Bradley back on the witness stand in Edwards trial

Natalie Gott

Sunday, March 12, 2000 | 9:27 a.m.

BATON ROUGE, La. - A former casino executive who secretly recorded his conversations with two defendants in Edwin Edwards' federal racketeering trial will be back on the witness stand when testimony resumes Monday.

Edwards, businessman Bobby Johnson, cattleman Cecil Brown and four other defendants have been on trial since Jan. 10, charged with carrying out a series of schemes to manipulate the state's riverboat casino licensing process kickbacks. Prosecutors say the schemes took place before and after Edwards served his fourth term as governor from 1992-1996.

In this part of the trial, which prosecutors have dubbed the "Jazz Scheme," Johnson and Brown are accused of trying to extort a 12.5 percent ownership interest in Jazz Enterprises Inc.

In exchange, Johnson promised to guarantee the company a riverboat casino license, prosecutors claim. But Jazz never paid Johnson, received its license in July 1994 and opened the Belle of Baton Rouge casino.

Former Jazz vice president, Mark Bradley, secretly recorded several conversations he had with Johnson while the alleged plot occurred. Those tapes have been played in court.

Brown's attorney, Rebecca Hudsmith, got her turn to defend her client late Friday afternoon during questioning Bradley, who had been testifying since Wednesday.

Bradley testified he felt threatened by Brown because he was well-connected to the former governor.

But Hudsmith said Bradley had spoken to Brown only twice - once at a lunch meeting with Johnson and a lawyer, and another time on the telephone.

Bradley said just having Brown show up at lunch was enough for him to feel threatened.

"In other words, he could have said not a single word, and you felt threatened?" Hudsmith asked.

Bradley responded that he had read several newspaper articles that mentioned Brown's close friendship with Edwards.

According to the tape recording made at the lunch on April 18, 1994, Brown told several stories about his outings with Edwards. At the end of the lunch, he asks Bradley to discuss the details of Johnson's plan to get 12.5 percent from Jazz.

"It's an ownership interest and that's 12.5 percent of a 100 percent?" Brown asked on the tape.

Bradley told Brown he was correct, according to the tape.