SALON

Tuesday, Jun 26, 2012 10:15 PM UTC

Businessman linked to Nagin to plead guilty

By

Topics: From the Wires,

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A Louisiana businessman linked to a corruption probe of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is expected to plead guilty Wednesday to conspiring to bribe a former city official.

The ex-official served as an “agent” of the city between 2002 to 2010 — years that coincide with Nagin’s two terms in office — and is identified as “Public Official A” in court documents. Randy Smith, a lawyer for the businessman, Frank Fradella, said it was pretty obvious who the official is.

“If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” Smith said. “I don’t have the right to name the duck. Only the government can name it.”

An attorney for Nagin, who hasn’t been charged with wrongdoing, didn’t immediately respond to telephone calls seeking comment. U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said he couldn’t comment.

Smith said Fradella, who was CEO of a disaster reconstruction firm, is cooperating with federal authorities.

Federal authorities are investigating how a company founded by Nagin and his two sons obtained a contract to install granite countertops for local Home Depot stores after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, people with direct knowledge of the probe told The Associated Press in February.

Aaron Bennett, a businessman who pleaded guilty last year in a separate bribery case, told The Times-Picayune he introduced Nagin to Fradella specifically to help the mayor get the Home Depot work. Fradella’s company received millions of dollars in city contracts for repair work at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and in the French Quarter after Katrina, the newspaper reported.

Fradella conspired to provide payoffs to the unidentified public official to reward him for his assistance in a series of unspecified “transactions,” worth at least $5,000, involving the city, court documents said.

The former official used his office to benefit Fradella’s business interests in exchange for the payoffs, the court documents said.

Fradella was CEO of Home Solutions of America Inc., a publicly traded company.

Fradella was freed on $100,000 bond Tuesday after making his initial court appearance in New Orleans for a securities fraud case that originated in Texas. Elements of the Texas case are contained in the new charges against him in New Orleans.

More Michael Kunzelman.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • A missing poster hangs on a tree outside the Cleveland home of Amanda Berry Wednesday. Berry and two other women, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, made a daring escape this week after being held captive for more than a decade.
    Credit: AP/Tony Dejak

  • Elvis Rafael Rodriguez and Emir Yasser Yeje offer their best impression of  Eric B. & Rakim. On Thursday, New York prosecutors identified the pair as members of an international gang that robbed $45 million in a matter of hours by hacking into a database of prepaid debit cards and draining ATM machines around the world.
    Credit: AP

  • New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie walks to a podium during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Technology Enhanced Accelerated Learning Center at Essex County Newark Tech in Newark, N.J., Tuesday. Christie made less flattering headlines this week after undergoing a secret stomach surgery to curb his weight.
    Credit: AP/Julio Cortez

  • Workers stand outside the Tung Hai Sweater Ltd. factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday after a fire broke out in its 11-story building. Eight people were killed in the blaze.
    Credit: AP/Ismail Ferdous

  • Workers rescue a woman trapped for 17 days in the rubble of a garment factory building in Saver, Bangladesh, Friday. The building's collapse was the worst industrial disaster in the country's history, killing more than 1,000 people.
    Credit: AP

  • Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford gives his victory speech Tuesday in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., after winning back his old congressional seat in the state's first district.
    Credit: AP/Rainier Ehrhardt

  • Jodi Arias reacts in Maricopa Country Superior Court Wednesday after being found guilty of first-degree murder in the gruesome killing of her one-time boyfriend, Travis Alexander. Arias has subsequently said she wants the death penalty, claiming she'd "prefer to die sooner than later."
    Credit: AP/The Arizona Republic/Rob Schumacher

  • Ariel Castro stands for his mug shot Thursday at the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center, where he is being held on $8 million bail. The former bus driver is accused of imprisoning three young women and beating them repeatedly over a period of 10 years.
    Credit: AP/Cuyahoga County

  • Charles Ramsey addresses the media Monday after helping rescue three women held captive in Cleveland for more than a decade. Ramsey's hero portraiture has been complicated by revelations of his own domestic violence record.
    Credit: AP/The Plain Dealer/Scott Shaw

  • Michael B. Donley, Secretary of the Air Force, testifies during a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The military branch was rocked this week after its chief sexual assault prevention officer was charged with sexual battery.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations