The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune ^ | June 26, 2012 | David Hammer and Gordon Russell,
Covington businessman Frank Fradella has been charged in a new bill of information that appears to implicate former Mayor Ray Nagin, who has been under investigation for months by a federal grand jury. Federal prosecutors this afternoon charged Fradella with one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiring to bribe a public official.
The new documents do not name the official -- rather, they call him "Public Official A."
But the official is clearly Nagin; the document describes him as an agent of the city of New Orleans from May 2002 through May 2010. That coincides with Nagin's tenure in office, during which he met frequently with Fradella.
In the documents, Fradella is accused of giving "payoffs," "kickbacks" and "bribes" -- some of them through wire transfers -- to the government official. The bill of information says the official used his office "to benefit the defendant's business" in exchange for those payoffs.
In accepting the payments, the documents say the official deprived New Orleanians of their "intangible right to honest services."
The documents say only that "in excess of $5,000" changed hands -- "but it was more than that," according to Fradella's lawyer, Randy Smith. Smith did not specify how much Fradella paid the official. The bribery conspiracy allegedly began in May 2007 and continued through March 2011.
Asked whether the public official mentioned in the documents was Nagin, Smith declined to answer directly, saying only: "Let's put it this way. He served from May 2002 to May 2010. It's not my right to name him. But if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably a duck."
Smith added: "There's been a lot of press about Mr. Nagin and my client, and some of it certainly will be part of this."
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(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
