Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin Sentenced to 10 Years Behind Bars
Former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday after being found guilty on 20 counts of corruption and bribery charges earlier this year. After his conviction, he faced as many as 20 or 30 years in jail based on federal sentencing guidelines, so the sentence Nagin actually received is on the lighter side for the 58-year-old.
Until he was accused of exchanging personal favors for contracts with the city, Nagin was probably best-known nationally for serving as the mayor of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. As the New York Times notes, a large portion of the contract work in question (but not all of it) happened after the city was devastated by the storm.
Prosecutors argued that Nagin accepted bribes totaling in the hundreds of thousands for those contracts. Those bribes included cash and free vacations, as WWL-TV New Orleans reported. The government pushed for a stiff sentence today, arguing that Nagin's testimony during the trial showed "astounding unwillingness to accept any responsibility for his actions."
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This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/07/former-new-orleans-mayor-nagin-sentenced-to-10-years-behind-bars/374164/
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