Tuesday, April 18, 2000 | 10:25 a.m.
BATON ROUGE, La. - "Pure greed" drove Edwin Edwards, his son Stephen and five others into an elaborate series of extortion schemes involving the licensing of Louisiana casinos, a prosecutor said today as final arguments in the former governor's federal racketeering trial began.
Almost 3 1/2 months after the start of the trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Letten outlined an overview of the government's case. He touched on each of the alleged schemes involving extortion of riverboat casino license applicants.
Letten reviewed testimony and evidence illustrating Edwards' influence over the now defunct Riverboat Gaming Commission during his fourth and final term (1992-1996), noting that projects backed by Edwards' supporters won early licenses and recounting how a list of projects supported by the governor won preliminary approval in one key commission meeting.
He called Edwards a behind-the-scenes manipulator, Stephen Edwards a more visible manager and co-defendants Andrew Martin, Bobby Johnson and Cecil Brown the "bag men" who generally insulated Edwin Edwards from the victims of extortion.
When Letten finished, Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Harper took over outlining what the government said was Edwards' and Martin's extortion of former Treasure Chest Casino owner Robert Guidry.
After the governor and Martin helped smooth over Guidry's problems with state police for a video poker license, Harper said, Martin offered help getting a riverboat casino license. But Martin said "it will cost you," Harper said, echoing Guidry's claims during testimony early in the trial.
"Bobby Guidry is not a complete fool," Harper added. "He insisted on meeting with Edwards."
Harper then recalled Guidry's claim that he sealed the extortion deal during a private meeting at a hotel conference room with Edwin Edwards. The alleged deal involved Guidry's getting a license while Edwards was in office, and paying for it in monthly installments totaling about $1.5 million after the fourth term ended in January 1996.
"The defense would tell you Bobby Guidry doesn't have the money to pay," Harper said. "This man cashes checks for sixty, sixty-five thousand dollars like I go to the ATM and get $20 on my way to Wal-Mart."
Harper punctuated his argument by replaying secretly taped conversations of Edwards and Martin.
"I'm worried about him every month taking the money out of the bank," Edwards says on one of those tapes.
Edwards last week testified that he did not extort any money from Guidry but was trying to work out a deal so that Guidry could pay Martin for consulting fees and his son Stephen for legal work.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Frank Polozola set a scheduled for the closing arguments, allowing the government 6 1/2 hours - all day today. Defense attorneys get eight hours beginning Wednesday, followed by prosecutors' rebuttal on Thursday.
Polozola issued a stern warning to jurors: They should not begin deliberating until after he reads to them the jury charge, either Thursday afternoon or Monday morning. The jurors will not deliberate over the three-day Easter weekend.
Prosecutors ended their case Monday, after calling Internal Revenue Service agent Don Semesky, who testified that Edwards spent in the range of $704,000 to $872,000 more in cash than he reported making in the years 1986 to 1997.
The defense rested Friday, but Polozola allowed Semesky to rebut Edwards' testimony last week that indicated much of the cash he spent came from gambling winnings.
State Sen. Greg Tarver and current state gambling board member Ecotry Fuller also are on trial in the case. The trial started with jury selection on Jan. 10.
Prosecutors say Edwards received the payoffs in cash and used evidence of his spending of large amounts of cash for big-ticket items to bolster their case.
Semesky used two different starting points to come up with the two different estimates of how much cash Edwards spent.
First, to get $872,000 in excess expenditures, Semesky credited Edwards with having $82,000 in cash on hand at the end of 1986 - a figure he derived from Edwards a year earlier in his trial on charges stemming from health care investments. Edwards was acquitted on those charges.
But Semesky also did calculations based on testimony in the current trial, in which Edwards said he always keeps between $250,000 and $500,000 in cash on hand at all times. That led to his lower estimate of $704,000.
Edwards' attorney, Dan Small, said Semesky's calculations were not accurate because they showed that Edwards had $380,000 of unaccounted cash that the FBI found when it raided Edwards' home.
Small said that was cash that Edwards received from former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. and should have been included in Semesky's calculations of incoming cash Edwards received.
Semesky said the government did not include the figure in incoming cash because it believes the payment was illegal.
DeBartolo testified that Edwards threatened to cause problems with DeBartolo's riverboat casino application if DeBartolo did not pay Edwards $400,000.
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