Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Everything you need to know about the release of federal inmate No. 03128-095, also known as Edwin Edwards
By Jeremy Alford
You’re going to want to keep the first couple of weeks of January open. We’re talking Jan. 4, 6, 8, 9 and 11. And maybe a few of the dates in between. This is around the time the Federal Bureau of Prisons has claimed it will release ex-Gov. Edwin Edwards. “I’ve heard all of them. We really won’t know until he gets out,” says Edwards biographer Leo Honeycutt. “The feds don’t want to end up with a media circus.”
That’s basically what happened when Edwards, who served an unprecedented four terms as governor, checked into the Federal Correctional Complex in Fort Worth, Texas, just eight years ago. He was later moved closer to home to the federal facility in Oakdale, which is where Edwards can be found today. While Edwards contends he was only guilty of “arrogance,” a jury of peers also found him guilty of 17 of 26 corruption counts. Prosecutors managed to convince them and most others keeping tabs during the trial of the century that Edwards shook down several private businessmen in their quests to obtain riverboat casino licenses.
But that was then. Today, the Sliver Zipper is only days away from freedom. Actually, he won’t be completely free. Sources close to Edwards’ family say a halfway house could be in Edwards’ future, although he is lobbying for home confinement. For security reasons, Federal Bureau of Prisons “policy prohibits the release of an inmate’s designation to the public prior to his/her arrival at the designated facility, including the inmate’s transfer to a (residential reentry center).”
While such conditional releases are allowed after an inmate puts in 85 percent of his sentence, the feds still list Edwards’ release date in public documents as July 6, 2011. Anything that happens from here on out will be in the hands of either U.S. Probation or the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. Honeycutt says he doesn’t even know if he’ll be able to attend book signings with Edwards, who is now 83. “They’ll dictate if he’ll be able to move around and make money,” he says.
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| Trina Scott |
Should Edwards be granted home confinement, Honeycutt and others say it will likely be with his daughter in Denham Springs. “I really don’t know anywhere else he would go,” says Honeycutt. Other sources jest that would be appropriate, since there’s another regular house guest at the Denham Springs residence: Elaine Edwards, the 81-year-old former wife of the former governor. By all accounts, Candy Edwards, his second wife half his age who left after he went to the pokey, isn’t in the picture. In fact, she has a son with another man in the Baton Rouge area.
No, the Cajun Prince has moved on quite a bit since those two. Based on a report filed last week by independent journalist John Maginnis and further scoop from Honeycutt, Edwards has himself a real-life girlfriend, another blonde who appears to be in her 30s. She is Alexandria’s Trina Scott and pursued Edwards even as he was confined. “As it has been told to me, she read the book and fell in love with him” Honeycutt says. Then there’s the reports that Edwards might get hitched again, which Honeycutt brushes off. “That’s funny, because during our five years of interviews, one thing he was adamant about not doing again was running for office and getting married,” he said. “But I understand the family did warm up to her pretty good.”
Even after all those years away, Edwards is still stirring inquisitive minds. The Old Man still has a lot of “what-ifs.” But if you believe Honeycutt, the former governor might not stick around long enough for us to make him into a soap opera sequel of his yesteryear characters. “The way I understand it, he just wants to breathe free,” Honeycutt says, “and maybe go out west.”
Jeremy Alford can be reached at
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JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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