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© St. Petersburg Times, published October 22, 2002
FORT WORTH, Texas -- For the next 10 years, former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards will work for 12 cents an hour.
His diet will consist of food items such as "fishwich sandwiches."
Edwards turned himself in to the federal prison in Fort Worth on Monday about 1 p.m. to begin serving his prison term for a May 2000 racketeering, extortion and fraud conviction in a scheme to rig the casino licensing process.
"I appreciate the fact the court system and prison system have allowed me to self-surrender," the 75-year-old four-term governor said as he appeared at the prison gates dressed in a jogging suit and shoes before entering the low-security facility. "I will be a model prisoner as I was a model citizen."
Even with the prison building looming over his shoulder, Edwards maintained that he was wrongly convicted.
Edwards was found guilty, along with son Stephen and three other men, after his fourth and final term in office, which ended in 1996. Edwards has continuously fought his convictions.
Edwards is now appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the high court refused to let him remain free while determining if it will hear his case.
Edwards' son Stephen reported to a prison Monday more than 300 miles away in Beaumont.
Edwards served four terms as governor between 1972 and 1996.
NEW YORK -- Amid protests of conspiracy and coverup, a judge on Monday gave prosecutors six more weeks to determine if the convictions of five men accused of raping and beating a Central Park jogger should be overturned.
State Supreme Court Justice Charles Tejada said he was "not unconcerned" about recent DNA tests suggesting that a convicted rapist -- and not the five men who were teens when arrested in the notorious 1989 crime -- was guilty of the attack on the 28-year-old white woman.
But Tejada said he would give Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau until Dec. 5 to conduct an exhaustive review of the case, because "fairness and justice demand that both sides be granted enough time."
At that time, Tejada indicated, he would be prepared to rule on a motion by defense attorneys to set aside the original convictions.
FREEHOLD, N.J. -- A rabbi accused of having his wife killed so that he could carry on an affair went on trial again Monday, a year after the jury at his first trial deadlocked.
Rabbi Fred Neulander is charged with having his wife, Carol, bludgeoned to death in their suburban Philadelphia home in 1994. He could get the death penalty.
Prosecutor James Lynch said that Neulander hired two men to commit the murder so he could continue an affair with former Philadelphia radio host Elaine Soncini.
Defense attorney Michael Riley said that Soncini gave conflicting statements to police to hide her affair and protect her job and that convicted killer Len Jenoff is testifying to get a lighter sentence.
Jenoff and another man confessed to the killing and pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter.