Interim council member’s connections to Jefferson-family charities questioned

Diana Bajoie, appointed earlier this month by Mayor Mitch Landrieu to represent Uptown-based District B on the City Council until a replacement can be elected in the fall, may have been one of the local politicians who “steered public money to sham charities run by members of then-U.S. Rep. William Jefferson’s family,” based on testimony by a government witness in last year’s trial of Renee Gill Pratt, reports Michelle Krupa of The Times Picayune. Bajoie has never been charged with any crime and denied “any wrongdoing,” but declined to answer specific questions about the case, Krupa reports, and a spokesman for Landrieu said Bajoie was chosen based on her record and instead questioned her service on a charity run by the Times-Picayune.