NEW ORLEANS — Almost a year after pleading guilty to a conspiracy to defraud New Orleans’ public library charity, Grammy-winning musician Irvin Mayfield and his partner are presenting a federal judge with a report from their accountant as they push for a lighter sentence.
Mayfield and his longtime musical and business partner Ronald Markham admitted in July 2020 that they illegally transferred $1.3 million from the New Orleans Public Library Foundation, where they took turns as president of the charity’s board, to the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, another nonprofit they ran that paid them each six-figure salaries.
The duo stood in Judge Jay Zainey’s court in November and stated that they were guilty of a conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. They also signed a statement called a “factual basis,” in which they admitted that they transferred specific sums of money from the library foundation to pay their own salaries and expenses and then falsified records and lied to auditors, board members and attorneys to try to cover up the crimes.
According to the factual basis, Mayfield and Markham admitted they “fraudulently edited” records “with the intent to impede, obstruct and influence the investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
But since then, Mayfield and Markham’s sentencing has been repeatedly delayed as they have pushed to present evidence and testimony to challenge the government’s characterization of their crimes. No new sentencing date has been set, but Tuesday marked a deadline for Mayfield and Markham’s legal team to present Zainey with a report from the duo’s accountant.
Mayfield’s defense attorney, Federal Public Defender Claude Kelly, said after his client pleaded guilty in November that Mayfield was "really looking forward to being able to present the full picture -- accepting full responsibility -- but present the full picture to Judge Zainey before he makes his final decision."
Defense attorney Patrick Fanning, who is not involved in the Mayfield case, said it’s significant that Kelly added the phrase “accepting full responsibility.” Fanning said defendants take a calculated risk if they try to fight too much over the details of their crimes after pleading guilty.
Mayfield and Markham each face up to five years in prison for conspiracy, but Zainey is most likely to impose a sentence based on the federal sentencing guidelines. Those are the standards for fair punishment based on a number of factors, including the size of the monetary loss caused by the crime, the defendants’ criminal history and whether they accepted responsibility for their crimes.
“If (Mayfield) can convince the judge the (monetary) loss is less than the government says, that can lead to a lighter sentence,” Fanning said. “His sentencing guidelines go down by accepting responsibility. But if he contradicts anything he swore to in the factual basis, he runs the risk of the court saying he’s no longer accepting responsibility and his sentencing guidelines could go up.”
Mayfield and Markham have continued music and business ventures together since their 2017 indictment and even after their guilty pleas last year. Mayfield took to Instagram this week to post that he’s “grateful for the future” while holding “wonderful meetings” at a ritzy Manhattan hotel, not far from where he admitted in the factual basis to illegally spending tens of thousands of dollars in library donations to stay at luxury hotels for jazz orchestra performances.
Mayfield resigned from the jazz orchestra in 2016, shortly after WWL-TV uncovered records showing he had charged the Library Foundation more than $18,000 for a five-day stay at the Ritz Carlton in New York, including a $1,300 charge marked “breakfast,” thousands more on limo rides and hundreds on high-end liquor in his room. That followed more than a year of exclusive reports by the TV station exposing the money Mayfield and Markham were transferring from the library charity to their jazz orchestra and another nonprofit where Mayfield served on the board, the Youth Rescue Initiative.
Kelly did not respond messages seeking comment Tuesday. Markham’s attorney, Sara Johnson, declined to comment.
