Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin Gets 10 Years For Bribery, Corruption

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for bribery, money laundering and other corruption.

Fox News reports that Nagin was convicted in February for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from businessmen seeking work from the city or asking for Nagin’s support for various projects. Nagin took money and free vacations.

At his hearing today, the 58-year-old Democrat who previously denied any wrongdoing said, “I trust that God’s going to work all this out.”  Apparently, Nagin didn’t know that God doesn’t like liars and thieves.

He was perhaps most widely known for his bombastic public pleas for ramped up federal support in the days after levee breaches flooded most of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. A political novice, Nagin was first elected mayor in 2002 by a wide margin. He cast himself as a reformer, saying he had planned to crackdown on corruption in the city’s automobile-inspection and taxi-permit programs. However, federal prosecutors proved that Nagin started committing his own corrupt acts during his first term. His illegal behavior continued through Katrina and increased when he was re-elected in 2006.

Nagin was alleged to have received roughly $500,000 in illegal payments.

And now Nagin will be spending the next ten years behind bars at a federal prison in Oakdale, La., starting in September.