NEW ORLEANS — Rep William J. Jefferson has long provided one of Louisiana's favorite success stories: the sometime-sharecropper's son who rose from rural roots to attend Harvard Law School, become a Democratic Party power player and reach the halls of Congress.
So when the FBI revealed that it had videotape of Jefferson accepting $100,000 in cash that the bureau said was intended to bribe a Nigerian official -- and that $90,000 of it had been found in the freezer of Jefferson's home -- constituents of Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District reacted with shock, disappointment and a touch of amusement hardened by experience.
Friends say the allegations against Jefferson, who represents New Orleans, are simply out of character. Foes say they never trusted him. Now that the city's mayoral elections are over and incumbent C. Ray Nagin is in office for four more years, Jefferson's travails are the buzz around many quarters of this city.
"It's really the new talk after the elections," said Mike Miller, 26, as he walked his English bulldog, Buddha, one recent afternoon not far from Jefferson's house on Marengo Street in a ritzy section of the city's Uptown neighborhood. "We've got our mayor, and now we've got this big one with Bill."
"When they found the money in the freezer, man ... " said Ricky Bragg between bites of spaghetti Bolognese at Fat Harry's bar in Uptown. "I was kind of shocked. I just never thought he would get caught up -- allegedly -- in that type of situation."
Jefferson, an eight-term congressman and a senior member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and its subcommittee on trade, has not been charged with any crime. And he has denied any wrongdoing in a case that alleges he offered to bribe a Nigerian official and accepted kickbacks to help a U.S. telecommunications company land deals there and in Ghana.
But the general sentiments among friends and supporters have been disbelief and denial.
"No one expected him to be involved in a scandal of this proportion," said John Maginnis, a political analyst and independent journalist who publishes the Louisiana Political Fax Weekly.
The 59-year-old Jefferson, a tall, lean man -- low-key, soft-spoken and a dapper dresser -- has had a primarily scandal-free career.
Analysts believe his rise from privation to power has helped defuse the outrage that might have ignited if he were someone else.
