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Mayor Arrested

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The Associated Press

Published: December 2, 2008

BIRMINGHAM - The mayor of Alabama's largest city was arrested Monday on charges of steering millions of dollars of bond work to a friend in exchange for more than $230,000 in bribes to pay for an expensive wardrobe and flashy jewelry.

The bond deals, which funded years of work on a substandard county sewer system, went sour and have helped push surrounding Jefferson County to the brink of filing the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The charges stem from Mayor Larry Langford's time on the Jefferson County Commission, where he served four years as president. He is accused of telling Wall Street giants JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers that they had to include his friend's investment banking firm on the deal if they wanted to handle the county's bond work, which was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Langford, his friend Montgomery investment banker Bill Blount and lobbyist Al LaPierre were charged in a 101-count indictment. The charges include conspiracy, bribery, fraud, money laundering and filing false tax returns. All three have pleaded not guilty.

Langford left the county commission after being elected mayor in a landslide last year, and he since has become known for a series of outside-the-box ideas aimed at trying to breathe new life into an old steel city-turned-medical hub.

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