For a Small State, Louisiana Has a Lot of Crooks

GULF COAST

COMMENTLINE
Folks back home in Alabama and Mississippi may stew a little about this story. All I can say is calling New Orleans the "Big Easy" may hit pretty close to home in more ways than one.

NEWSLINE
"It's Louisiana. There's a deep willingness of the people who live there to look at corruption and not condemn it."

NEWSBYTE
For a small state, Louisiana has a lot of crooks
Despite its ragged reputation, Louisiana isn't the worst state when it comes to public scandals. In terms of raw numbers of federal public corruption convictions, California, Florida and Ohio are worse.

From 1995 to 2004, there were 871 federal public corruption convictions in California, according to the U.S. attorney general's office. Florida had 813 convictions. New York had 790. Ohio and Pennsylvania were even with 515 convictions each. Louisiana's toll: 310. Read full story.

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