Author Topic: Ex-con, former gov. of Louisiana jailed for racketeering running for congress at age 86  (Read 671 times)

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rangerrebew

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Ex-con former Louisiana governor once jailed for racketeering announces he's running for Congress at age 86 (with bombshell wife, 35, by his side)
Edwin Edwards, 86, is plotting a return to politics after serving nearly 9 years in prison for racketeering, extortion and money laundering
The co-star of A&E's reality show 'The Governor's Wife' married his 35-year-old spouse after she became his pen pal in prison
Edwards was a Democratic four-term governor over three separate tenures in the 1970s, '80s and '90s
He won his last election by trouncing Louisiana Ku Klux Klan founder David Duke: Bumper stickers read 'Vote For the Crook: It's Important.'


By David Martosko, U.s. Political Editor

PUBLISHED: 18:44 EST, 19 February 2014  | UPDATED: 12:17 EST, 20 February 2014 

 
Former federal prison inmate #03128-095 is running for Congress in Louisiana – and he happens to be the state's former governor.


Edwin Edwards, a popular pol in his day, will try to make a political comeback despite his federal racketeering conviction 12 years ago and his advanced age: The Democrat is 86 years old.

Edwards told Bloomberg News on Wednesday that he'll try to win the seat held by Republican Bill Cassidy, who's vacating it to run for the U.S. Senate.

'I'm the only hope the Democrats have here,' the disgraced four-term governor said. And the kind of voters who will dismiss him because he's a convicted felon, he reasoned, 'wouldn't have voted for me anyway.'


This is not a plot from a reality show, although Edwards has already starred in one.



Before the deluge: Edwards, then 73, was sentenced to 10 years in the federal slammer for kickback schemes involving prison construction and casino licenses

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Before the deluge: Edwards, then 73, was sentenced to 10 years in the federal slammer for kickback schemes involving prison construction and casino licenses




'I'm only as old as the woman I feel,' Edwards quipped when he married Trina, a blonde bombshell less than half his age who was his prison pen pal

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'I'm only as old as the woman I feel,' Edwards quipped when he married Trina, a blonde bombshell less than half his age who was his prison pen pal



A&E aired eight episodes of 'The Governor's Wife' in October and November. It's an inside look at his relationship with 35-year-old Trina, a blonde prison pen pal who married him when he finished his sentence.

'I don’t know how it happened or why it happened but I absolutely fell in love with him,' Trina told Fox News in 2013. 

 


More...
 'I'm only as old as the woman I feel': Ex-governor appears after jail release with beautiful blonde fiancée 51 YEARS his junior
 'Look what I came back with!' Disgraced former Louisiana governor, 86, launches reality show with wife, 35, he met in PRISON
 Louisiana named most corrupt state in America
 Former New Orleans mayor found GUILTY on 20 out of 21 counts of corruption after he took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes


'And besides that, he doesn’t have as much money as most people think. So I’d be a pretty poor gold digger if that’s what I was in for.'

Trina gave birth to a baby boy on August 1 – he was conceived via IVF. She is also step-mother to the former governor's two daughters, who are in their 60s.


Edwards insists he's serious, saying he's 'just figuring out all the legalities and how to set up a super PAC, and then I'm going.'

That could be illegal in itself: Super PACs are independent political committees that aren't allowed to coordinate with the candidates they support.

But there were no Super PACs in the 1960s, the last time he ran for Congress – and won.




'Vote For the Crook: It's Important': Edwards once ran for governor against Louisiana Ku Klux Klan founder David Duke (C), also prompting the slogan 'Vote for the Lizard, Not the Wizard'

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'Vote For the Crook: It's Important': Edwards once ran for governor against Louisiana Ku Klux Klan founder David Duke (C), also prompting the slogan 'Vote for the Lizard, Not the Wizard'



Edwards retired from the governor's mansion in 1995 after four terms -- not all in a row -- and sported clothes that looked much like the prison-wear he would have to wear for more than eight years beginning in 2001

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Edwards retired from the governor's mansion in 1995 after four terms -- not all in a row -- and sported clothes that looked much like the prison-wear he would have to wear for more than eight years beginning in 2001




Republican Congressman Bill Cassidy is vacating his seat to run for the U.S> Senate, leaving an opportunity that Edwards, straight-faced, says he's ready to grab

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Republican Congressman Bill Cassidy is vacating his seat to run for the U.S> Senate, leaving an opportunity that Edwards, straight-faced, says he's ready to grab


Edwards was sentenced to 10 years in the slammer – he served eight and a half – for racketeering, extortion, money laundering, mail fraud and wire fraud in connection with a kickback scheme involving a for-profit company that built prisons all across America.

 Patrick Graham, the company's principal, testified that Edwards took an $845,000 kickback in exchange for green-lighting a plan to locate a new juvenile correction facility in the Louisiana town of Jena.



Edwards was a congressman in the late 1960s when he decided to run for governor, a position that made him wildly popular in his first two terms

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Edwards was a congressman in the late 1960s when he decided to run for governor, a position that made him wildly popular in his first two terms

San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo also admitted that Edwards helped him get a casino license in the state – a favor that cost him $400,000.

Before he traded in his pinstriped suits for prison garb, Edwards squared off against David Duke, an avowed white supremacist, for his fourth and final term as governor.

The two were forced into a runoff election in 1991 after the incumbent, Democrat Buddy Roemer, placed behind both of them on Election Day. It was Roemer who had bounced Edwards out of office four years earlier.

Public sentiment against Duke, the founder of the Louisiana Ku Klux Klan, was so intense that Edwards won handily, 61 to 39 per cent – even though his own public corruption was among the worst-kept secrets in the Pelican State.

Ultimately, Edwards won because he was seen as friendly to minority voters, a quality that trumped the public's disdain for crooked politicians.


Republican U.S. President George H.W. Bush publicly advocated for him, seeing Edwards as the lesser of two evils.

'Vote For the Crook. It's Important,' read one popular political bumper sticker at the time.


'Vote for the Lizard, not the Wizard,' read another.

It's unclear what his slogans might be in 2014, or if his Republican opponent's name will rhyme with 'geezer.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2563395/Ex-former-Louisiana-governor-jailed-racketeering-announces-hes-running-Congress-age-86-35-year-old-bombshell-wife-side.html#ixzz2uA3A4EZa
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« Last Edit: February 23, 2014, 03:56:03 pm by rangerrebew »

Oceander

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you just cannot make this stuff up.

rangerrebew

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you just cannot make this stuff up.

Democrats don't seem to have any problem at all coming up with it. :silly: