NEW ORLEANS, (Reuters) – A Louisiana businessman and a former city hall insider told a federal court yesterday they repeatedly bribed then-New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin to win contracts from the city as it recovered from Hurricane Katrina.
fending Nagin in a corruption trial that began this week tried to show that the witnesses were trading their testimony against the former mayor in return for leniency in their own legal battles.
Nagin was swept into office on promises of good government in 2002 and reelected in 2006, after he gained national prominence when Katrina overwhelmed levees and flooded 80 percent of the city, killing 1,500 people and causing some $80 billion in damage. He was indicted a year ago by a federal grand jury on 21 counts of corruption, including bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, money laundering and filing false tax returns.
Prosecutors have accused him of receiving trips, cash and tons of granite for a kitchen countertop company he ran with his two sons in exchange for preferable treatment in the awarding of city contracts.
“When it came to giving money to politicians, I never understood the concept, why you have to do that,” said Bassam Mekari, who told the court his company paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to Nagin, 57. “But you hear a lot that you’ve got to pay to play,” said Mekari, a witness for the prosecution.
Mekari said he wrote a check for $20,000 to the countertop company called Stone Age to help the contracting firm where he worked to secure jobs from the city.
