Quote:Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was to begin a 10-year sentence on corruption charges Monday.

Nagin, has until noon to turn himself over at the prison, reportedly a minimum-security facility in Texarkana, Texas, about three hours from his current home in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, Texas.

A millionaire cable television executive when he won the 2002 mayoral election in his first bid for public office, Nagin billed himself as a political outsider pledged to reform the rampant cronyism of City Hall.

Those good government efforts bore little fruit, and by the time he left office, Nagin was mired in a series of scandals about apparent insider deals with city contractors. Three years after he left office, Nagin became the first New Orleans mayor indicted for crimes committed while in office.

Nagin enters prison all but destitute, according to court records, surviving on a small income from his wife's job, handouts from relatives and food stamps.

Nagin was convicted on 20 of 21 counts for taking bribes from contractors, who were rewarded with multimillion-dollar city contracts. His 10-year sentence is half the maximum he could have received under federal guidelines, but is the longest of any of the other players charged in the bribery scheme.

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