National Urban League Head's Brother NO Mayor Sentenced to Home Detention on Tax Evasion

Brother of former New Orleans mayor sentenced to home detention for not filing tax returns

The Associated Press
Thursday, January 10, 2008

The brother of a former New Orleans mayor whose administration has been the target of a long-running corruption probe was sentenced Wednesday to six months of home detention for failing to file federal tax returns.


Jacques Morial, 45, pleaded guilty in September to three misdemeanor counts of the tax charges. Each count carried a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a $25,000 fine.


U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon also sentenced Morial to three years of probation. Prosecutors did not object to home detention.


Prosecutors and defense attorney Pat Fanning said Morial has paid more than $26,600 in taxes he owed for the tax years 2000 through 2002, when he was a political consultant and radio producer.


Morial's brother, Marc, was mayor from 1994 to 2002 and is now head of the National Urban League. Their father, the late Ernest Dutch Morial, was the city's first black mayor, serving from 1978 to 1986.


Reading from a prepared statement, Jacques Morial apologized to the court and his family and friends and blamed his failure to pay taxes on procrastination, not a desire to cheat the government.


"I am extremely ashamed that my family's good name, earned over generations of community service, may be tarnished in the eyes of some because of me," Morial said.


Marc Morial was not at the hearing. The former mayor has not been accused of wrongdoing, but his administration has been the subject of a corruption investigation that has landed several former city officials in prison. Prosecutors have not said the Jacques Morial tax case is connected to that investigation.


U.S. Attorney Jim Letten has said that Morial was not targeted because of his brother.

From International Herald Tribune