Bored Edwards blasts federal prison's 'silly rules'
Posted on 12/05/2002 3:58:10 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Bored Edwards blasts federal prison's 'silly rules'
Louisiana ex-governor serving 10 years in FW in extortion case
12/05/2002
Former Gov. Edwin Edwards describes federal prison as a place "run by silly, meaningless rules, the purpose of which I cannot understand."
"I just obey and try to endure endless hours of boredom," Mr. Edwards said in a letter mailed from the Fort Worth prison. "I miss [my wife] Candy, my family, friends and the wonderful life I had - but I will survive. They have my body but they do not have my mind!"
The thoughts are included in a letter Mr. Edwards, who has been imprisoned for about six weeks, sends out to those who write him.
"Please forgive this form letter," the note says. "I have received 20 to 40 letters per day and I do not have the ability to answer each individually at this time. But, I wanted you to know that each is special to me and has helped make this horrible experience bearable."
Mr. Edwards also asks recipients to "sign and circulate a petition for clemency - a long shot - but we must try everything."
Only the president can issue a pardon for federal inmates.
The former governor was convicted in May 2000 with his son Stephen and three other men of extorting payoffs in exchange for his help in acquiring state riverboat casino licenses. He began serving a 10-year sentence Oct. 21.
Mr. Edwards concludes the letter, saying: "Live well, be kind to each other and keep the faith - something good will happen!"
The letter was hand-signed.
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Louisiana ping list!. . .don't be shy. 
Jury gets Louisiana corruption case
Ex-governor accused of extorting millions from casino applicants
By Natalie Gott / Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Money scattered on the floor. Money exchanged in high stakes poker games. Money hidden under ducks in the freezer. Briefcases full of money. Money in trash bins. Money in ash bins. Money in broken down trailers.
Big-money tales are nothing new in the 40-year public saga of Louisiana's rougish four-time ex-governor, Edwin Edwards. But this time the tales of money, money everywhere, could land him in a federal prison beyond what he calls his "biblically allotted time."
"Look him straight in the eye and tell him he's guilty," Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Harper told jurors during closing arguments last week near the close of his federal racketeering trial.
After 16 weeks, the case will be in the jury's hands today.
Edwards is accused of masterminding a series of schemes to extort millions of dollars from applicants for lucrative riverboat casino licenses before and after his final term ended in January 1996. Also charged are his son Stephen, a state senator, a state gambling board member and three of Edwards' friends. Their trial started Jan. 10.
If convicted on all counts, Edwards, 72, faces more than 300 years in prison -- a term he joked he would never serve.
Elected four times despite -- possibly because of -- his unabashed love of high-stakes gambling and his reputation as a ladies man, Edwards by his own count has been the target of nearly two dozen investigations.
A probe in the 1980s into his investments in hospital and nursing home deals led to two trials. The first ended with a hung jury in 1985. He was acquitted in a retrial a year later.
This time, however, they had Edwards' own words to use against him. With wiretaps and a hidden microphone and video camera, the FBI secretly recorded 1,500 hours of conversations involving Edwards and his co-defendants.
The prosecution's case also includes three witnesses who claimed they paid extortion money to Edwards, and financial experts who say Edwards outspent his reported earnings.
Edwards takes it in stride. With his 35-year-old wife, Candy, on one side and his 50-year-old daughter, Anna, on the other, he sauntered into the courthouse every day with his head held high, giving a slight wave to the reporters he's forbidden to talk to because of a gag order.
The witnesses say the payoffs came in the form of vehicles, appliances and cash. A former casino owner, who said he keeps hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden under ducks and deer in his freezer, said he sometimes left the cash in trash bins or ash bins behind restaurants or in a trailer behind his office.
Former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. told jurors that Edwards threatened to cause problems for DeBartolo's application for a riverboat casino license if Edwards was not paid $400,000. DeBartolo handed Edwards the money -- $100 bills stacked in a briefcase -- at the San Francisco airport. DeBartolo said Edwards showed him a money belt when DeBartolo asked how Edwards planned to transport the money without passing it through an airport X-ray machine.
Edwards denied the claims with his typical aplomb when he took the witness stand for four days.
When asked if he was lying, Edwards had a simple answer: "No, and if I were, you've got to assume I wouldn't be telling you."
When lead prosecutor Jim Letten accused him of answering a question in a way to embarrass Letten, Edwards responded: "I don't think I have the capacity to embarrass you."
Even the jurors, whose faces remained expressionless throughout most of Edwards' testimony, cracked a smile at that one-liner.
Prosecutors also paraded in contractors and designers who testified that Edwards paid them in cash when he was building a new home. In all, Edwards paid $733,567 in cash for his $1.4-million house. A delivery man said Candy Edwards paid him $4,500 in $100 bills. When he stepped inside the house to collect the money, he said he saw $100 bills lying on the floor.
But despite all the evidence the five-person prosecution team does have -- 1,500 hours of testimony and 66 witnesses -- defense attorneys say there has not been a "smoking gun."
"Where is the evidence that Edwin Edwards, Stephen Edwards, Andrew Martin and Cecil Brown actually sat down and talked about manipulating the licensing process?" asked attorney Jim Cole, who represents Stephen Edwards.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Harper said the evidence is in all of the conversations. They talked about hiding money, cheating on their taxes and of secret payments, Harper said.
This guy wont have much of a mind left in another few months if he can't entertain himself now.
Edwards takes it in stride. With his 35-year-old wife, Candy, on one side and his 50-year-old daughter, Anna, on the other, he sauntered into the courthouse every day with his head held high, giving a slight wave to the reporters he's forbidden to talk to because of a gag order.
I wish I had a picture of that, lol ! 
Hey bro, dontcha think his wife is a lil' old... Surely he coulda found some young thang in her twenties...
Being bored and bitchin' about the rules doesn't leave a lot of time for frivilousness like answering letters individually.
His wife is young enough to be the illegitimate daughter of his daughter.
Does anyone else see a certain irony in this?
That he was paid for licenses and now... he's making them?
ACE! =)
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