Louisiana Gov. Edwards Found Not Guilty

Louisiana Gov. Edwin W. Edwards, an unrepentant rake known for his peccadilloes, was found not guilty of fraud and racketeering Saturday.

His career salvaged, the flamboyant political showman emerged from the federal courthouse and for several seconds left one word hovering in the humid air:

“Freedom,” he proclaimed.

“You don’t know what it means until someone with power tries to take it away from you.”

Then Edwards, a Democrat, lambasted U.S. Atty. John Volz, the Republican who has twice prosecuted him.

“This building is a courthouse of justice, not a cesspool of Republican politics,” he said in the gospel voice that has helped make him a three-term governor.

‘Innocent Unanimously’

“We were found innocent unanimously by this jury. Only John Volz with his sewer eyes could not see the truth.”

Edwards triumphantly brought each of his four co-defendants--three of his closest friends and his brother Marion--to the microphones. They also had been found not guilty by the jury. He squeezed them on the shoulders.

“Edwin Edwards will return to run this state again,” Marion Edwards promised the crowd.

Since September, the governor has spent 20 weeks in court, first in a 14-week trial that ended in a hung jury and then in the retrial. During that time, much of the state’s business has been conducted from pay phones on the fourth floor of the federal courthouse.

Conferred With Lawmakers

Each day, Edwards, 58, silver-haired and tanned, sat at the defendants’ table, rocking in a black leather chair. Key legislators would frequently sit among the spectators, grabbing a word with the governor as time permitted.

After almost every day’s trial session, the governor would meet with reporters on the courthouse steps. Often, his sole message was to accuse Volz of political opportunism and “vileness.”

Volz, a burly man, refused to be cowed, holding his own impromptu tongue-lashings.

Saturday, in defeat, he typically followed Edwards toward reporters’ open notebooks and tape recorders.

“We exposed what they did,” he said. “You can’t take that away. It’s there in black and white.

“If we didn’t make (Edwards) honest, I hope we made him sorry.”

Became a Millionaire

Prosecutors had charged that Edwards and the others illegally manipulated the state’s system for approving hospital construction.

The scheme, they alleged, began after Edwards left office in 1980 and then turned into a big payday when he reclaimed the governor’s mansion in 1984.

Edwards has never denied that he became a millionaire after leaving office. He did, in fact, collect $1.9 million in fees for assisting a hospital consulting company.

“So what?” he argued. “What’s wrong with making money? You don’t get rich being governor. When I left office, I was only worth about half a million; now I’m worth 3 to 5 (million). But I did it as a private businessman, not as governor.”

But prosecutors said Edwards was a conspirator, not a consultant. They attempted to prove that through political favoritism, he rigged the granting of “certificates of need” for the construction of eight hospitals, including four in which he held a financial interest.

Supposed Motives

In the first trial, Volz presented a complicated case, detailing not only the alleged crimes but Edwards’ supposed motives, described as a string of gambling debts at Las Vegas casinos that were paid off with suitcases full of cash.

A mistrial was declared after jurors said they were deadlocked--either 11 to 1 or 10 to 2 for acquittal--on the various charges.

In the retrial, Volz presented a simplified case, dropping details of the governor’s bad luck at the craps tables. The defense rested without putting a single witness on the stand.

In his closing arguments, Volz beseeched the jury: “I ask you to send a message to the young and old and the rich and poor alike that no one, no matter what their position . . . they are not above the law.”

But the jury--eight men and four women, nine blacks and three whites--took less than 12 hours to decisively throw the charges out.

Edwards, rocking in the familiar black chair, tensed a bit before the announcement, then calmly nodded his approval.

Sees ‘New Mandate’

“It is a new mandate,” he said.

Louisiana can use some full-time leadership. The state is deeply in debt and the Legislature has been unable to agree on solutions.

Still, this verdict may mark only a temporary break in the parade of Louisiana politicians who have been taken to trial.

In the past few years, convicted bribe-takers have included the state attorney general, an agriculture commissioner and a couple of his aides, a U.S. congressman, the former president of the state Senate and Edwards’ former chief administrator.

In fact, other allegations against the governor--involving an audit of Texaco that allegedly saved the oil company millions in back taxes--are now under investigation.

More charges would surprise no one. A popular bumper sticker here is: “Louisiana: Land of Indictments.”

Edwards, son of a Cajun sharecropper, is a consummate Louisiana politician, spicy as gumbo and charming as an oak-shaded New Orleans courtyard. He also shows a remarkable candor that has made him immensely popular.

“People say I steal. Well, all politicians steal,” he once told a university audience.

Freed from the courtroom, he can now push harder for his own solution to Louisiana’s financial mess: casino gambling.