Jeffersons are movin' on down

By Cha Cha Pitoulas

The Levee money-laundering writer

Only days after federal authorities raided their deluxe apartment, entrepreneurs George and Louise Jefferson were charged yesterday with fraud, bribery and money laundering in connection with an alleged scheme to bilk taxpayers and win a lucrative dry cleaning contract with the city.

“What started as an investigation into petty graft has laid bare a family tree rotten from the ground up,” said Jim Letten, the U.S. Attorney in New Orleans. “We’ve started at the roots, but rest assured that we’re movin’ on up. We’re movin’ on up.”

The indictment is a spin off of a string of investigations focused all in the family of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson of New Orleans. To kick off June, two of the congressman’s siblings, Assessor Betty Jefferson and Mose Jefferson, were charged with a conspiracy to swindle more than $600,000 in public money from family-run charities designed to help inner-city youths. Rep. Jefferson, meanwhile, awaits trial on federal bribery charges.

George and Wheezy Jefferson, according to the 28-page indictment handed up in federal court, paid more than $400,000 to an associate of former Mayor Marc Morial for a city laundry contract valued at $20 million per year.

The Jeffersons own the largest chain of dry cleaners in the Gulf South and rank as some of the city’s most successful minority entrepreneurs.

“We’ve been looking to fry this fish for sometime, but we could never catch them in the kitchen” said Letten, referring to his exhaustive 7-month investigation, which involved wiretaps and a widely publicized raid on

George and Wheezy’s penthouse apartment on the east side of the Warehouse District.

“It took a whole lot of trying, but we finally got up that hill,” Letten said.

The indictment represents another blow not only to a politically powerful family, but also to the city’s African-American leadership, which has been decimated by scandal in recent years. That has led some to question whether the U.S. attorney has a racial agenda.

“You’ll notice that only one kind of bean keeps getting burned on Letten’s grill,” said Florence Johnston, the Jeffersons’ outspoken aide de camp. “It ain’t the whites and pintos. That’s for sure.”

Letten has long contended that his office is color blind and would tackle crime “when, where and how they find it.”

“If it’s the white beans, then so be it,” he said.

Defenders point to Letten’s successful conviction of the Jeffersons’ white neighbor Harry Bentley on charges that the diplomat sold secrets to the Chinese government from an Uptown house.

According to Letten, the central issue is public accountability, not race.

“These people wanted a piece of the pie, and that’s exactly what they got,” Letten said, flanked by members of the Metropolitan Crime Commission.

Other community leaders were saddened by the fall from grace of yet another prominent citizen.

“The sad part is when you have two pillars of the community like George and Wheezy who finally made it to the big leagues, get their turn at bat and then squander the opportunity to represent their community,” said imprisoned former City Council President Oliver Thomas. “Fair or not, the Jeffersons owe something to people in this city and when they disregard that role and say ‘It’s just you and me baby,’ there is something wrong with that.”

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