the street lights here first, we

should have our electricity here first, we should have the water purification

here. And decisions have to be made. You can't cater to everybody all the time.

So some people are going to get upset if you don't do it the way they want it

done. It seems for Nagin and his wife, Salitha, his last days in public office

can't come soon enough.

She is ready to go, and I am too.

I have been beaten on for almost four years, but that takes a toll.

Nagin moves with his family to Frisco, Texas.

and begins collecting big consulting fees from some of the same vendors he

awarded city contracts to as mayor.

But if he thinks he's going to move on and leave New Orleans behind, he's very

wrong.

You might start a case with some low officials. You might start a case with

contractors, with non -appointed or elected officials. But the purpose, the

intent, is to get to the highest official. In this case, the highest

was Nagin.

Ray Nagin's former technology chief and closest advisor, Greg Meffert, is

already under indictment for corruption.

Accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and

from city contractor Mark St. Pierre, who was also charged.

Meffert has one card to play that might get him less jail time.

And that is what he knows about Nagin.

Faith to say, in 2010, when Greg Meffert got indicted,

It was probably the beginning of the end for Ray Nagin. It was when everything

started to go downhill and started picking up steam pretty fast.

Medford agrees to fully cooperate with the U .S. Attorney's Office and the FBI.

Medford made a deal, as a lot of people do, believing he could help himself,

help himself with his sentence, to reduce his sentence. That's why people

cooperate.

But in the federal system, there is no guarantee that they will benefit, they

will profit, they will...

get a lesser sentence. The only one that knows what that sentence is going to be

is the federal judge.

Nagin's former ally pulls back the curtain on his time at City Hall with

mayor and says that Ray Nagin accepted bribes from vendors looking for city

contracts.

He fleshed out the interactions that they had, the conversations that they

the trips that Nagin took, the money that he took.

Prosecutors say that when Nagin went from making $400 ,000 a year in the

sector to $130 ,000 as mayor, he and his family never changed their lifestyle.

And Nagin had to supplement his income to keep up.

They continued to eat at the finest restaurants in town, to buy relatively

expensive clothes, have other expenses that we all have.

tuition, house payment, and all those other items, which was his choice.

The choice he did not have legally to make was to go on the take. And that's

what he did to make up the difference.

In addition to several lavish family trips, cell phones, and lawn care

paid for by St. Pierre, the government charges that Nagin then used his son's

granite business, Stone Age, as a conduit of corruption.

Several years earlier, after a deal he arranged with Home Depot fell through,

Nagin, being the company's sole financier, needs to bring in more

That's when prosecutor Matt Komen says he turns to Rodney Williams, owner of a

local engineering firm who had been trying to get into the city contractor

to get work during the post -Katrina recovery.

Specifically, Ray Nagin asked for a total of $60 ,000 in January of 2008

Rodney Williams.

And at that same time, Ray Nagin promised and guaranteed to Rodney

quote, I will take care of you at City Hall.

And in fact, Rodney Williams and his two partners wrote personal checks on the

same date, January 31st, 2008.

$20 ,000, $20 ,000, $20 ,000.

Delivered those. Those were deposited in Ray Nagin's company named Stone Age

LLC.

And Ray Nagin, in turn, signed contract after contract.

Rodney Williams went from averaging about $100 ,000 a year in city work to

a million dollars a year after he paid the bribe that Ray Nagin asked for.

Nagin's defense attorney says that the mayor is simply a legal partial owner of

StoneAge and that he did not know Rodney Williams had given money as a so

-called investment in the company.

He did nothing wrong. He did nothing illegal. He did nothing improper.

Rodney tried to get close to the mayor by going through the funds.

So he had no idea about that.

Stoney stands with a total separate entity.

But prosecutor Matt Komen says that after going through Rodney Williams'

Nagin had set out to take in even more.

This time from Frank Fradella, CEO of the construction firm Home Solutions of

America. who was trying to set up a huge deal to turn a defunct smokestack power

plant in New Orleans into a mixed -use development.

His value with other individuals were his connections with City Hall, namely

Nagin. Could he get things approved by City Hall? Those things are very

important when it comes to financing large projects, so that's what Frank

Fadella wanted to basically sell, and Ray Nagin was available.

He was for sale, and he asked for that $100 ,000 from Frank Fridella.

In order to conceal the payment, Komen says Fridella brings in an associate

New Jersey to transfer $50 ,000 from his daughter's trust account to the Stone

Age Company.

In addition to the $50 ,000, prosecutors say Fridella shipped another $52 ,000

worth of free granite to Stone Age. But Robert Jenkins says Fridella cannot be

trusted.

Frank Fidella is a kind man, and you can see that throughout his history, that

he is a kind man. He has convictions throughout other jurisdictions.

And at the time when he had to say that, he was already caught. And he was what?

About to be sentenced in Texas. So the deal's worked out that, hey, we'll hold

up your sentencing if you cooperate in Louisiana.

So what do you think he's going to do? He's going to say whatever is necessary

to help him.

Next on American Greed, the feds may have trapped a bunch of rats, but are

telling the truth?

It became a big finger -pointing thing, and in the end they were all pointing

the finger at Ray Nagin.

In January 2013, former Mayor Ray Nagin, who has been out of office and living

in Texas for three years, was charged with 21 counts of corruption.

Almost a year later, his trial opens at the federal courthouse in New Orleans.

WDSU reporter Travers Mackle covers the case.

So the trial was arguably the biggest trial in the history of New Orleans. We

have... A long history of public corruption in government in Louisiana.

was a lot of anticipation for the trial.

I mean, everybody wanted to know what was going on.

At trial, the government lays out a detailed case of corruption spanning

years, bolstered by their star witnesses Greg Meffert, Rodney Williams, and

Frank Fradella.

But his defense attorney, Robert Jenkins, insists that Nagin is innocent

charges.

The main defense was that these guys were lying.

They were receiving a benefit for their testimony. He didn't do any of these

actions. When you go back and you look at Fridella, you can look at what he got

out of it. He had convictions in other states.

You go look at Meffert, what he got, his first sentence, and then what he got

the reduction on when he cooperated with the government.

So they all got something, they gained something, and when that happens, of

course you have to be suspect of their testimony.

The defense argues that Ray Nagin did not accept bribes, that he did

in the good faith of rebuilding New Orleans.

Nagin takes the stand to defend himself.

It appears that he thought he could charm his way through testimony and

get one juror to side with him and get a hung jury or maybe charm them all. And

they'd say, you know what? Look at this guy. Charismatic, charming, smart, had

everything. No way he could have done this. Not guilty.

But in the end, it's up to the jury to decide who they believe.

On February 12, 2014, after an eight -day trial and six hours of

they find Nagan guilty on 20 of 21 counts, including conspiracy, bribery,

fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and filing false tax

When the verdict came down, he looked stunned.

I mean, he looked, I don't think he was prepared.

at all for a guilty verdict.

Nagin becomes the first ever mayor of New Orleans to be convicted on federal

corruption charges.

Well, we were devastated.

We didn't think that they would come back to be guilty on the testimony of a

convicted felon, Frank Fadella, Greg Meffert. Nobody came into the trial

Mr. Nagin that had what we call clean hands.

All these people had something to gain.

After testifying against Nagin, Greg Meffert receives a reduced two -and -a

-half -year sentence.

Rodney Williams and Frank Fadella both get one -year sentences.

And Mark St. Pierre's 17 -year sentence is later reduced to five years after he

also agrees to cooperate.

Five months later, it's Ray Nagin's turn to learn his fate as he enters the

federal courthouse once again.

Still maintain your innocence?

Absolutely.

Negan is facing 15 to 20 years.

Judge Helen Berrigan decides to go below the recommended guidelines and

sentences him to 10 years at a federal prison camp.

In this, his only post -conviction interview, done just after the

with WDSU reporter Travers Mackle, Negan appears unchanged.

So 10 years in prison, what was going through your mind when the judge read

in court today?

Well, you know, all of this is pretty surreal to me. You know, I still

my innocence. We're going to appeal this thing.

And, you know, it's just something that's very difficult.

The former mayor says the prosecution presented a false case against him. The

prosecutors were fairly magical.

their ability to take something that supposedly happened and paint it as

reality, when it really didn't happen.

I was not aware of any of that stuff. I was not involved in any kind of bribes.

And I think my testimony laid that out.

When asked what happened to Ray Nagin, the former mayor says that he crossed

wrong people, though he doesn't name them.

In my opinion, I've been targeted.

I've been smeared, tarnished.

And for some reason...

Some of the stances that I took after Katrina didn't sit well with some very

powerful people. So now I'm paying a price for that.

Attorney Robert Jenkins says Nagin's statements harken back to his infamous

Chocolate City speech.

There was a movement basically to, I guess, recapture the city and move

into certain areas and make place for green space.

And he wasn't going to do that. So he fought that. He fought to bring

back. And that may have made him a total hero.

But lead prosecutor Matt Komen says the evidence is what convicted Ray Nagin,

and there are no other conspiracies at work.

Many times the mayor, when he was ever questioned, would typically, one, deny

any knowledge, obviously deny any culpability or responsibility for his

actions, and then thirdly would offer up some abstract motivation by unknown

forces. He did so in a book. He did so in that interview. He actually made

reference to that during his trial testimony.

But to date, as we sit here, I'm still waiting to hear exactly what he's

about.

I think that's what a lot of people still hate him for, is that he seems

arrogant.

He maintains the facade of I'm being targeted, and he never says, well, look,

maybe I made some, at least maybe I made some errors in judgment, or, you know,

I shouldn't have done this. I didn't think I was doing something crooked, but

maybe I shouldn't have been doing a deal with Home Depot. Whatever, just tell us

something. And I think people don't forgive him for not, like, I feel like

came out and gave a really heartfelt, abject apology, people might not even.

need to see him go to prison, but they feel like this guy still hasn't learned.

Now the city of New Orleans is finally gaining some traction.

Some call it a renaissance, while others see continuing injustices and social

issues that faced most major cities.

And while the soul of the Crescent City may have been badly hurt by the tragedy

of Katrina, its essence survives.

We've still got some of the greatest people in the world. We still have the

food in the country.

Our music is continuing to innovate and reach new heights.

So at the end of the day, beating a city like New Orleans is still a pretty good

decent job.

And authorities believe there is a real focus on making sure Those who succumb

to corruption are ultimately held accountable.

Whenever your elected or appointed public official takes money, becomes

it is always a bad situation. It's never good.

But in this case, under these circumstances, after Katrina, it was

what Negan did. The city needed someone to be a true leader.

And he let everybody down.