Sentencing set for New Orleans trumpeter in charity fraud
ABC News
A musician who became a symbol of New Orleans' resilience after Hurricane Katrina is set to be sentenced on a federal fraud charge
NEW ORLEANS -- Irvin Mayfield, the jazz trumpet player who became a symbol of New Orleans resilience after Hurricane Katrina, was scheduled to be sentenced in federal court Wednesday for steering charity money meant for public libraries to his personal use.
Mayfield and his musical and business partner, pianist Ronald Markham, each pleaded guilty in November of last year to a single charge of conspiracy to commit fraud. Prosecutors alleged they steered more than $1.3 million from the New Orleans Public Library Foundation to themselves, largely by funneling it through the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, which Mayfield founded.
“Book One," an album by Mayfield and the Jazz Orchestra, won a Grammy in 2010. But the library foundation scandal led to his resignation as artistic director of the orchestra in 2016 while scrutiny of his role with the library grew following investigative reports by WWL-TV.
Markham and Mayfield each faced a possible 5-year prison sentence.
