The Jeffersons can stop fretting about their reputation (Mose

The Jeffersons can stop fretting about their reputation: Stephanie Grace
By Stephanie Grace, The Times-Picayune
November 15, 2009, 5:36AM

Mose Jefferson, convicted brother of a convicted former congressman, recently asked a federal judge to delay his Dec. 10 sentencing for one crime so as not to prejudice potential jurors in his Jan. 25 trial on allegations of another, which is related to neither his nor his famous sibling's prior indictment.

What she didn't say is that timing really doesn't matter, because any damage to the collective Jefferson reputation is already done.

When you think about it, the family rap sheet is pretty spectacular: Bill Jefferson, the nine-term New Orleans congressman, was sentenced Friday to 13 years in prison for using his official position to pursue various business ventures in Africa. Mose Jefferson was convicted in the school board case and awaits trial for allegedly skimming money from government-financed nonprofit groups. Betty Jefferson, the sitting 4th District Assessor in New Orleans, stands accused in the same case, along with her daughter Angela Coleman and former City Councilwoman Renee Gill Pratt, Mose Jefferson's longtime significant other. And yet another Jefferson sibling, Brenda Foster, has already pleaded guilty in that nonprofit case.

And don't forget Bill Jefferson's brother-in-law, former Jefferson Parish judge Alan Green, who was convicted in 2005 of mail fraud in yet another completely unrelated investigation. Mose Jefferson took the stand as a witness in that trial too -- under subpoena by the same U.S. Attorney's office that later targeted him.

Actually, Mose Jefferson is lucky he wasn't targeted a third time, in his brother's case, although prosecutors named him an unindicted co-conspirator for his role in a number of the international deals covered by the Virginia indictment.

I lived in NO for a couple of years. Sadly, the Jeffersons are not unique in any sense. NO will never be anything other than what it is, because theft of public money is considered a perk of the office.
In the time I lived there, I watched a cop wave off a ticket for a chick that was drunk and ran a stop sign and T-Boned a guy and his pregnant wife. The chick was hot and gave the cop her phone number. I encountered several cops in NO (none where I was a suspect for anything) and every single one was looking for a bribe or offering to fix tickets.
After the hurricane, there were a lot of stories about how many NO cops abandoned their posts, but it turns out nearly 1/3rd of the NO police department was fictional. They didn’t exist. I never heard of any investigation as to where the paychecks were going, but I have a pretty good idea. When the cops went on strike, the city computers had a “glitch” and the cops got paychecks that were two or three dollars for their last month that they worked.
I lived there when the cops went on strike during Mardi Gras. THE CRIME RATE WENT DOWN. No joke. The crime rate went down.
When the garbage collectors went on strike, somebody (no proof, but have a good guess) put out flyers saying the garbage collectors didn’t want the citizens to suffer and to just leave their garbage on the front yard of the union hall. That one was funny, I admit.
The thing with NO is that corruption is so rampant people don’t even bother to conceal it. I was approached several times by people who didn’t even know me, but were more than happy to offer illegal behind the scenes deals.

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