In New Orleans, a 10-year sentence for Ray Nagin

NEW ORLEANS - When Ray Nagin was elected mayor in 2002, there was real hope that he was a break from the city's sleazy past.

In the end, though, Nagin turned out to be a feckless mayor and, as a federal judge saw it, a lightweight criminal.

Nagin, 58, a former cable-TV manager, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Wednesday for bribery, money laundering, fraud, and tax violations stemming from his two terms as New Orleans' mayor from 2002-10.

Prosecutors had been pushing for a sentence in the neighborhood of 20 years for Nagin, convicted in February of 20 counts. The crimes, his repeated lies about them, and the damage heaped on a city reeling from Hurricane Katrina all merited more prison time, prosecutors said at his Friday sentencing hearing.

U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan acknowledged the seriousness, including the betrayal of a city at a time when it most needed a strong and honest leader.

But she also cast Nagin as something less than a kingpin. She noted that some of the businesspeople involved in bribing him won millions of dollars in city business. Nagin is believed to have cleared about half a million - in money, free trips, granite for a foundering family business.

"Mr. Nagin was not the organizer or leader of the group," she said. At times, she said, the crimes appeared to be motivated by a desire to impress and provide for his loved ones.

And she said there were times when Nagin demonstrated "a genuine if all too infrequent" desire to help a city knocked on its heels by Katrina.

Prosecutors say that Nagin had taken his first bribe even before Katrina struck and that the pace picked up during his second term, when millions in city-controlled recovery work was available.

Prosecutors objected to the sentence but said a decision on whether to appeal would be made later in Washington.

The judge recommended Nagin serve his sentence at a federal facility in Oakdale, La., and assigned a Sept. 8 reporting date.