Justice Dept. to Seek New Trial of Louisiana Governor, 4 Others

The U.S. attorney who prosecuted Louisiana Gov. Edwin W. Edwards said Saturday that he will seek to retry the three-term Democrat, whose fraud and racketeering trial ended last month with the jury unable to reach a verdict.

U.S. Atty. John Volz of New Orleans said in an interview that he also will move to retry four of Edwards’ co-defendants. Volz said he consulted Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Stephen S. Trott, chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division, and that Trott was “very supportive.”

“Under our system, a trial is not supposed to end with a divided jury,” Volz said. “It’s supposed to end with someone being guilty or not guilty.”

Reviving the duel of wills between Edwards and Volz that emerged during the 13-week-long trial, Edwards, 58, countered the news conference Volz called in New Orleans by summoning reporters in Baton Rouge. Edwards charged that Volz, a Democrat-turned-Republican, was carrying out a political vendetta.

“I don’t think there’s any question that Mr. Volz has made a determination that he is going to spend his life, as long as the Justice Department will permit . . . to continue to harass Democratic public officials in Louisiana, in an effort to tarnish our reputation,” Edwards said.

The indictment charged that Edwards and seven others illegally made $10 million in a hospital development scheme that involved bribing state officials while he was out of office in 1982.

Volz said that he would “streamline” his case, and conceded that its complexity may have obscured the issues.

“Maybe we can do it better the second time,” he said.