Jazz official recounts Johnson’s boasts in Edwards trial

Natalie Gott

Thursday, March 9, 2000 | 9:18 a.m.

BATON ROUGE, La. - Jurors in Edwin Edwards' federal racketeering trial heard secretly taped threats and promises that co-defendant Bobby Johnson made to an executive seeking a state license for a riverboat casino.

They also heard the lighthearted stories Johnson and his co-defendant, Cecil Brown, told about Edwards, which caused Jazz executive Mark Bradley to believe Johnson would make good on his threats because he had some clout at the Governor's Mansion.

Johnson, Edwards, cattleman Cecil Brown and four others are on trial for a series of alleged bribery and extortion schemes allegedly launched to influence the licensing of riverboat casinos during and immediately after Edwards' final four-year term, which ended in January 1996.

Prosecutors currently are concentrating on what they call the "Jazz scheme," based on allegations that Johnson tried to force Jazz to give him an interest in their casino in exchange for approval of a riverboat casino license.

Bradley, the government's star witness in this alleged scheme, will be back on the witness stand when court resumes today.

In the tapes heard Wednesday, Johnson promises to clear the way for a land swap between the state and the casino company Jazz Enterprises - if Jazz promises to make a deal with Johnson.

In another conversation, Johnson tells Jazz executive Mark Bradley that he can help Jazz or he can help another casino in Port Allen, where Johnson owns land.

"I ain't being an iron a--, but I mean, I want a piece of it," Johnson is heard saying. "And I mean if I gotta go, you know, stop and get mine, I will because I can get mine."

Prosecutors say Johnson's demands amount to extortion, noting that Jazz never gave in to his demands and ultimately won a license for what became the Belle of Baton Rouge.

Bradley said Johnson asked him early on for a 7.5 percent interest in the Jazz casino but later upped his demand to 12.5 percent.

Not all of the money was apparently intended for Johnson.

"What we might have to do is break it down like he said, now what he told me I might have to do, he said you might have to break it down to 5 percent here and 5 percent there and 2.5 percent ... " Johnson told Bradley in a telephone conversation in April 1994. "I'm not keeping it all, anyway, Mark. I mean, it's not your business where it's going."

Bradley testified that he believed Edwards was the person who directed Johnson to break up the 12.5 percent into smaller interests.

Bradley testified that Johnson later told him he was going to share his interest with Brown.

In the middle of April 1994, Bradley said, he received a call from Johnson who said he was going to have Edwards' Commissioner of Administration, Raymond LaBorde, kill a land swap deal Jazz had worked out with the state.

The deal would have given Jazz nine acres of state property located near the proposed riverboat site in exchange for nine acres farther away from the riverboat site.

Bradley said the land swap deal was critical to the project because Jazz needed the land to have the required parking the City of Baton Rouge demanded.

Jurors then heard a tape of an April 14, 1994, telephone call Bradley placed to Johnson about a letter from LaBorde.

"That property is critical to us," Bradley said. "I was gonna say how could we stop this letter, but I know how we can stop the letter," Bradley said.

Johnson later replied: "All Steve and you got to do is tell me I got a deal and I'll go stop it ..."

The "Steve" referred to was Steve Urie, a partner in Jazz.

Johnson first contacted Bradley in February 1994, hoping to sell him land near Jazz's proposed casino site, Bradley said. Most of that conversation, and later conversations, was about Johnson's relationship with Edwards, though, Bradley said.

Later in 1994, Bradley said, he visited Edwards with Johnson at the Governor's Mansion.

Edwards patted Johnson on the back or shoulder and said, "This is a good man," Bradley said

"I believe the governor knew exactly what I was there for," Bradley said.

Bradley said Jazz officials had no interest in buying Johnson's land because it was contaminated, but did not want to reject Johnson's demands outright because of Johnson's political connections.

Bradley said he contacted the FBI after his first talks with Johnson and agreed to tape telephone conversations and wear a hidden recording device.

However, he said he and FBI agents were unable to arrange for him to wear a recording device during his first meeting with Johnson at a Baton Rouge restaurant.

That may have been a break for the agents. Bradley said when he met Johnson at the restaurant, Johnson frisked him. "He said he had to know who he was dealing with," Bradley testified.