Renée Gill Pratt

Renée Gill Pratt (born 1954) is an American politician from New Orleans, Louisiana. She was also Director of the Center for Student Retention and Success in Southern University at New Orleans. On July 25, 2011, she was found guilty of racketeering. For this crime, she is currently serving a 4-year sentence.

A Democrat, Gill Pratt began her tenure in the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 91 in 1991, when she was elected to succeed Diana Bajoie, who was the victor in a special election for the District 5 seat in the Louisiana State Senate. Gill Pratt served in the House until 2002, when she was succeeded by Rosalind Peychaud. Gill Pratt served on the New Orleans city council for District B from 2002 to 2006.

District B includes the Central Business District, the Garden District, Central City, the Irish Channel, the Lower Garden District and the Touro neighborhood. District 91 covers the precincts located on the southwest side of District B, roughly corresponding to the Irish Channel and the Touro neighborhood.

Gill Pratt lost her bid for re-election in 2006, against Stacy Head, another Democrat and a New Orleans attorney.

In May 2009 Gill Pratt—along with Mose Jefferson, Betty Jefferson, and Angela Coleman (Betty Jefferson's daughter)—was indicted on federal racketeering charges. Mose Jefferson was also facing a separate trial for bribing Orleans Parish School Board president Ellenese Brooks-Simms. The racketeering indictment contained a relationship to the bribery case in that part of the alleged racketeering involved Gill Pratt's supposed obtaining of $300,000 for a couple of private schools so that they could buy the software which Mose Jefferson, with Ellenese Brooks-Simms' help, also sold to the public schools; according to the indictment, Mose Jefferson's commission on the sales to the private schools was $30,000, of which Gill Pratt pocketed $3500. Within a week of the indictment of Gill Pratt, John Pope reported in the Times-Picayune that Gill Pratt was being appointed to a SUNO position which carries no additional pay. In the same article Pope described Mose Jefferson as "Gill Pratt's longtime companion"—a situation noted as being "as close as it gets" by columnist Stephanie Grace. Gill Pratt's appointment to SUNO's Executive Cabinet was immediately criticized by, among others, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Amid astonishment over the appropriateness and timing of the appointment—in that all Louisiana public universities were facing steep budget cuts and suggestions were circulating that SUNO should be merged with the neighboring University of New Orleans—Gill Pratt, with the urging of SUNO chancellor Victor Ukpolo, went on a leave of absence without pay.

...
Wikipedia