Ex-Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards knew power and prison, dies at 93

NEW ORLEANS, LA. >> Edwin Washington Edwards, the high-living four-term governor whose three-decade dominance of Louisiana politics was all but overshadowed by scandal and an eight-year federal prison stretch, died Monday. He was 93.

Edwards died of respiratory problems with family and friends by his bedside, family spokesman Leo Honeycutt said. He had suffered bouts of ill health in recent years and entered hospice care this month at his home in Gonzales, near the Louisiana capital.

A native of Louisiana’s Acadiana region who swore his 1972 oath of office in French and English, Edwards enjoyed renewed popularity after emerging from prison in 2011 at age 83. His quick wit and flamboyant character intact, he married Trina Grimes, then 32, his third wife. They met when she began visiting him in prison after they struck up a pen-pal relationship.

“I would have walked into prison a happy man had I known how it was going to end,” he said at his lavish 90th birthday bash in August 2017.

They had a son, Eli, in 2013 and starred in a short-lived reality TV show, “The Governor’s Wife.” The lifelong Democrat also attempted a political comeback, losing a runoff to a Republican in a south Louisiana congressional race in 2014.

The federal case that led to his May 2000 conviction involved state riverboat casino licenses awarded during and after his fourth and final term in the 1990s. Edwards maintained the case was built on misinterpreted, secretly taped conversations and the lies of former cronies who made deals to avoid jail.

Silver-haired, handsome and gifted with a dry sense of humor and easy charm, Edwards dominated Louisiana politics in the late 20th century much as Huey P. Long had dominated its earlier years. They shared a populist appeal to the state’s downtrodden, and political fortunes that flowed in part from taxes on oil. But Edwards, a consummate dealmaker, had a cooler demeanor.

Edwards was born Aug. 7, 1927, to a sharecropper and a midwife in Avoyelles Parish, part of the region settled by 18th century French exiles from Nova Scotia who came to be known as Cajuns. According to his authorized biography, his father’s ancestors were Welsh; his mother’s continental French; but Edwards always considered himself a Cajun.

Edwards entered the 1991 race — which was open to members of all parties — as did former Klansman David Duke, also running as a Republican. Edwards and Dukeearnedspotsinarunoff, which Edwards won in a landslide by stoking fears that an ex-Nazi in the governor’s mansion would bring economic ruin.