Ex-Louisiana Gov. Edwards Indicted

For former four-time Gov. Edwin Edwards, who has long mixed populist politics with high living, wit and the cold gaze of prosecutors, it was a well-practiced ritual. Suave in a navy blue suit, he greeted the announcement that he faced a new 28-count extortion indictment Friday with an insouciance familiar to Louisianians.

“It’s less than I expected,” Edwards said, standing on the steps of the federal courthouse here. “I’m not charged at all with the Oklahoma City bombing. I can truthfully say if my sentence is 350 years, I don’t intend to serve.”

For much of his career, his brazen humor about his peccadilloes seemed to match Louisianians’ feeling that politics in their state wasn’t for Puritans. But Fridays’ accusations that he extorted $2 million from riverboat casino firms wanting to win Louisiana gaming licenses occur in a different landscape than the one Edwards has faced in past legal troubles, some observers say.

Edwards’ son Stephen and three Edwards associates, including a state senator, also were charged Friday. Payoffs to Edwin Edwards, who allegedly launched the scheme during his last two terms in office, were passed hand-to-hand in a Louisiana restaurant and deposited in trash bins, witnesses said.

$400,000 in Cash Seized at Home, Office

The race for riverfront casino licenses began in the early 1990s, after Louisiana joined a national wave of states hoping to earn money by legalizing gambling. The casino legislation was passed under Gov. Buddy Roemer in 1991, but it was Edwards, a passionate gambler, who later named members of the Riverboat Gaming Commission, which granted licenses.

The probe began more than a year ago when the FBI raided Edwards’ home and office, seizing records and more than $400,000 in cash. Thus the charges made public Friday were no surprise.

Facing investigation, three Edwards associates struck deals with the government last month alleging that the former governor had begun extorting aspiring riverboat licensees while still in office. The extortions continued after he had left the governor’s seat in 1996.

Among them, Eddie DeBartolo Jr., who resigned his control of the San Francisco 49ers football team after being named a target, told investigators under oath that Edwards had “victimized” him, demanding $400,000 plus monthly fees to ensure a firm DeBartolo partly owned would get the state’s last riverboat casino license.

Forty-eight hours after DeBartolo’s testimony, gambling consultant Ricky Shetler pleaded guilty to making $550,000 in payoffs to Edwards and his son, allegedly as part of an extortion effort from a Lake Charles casino seeking a license.

And Edwards’ friend Robert Guidry said he paid the former governor and two associates $1.5 million, furtively depositing some of it in trash cans.

The silver-haired, saucy politician was known for relishing women, cash and gambling. But he also has traditionally reached out to Louisiana’s poor and minority voters. Holding office four times in all, he was indicted twice--but not convicted--for fraud and racketeering in the 1980s.

Fascination with his style may have ebbed, however.

“Louisiana soured on Edwin Edwards many years ago, back during his first trial,” said John Maginnis, who has written two books on Louisiana politics. “Even before he was indicted, his popularity went through the floor and never recovered.”

This time, Edwards faces what appears to be a credible case. Government prosecutors armed themselves with electronics and made thousands of hours of tape-recordings, culled from phone taps and listening devices installed in Edward’s office.

The evidence from all these sources makes “this a strong case . . . a very carefully thought-out case, and I believe it will lead to convictions,” U.S. Atty. Eddie Jordan said Friday on the courthouse steps just after Edwards appeared.

As for other Edwards cronies, Jordan said, “They’re not out of the woods yet” and suggested that more indictments may come. The trial could be more than a year away, Jordan said.

Edwards, though, called the investigation unfair and insisted he had acted legally. “If the [government] had had a case, they wouldn’t have had to make a deal” with ex-friends. “They needed their corrupted testimony.”

He said his business arrangement with DeBartolo was “a little strange and bizarre . . . but there was nothing illegal about it. . . . It did not involve any illegal activity.” He said he would serve as co-counsel in his own defense and added that he had enough evidence to “seriously damage the credibility” of those who have agreed to testify against him.

As in the past, Edwards couldn’t resist confronting accusations with a gibe. He told reporters that the “only jail time I’m worried about is having to wear a suit every day to trial.”

‘A Kind of Sadness About the State’

This is a man who famously boasted in an election season that the only thing that could defeat him was being caught with a dead woman or a live boy. During his years as governor, epic poker games in the governor’s mansion were routine. After ending a four-decade marriage, the now 71-year-old politician publicly mulled his plans for a reverse vasectomy in hopes of starting a family with his new 34-year-old wife.

The flair he brought to politics has made this case peculiarly saddening, even for those who want him out of public life, Maginnis said. “There’s a kind of sadness about the state even from people who never voted for him. They didn’t want to see it end this way.”

But Earl Black, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston, said there is a good chance that Edwards will somehow walk free once again.

“He’s such a larger-than-life personality that you might get a hung jury.” Black observed. In any jury pool, there would likely be “at least a few friends and admirers of Edwin Edwards. I wouldn’t bet against him.”

Times researcher Hart reported from Baton Rouge and staff writer Kolker from Houston.