Gumbo Pot of Candidates Vies for New Orleans Mayor : Politics: With 10 contenders in the race, a little controversy is bound to spice things up. One leader’s aide is indicted in mudslinging case.

Ten candidates sought the city’s top office Saturday, including the sons of two popular ex-mayors and a former port authority chairman whose adviser was indicted a day earlier.

The candidates were fighting to replace Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, who is barred from seeking a third four-year term. If no one receives a majority of the votes cast, a runoff for the top two vote-getters will be held on March 5.

Polls showed attorney Donald Mintz in a close race with state Sen. Marc Morial, son of the city’s first black mayor, Dutch Morial.

Mintz’s candidacy was damaged Friday when adviser Napoleon Moses was indicted for distributing anonymous, and therefore illegal, campaign literature.

The misdemeanor indictment did not specify which flyer Moses allegedly distributed. But several flyers smearing virtually all of the major candidates have surfaced around the city.

One flyer claimed that Morial, the acknowledged father of one child born out of wedlock, had fathered others. It also called him bisexual and a drug abuser.

State Rep. Mitch Landrieu, son of former Mayor Moon Landrieu, called for Mintz to withdraw from the race. Landrieu had been running a distant third in recent polls.

The race was an open primary, meaning members of any party could run. But eight of the 10 candidates ran as Democrats and the other two as independents, and party did not seem to matter as much as race.

The city’s electorate is 62% black, and seven of the 10 candidates are black. Mintz, one of the three white candidates, lost four years ago to Barthelemy.

Whoever is elected mayor will inherit recurring money woes and a $380-million-plus budget; the prospect of dealing with the world’s largest gambling casino, expected to open in a year or two; and a burgeoning crime problem.

The city of just under a half-million people recorded 386 murders in 1993--a 36% jump from the previous year.

Barthelemy is backing City Councilman Lambert Bossiere, but his support may prove a liability. Barthelemy’s popularity sank during his last term, and a report in the Times-Picayune newspaper charged that professionals with city contracts were pressured to help the Bossiere campaign. Barthelemy and Bossiere denied the charges.

The other candidates are tax assessor Ken Carter, state Rep. Sherman Copelin, lawyer Roy Raspanti, Jerome Slade, Arthur Jacobs and Julius Leahman.