On the list that counts

Stacey Jackson indicted. Probably just under the statute of limitations wire, although maybe not.

The NOAH episode erupted in the summer of 2008, at a time of mounting public frustration with Nagin’s leadership of the city’s recovery. For many, the scandal epitomized Nagin’s fecklessness – the city was mired in blight, and a key city program aimed at ameliorating the problem appeared to be, at least, in part a sham.

The story was uncovered by blogger Karen Gadbois and television reporter Lee Zurik, who discovered that NOAH was paying contractors to gut and board blighted houses, but that in many cases the work wasn’t being done.

Nagin angrily denounced the reporting, referring disparagingly to “amateur investigators,” but federal authorities soon opened a probe and began carting documents out of NOAH’s offices. The agency, technically a nonprofit funded by City Hall, was essentially mothballed weeks later.

Those were fun times.