A Reckoning in the Bayou

摘要

His luck finally ran out last week. Seventy-two-year-old former governor Edwin W. Edwards was convicted of extorting almost $3 million from companies that applied for river-boat-casino licenses. A craps player noted for his love of beautiful women and his use of gambling aliases such as "T. Wong," Edwards once declared that to get in trouble with Louisiana voters he would have to be found "in bed with a dead girl or a live boy." In the end, it wasn't the voters he had to worry about. Edwards, who won a fourth term as governor after being cleared in the second of two federal trials (die first ended in a hung jury), has also been the target of 22 grand-jury investigations. Last week, after the jury found him guilty of 17 counts, Edwards said, "The Chinese have a saying: if you sit by the river long enough, the dead body of your enemy will come floating down the river. I suppose the Feds sat by the river long enough, so here comes my body."