New Orleans, La. - A federal grand jury started handing up indictments back in November of 2009, when Nagin's former technology chief, Greg Meffert, and Mark St. Pierre, a City Hall technology subcontractor, were accused of being crooks.
A year and half ago, Meffert pleaded guilty to corruption charges, admitting he steered millions of dollars in no-bid city work to St. Pierre. Meffert admitted he accepted more than $860,000 in bribes and kickbacks.
In that alleged scheme, investigators alleged Nagin took trips to Jamaica and Hawaii with Meffert on St. Pierre's dime, although Nagin told FOX 8 in 2009 he thought Meffert paid for the trip, not St. Pierre through his company Netmethods.
"It was a personal family vacation, so I don't understand how that's a problem. He [Meffert] paid for the trip as far as I know. That's what he intimated to me, and he also told some workers at the time that he paid for it," says Nagin.
St. Pierre also paid for Nagin's personal law maintenance. Last May, St. Pierre was convicted on 53 counts of corruption and is already serving a 17-year prison term.
Prosecutors says businessman Aaron Bennett came on the scene in January of 2007 when the city paid Bennett to manage St. Pierre's technology contract. There were also questions about why Bennett paid for a 2007 trip for Nagin to Chicago for the Saints NFC Championship game.
Last October, Bennett pleaded guilty to bribing former Plaquemines Parish Sheriff Jiff Hingle and is cooperating with the feds.
That leads to Tuesday's bill of information against another city vendor, Frank Fradella.
Bennett told the Times-Picayune that he introduced former mayor Nagin to Fradella, specifically to help the mayor and his two sons, who formed a company called Stone Age, get a contract with Home Depot to install granite countertops after Katrina.
Fradella's company, Home Solutions, received millions of dollars in city contracts from the airport to the French Market.
