Greater Baton Rouge Business Report: Corruption eruption

Here's a sliver of a silver lining for Congressman Bill Jefferson of New Orleans in the raid by federal agents on his homes, office and car--it took place during the August congressional recess, so he won't have to face his curious colleagues until after Labor Day.

By then, the Justice Department may have broken its silence about what the investigation of the veteran Democratic lawmaker is all about. The only unofficial word so far is a source telling the Washington Post it has to do with congressional influence in business affairs. Given Jefferson's expertise on tax matters and his promotion of foreign trade, especially with African nations, that could cover a lot of ground.

Jefferson has not been charged and might never be, but one has to presume that the Justice Department doesn't go rifling through a congressman's files and personal effects on a hunch.

What is clear is that the corruption spotlight in this state has shifted from the capital to its largest city.

Last month, a federal jury returned a mail fraud conviction against a state judge in Jefferson Parish, Alan Green, who was charged with accepting cash and gifts from a bail bondsman. That appears to wrap up Operation Wrinkled Robe, which also resulted in a 46-month prison sentence for another former judge, Ronald Bodenheimer, and 12 other guilty pleas.

An investigation over contracts let during the administration of former Mayor Marc Morial rolls forward with last week's indictment of Morial's uncle, Glenn Haydel, who is accused of bilking the Regional Transit Authority of over a half-million dollars in a bond refinancing scheme.

That followed the recent indictments of three other Morial associates, including a former city official, accused of skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars from an energy-savings contract. The former project manager for the contractor, who is accused of taking kickbacks, is cooperating with the government along with five subcontractors, prosecutors say.

The Haydel indictment makes criminal defense a family affair--his wife, insurance broker Lillian Smith Haydel, pled guilty to paying a kickback to an official of the New Orleans public school system, the focus of a whole other investigation.

In another family tie, Green, awaiting sentencing, is the brother-in-law of Jefferson, who was heard in a 2003 wiretapped conversation asking the then-judge to help raise campaign funds for Jefferson's daughter in her run for the Legislature. Some tea-leaf readers speculate that something in Jefferson's phone chats with Green could have piqued prosecutorial interest in the congressman, possibly leading to a tap on his phone. That would fit the pattern of federal investigations that increasingly rely on the recorded words and visual images of subjects to incriminate themselves.

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All that going on in the city completely overshadows relatively milder hijinks in the state capital, where the criminal case against Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom involving, among other things, misappropriated pine seedlings, has been dismissed.

It's been five years and two governors since former Gov. Edwin Edwards was convicted of racketeering in casino licensing. Since then, the administrations of Mike Foster and Kathleen Blanco have been scandal-free. Similarly, the reform administration of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has so taken hold that he appears likely to be reelected early next year.

For no other reason, it's imperative that Blanco and Nagin continue to tell the world that Louisiana and New Orleans are no longer shakedown central. That mission becomes more challenging as federal investigators uncover more dirt. The governor departs for East Asia next month, and the mayor is going to Brazil--accompanied by Congressman Jefferson.

JOHN MAGINNIS is a Baton Rouge-based syndicated political columnist. Reach him at his Web site, www.lapolitics.com.