Ex-New Orleans Mayor Nagin, once seen as a reformer-businessman, now a convicted politician

By Kevin McGill, The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS – Sixteen years after he burst on the New Orleans political scene as a charming, reform-minded businessman vowing to clean up city government, former Mayor Ray Nagin walked out of a federal courthouse as the glum embodiment of how far a politician can fall.

Nagin was convicted Wednesday on 20 counts including bribery and fraud that came in his two terms as New Orleans’ mayor from 2001 to 2010. They included the years that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He will be sentenced on June 11.

Nagin was a cable company executive and political newcomer when he succeeded Marc Morial in 2002. Soon after taking office, he announced a crackdown on municipal corruption.

But now he faces years in prison for corruption that federal prosecutors began during his first term and flourished in his second term.

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