T. Wong returns in the Edwards trial

Natalie Gott

Thursday, April 13, 2000 | 12:13 p.m.

BATON ROUGE, La. - In a scene reminiscent of his 1985 corruption trial, former Gov. Edwin Edwards was questioned today by a federal prosecutor about cash payments for gambling debts and his penchant for using aliases.

On the stand for the third day in his federal racketeering trial, Edwards was shown reports on currency transactions that indicated he paid $243,600 in cash to casinos in 1990. On a few of the reports, Edwards signed the name Ed Neff.

Edwards explained that he has used several different monikers on his reports, including "T. Wong" and "Muffaletta."

"I'm probably the only person in America who can sign with a fictitious name. That's how good my honor is," Edwards said.

Prosecutors have been using Edwards' history of paying cash for gambling debts and big-ticket items to bolster their claims that he took huge cash payoffs in return for help in obtaining riverboat casino licenses.

In 1985, while trying Edwards in connection with several health care investement deals, federal prosecutors brought up evidence of his paying off gambling debts with huge amounts of cash - and his use of aliases including T. Wong. That trial ended with a hung jury but Edwards was found innocent the following year in a retrial.

On Wednesday, Edwards said he never extorted money from a former casino owner, although he briefly considered running a different illegal deal to get money from him.

"It's not the first time in my life I thought of something and then realized on sober reflection that it's not the thing to do," Edwards, 72, said during his second day on the witness stand in his federal racketeering trial.

Most of Wednesday's testimony involved Edwards' financial relationship with former Treasure Chest casino owner Robert Guidry. Early in the 3-month-old trial, Guidry testified under a plea agreement he was forced to pay Edwards and two others as much as $1.5 million for help in getting a riverboat casino license.

Edwards, his son, Stephen, their friend Andrew Martin and four others are on trial in U.S. District Court. They are accused of taking part in a series of extortion and bribery schemes involving the licensing of riverboat casino before and after Edwards' fourth and final term ended in January 1996.

The trial began Jan. 10.

Edwards and prosecutor Jim Letten clashed over Guidry's credibility, as well as the significance of Edwards' son's fingerprint on an envelope stuffed with cash, and interpretations of secretly made tapes of Edwards' private conversations.

Guidry had testified that he tossed a bag with a $65,000 cash payment into Stephen Edwards' car on April 8, 1997.

Letten asked Edwards if that transaction took place.

"Neither I nor Mr. Santini, who was following us, saw that," Edwards answered, a reference to FBI agent Geoffrey Santini's testimony that he never saw the exchange even though he was staking out the meeting.

Letten asked if Edwards got a $33,000 share from that transaction.

"He didn't get it, so I didn't get it," Edwards answered.

Letten then noted that on April 28 - 20 days after the alleged payoff - FBI agents seized an envelope filled with $33,000 in cash from Edwards' safe. Stephen Edwards' fingerprints were on the envelope, Letten said.

"What an unfortunate coincidence my son had his fingerprints on an envelope in my safe," Edwards said.

Another brief but pointed exchange centered on the importance of whether co-defendant Andrew Martin used the word "get" or "getting" on a secretly made tape.

"I hate to have my whole life hang on a couple of words," Edwards said.

Martin used the phrase during a Feb. 27, 1997, taped conversation, in which the men talk about renting a tugboat to Guidry at inflated rental fees. They also discussed inventing work and charging Guidry for it.

"Then you've got some showable income," Edwards said on tape.

They discussed the plan, Edwards said, only because Guidry owed Stephen and Martin money for legitimate lobbying, legal and consultant work that Guidry had not paid.

"Bobby Guidry wasn't paying us extortion money," Edwards said. "I was looking for some vehicle for Bobby Guidry to start paying my son and Andrew, and I was looking to get a little of it myself."

Martin also is heard on the tape saying, "you get 30-30-30." Letten asked whether that was a reference to the approximate payments the men were receiving from Guidry.

Edwards said he had no idea what Martin was talking about.

Then he said prosecutors overlooked the fact that Martin used the word "get," instead of "getting."

It was evident, Edwards said, that Martin was referring to what the men would make on the boat deal, not on what prosecutors said the men already were getting from Guidry.

Edwards also denied Wednesday that he ever worked out a plan with another defendant, Cecil Brown, to take payoffs from a group of Alton, Ill., investors who were seeking a casino license.

The men testified that they paid Brown tens of the thousands of dollars to be their consultant on the project mainly because he boasted of his relationship with Edwards.

On taped conversations, Brown is heard telling the men that he and Edwards are partners in the deal.

"I would have stopped him in a New York second if I heard that," said Edwards, who added that he never authorized Brown to speak for him. The men never received a license.