Freezer jolly bad fellow (allegedly)

Even as it struggles to pick up the pieces after Hurricane Katrina, this is a wonderful, vibrant city. But it has a dark side too, in which a long history of poverty and economic weakness has spawned a culture of widespread corruption.

New Orleans made international headlines today with the indictment of local Democrat congressman William Jefferson on charges of bribery, obstruction and racketeering. If found guilty on all counts, he faces up to 235 years in jail.

Jefferson, and more specifically one of his household appliances, have been the butt of endless jokes here ever since I first visited last year.

In August 2005, FBI agents raided his Washington home and found $90,000 in his freezer, wrapped in aluminium foil and stuffed inside plastic boxes. They allege that the numbers on the notes match those on a $100,000 bribe paid to him by an informant.

As an outsider to American politics, there were two things about this story that I've never understood. One was relatively trivial, and easily clarified; the other is much more important, but remains a mystery to me.

One of the charges of which Jefferson stands accused is wire fraud, an odd-sounding concept that doesn't exist in English law and which I've never understood. So I asked my resident legal expert, and Pam told me that it simply means any form of fraud in which electronic communications were used.

So, for example, if I advertised something on eBay, you sent me money, and I didn't deliver the goods, that would be wire fraud. Likewise, if I advertised a non-existent item in a newspaper and you put a cheque in the post, that's mail fraud.

Both carry substantially heavier penalties than ordinary fraud, and both are essentially legal pretences. Most fraud involves some kind of communication by one or other means, but the concepts of wire and mail fraud turn local offences into ones that cross state lines, allowing the federal authorities to grab power from local and state investigators.

So I learned something today. But what I still don't understand, and maybe there's someone out there who can enlighten me, is this.

The facts of the case have been in the public domain for a long time, and two former aides of 'Cold Cash Jefferson', as he's widely known, have already pleaded guilty. Rolling Stone magazine nicknamed him 'Bribe Taker'. And yet in a runoff election in December, he romped home with a 57% share of the vote.

I just wonder what that says about the 35,000 people who cast their ballots for him, and about their tolerance of politicians who betray their oaths of office.