Whole new meaning to the name Silicon Bayou

Stephanie Grace tweets from the St. Pierre trial:

Meffert admits St Pierre bought yacht for him to use as "perk."Also paid for strippers who'd "perform sex acts" on the boat. Weekly.

Update: More from Meffert's testimony

But Meffert took the story a step further on Wednesday, saying the promise of a more permanent, larger contract was the "carrot" for Ciber to take the initial contract, in which they simply turned most of the money over to St. Pierre's company.

For that so-called "5.5 contract" -- so called because Ciber got to keep 5.5 percent as a management fee -- to be a permanent deal, it had to be offered through a competitive process. Meffert said he arranged for St. Pierre and Ciber to work together to come up with the requirements for bids, thus assuring that Ciber would win the work.

"So they were literally able to have the answers before the questions were even posted," Meffert explained. "It's not open and fair. This was done to make sure Ciber would win the contract."

Upperdate: But..um... yeah back to the strippers.

On Wednesday, Meffert told a federal jury of eight women and four men that St. Pierre, the defendant in the trial, paid for strippers to come to the yacht on a weekly basis and perform sex acts on Meffert, St. Pierre and some of the other City Hall technology team members who worked for St. Pierre.

"They would strip, take their clothes off during the poker games, and sometimes perform sex acts," Meffert said sheepishly. "On me and on everybody. (St. Pierre) paid for myself, himself and sometimes some key Imagine partners or whatever."

Meffert said St. Pierre would also finance Meffert's bets in poker games on the boat. He said there would be two games per trip, each with a $100 buy-in. He never had to pay for any of it, thanks to St. Pierre. Even if St. Pierre wasn't in attendance, he would have his friend, welder Jimmy Goodson, who later became Meffert's driver, pay for everything.

I like that David Hammer takes a moment to inform us of the number of women on the jury before going into the frat party stuff. Nice touch.

Note also Dambala has been saying for some time now that Ray Nagin took a few party cruises on the boat himself. Was he on any of these deluxe package trips? Must be one of "Katrina's Secrets"