Glad Tidings

A Governor and two former Pentagon officials had reason to celebrate last week as juries declined to convict them of white-collar crimes. Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards declared himself a winner after a New Orleans jury deadlocked on racketeering and fraud charges related to a hospital investment scheme that netted Edwards $1.9 million between terms as Governor. A mistrial was declared ^ after seven days of deliberation because two jurors held out for conviction on most of the 50 counts. In New York, Thomas Reed, a former Air Force Secretary and Reagan assistant, was acquitted of profiting in the stock market through illegal insider information, allegedly from Gordon Reed, his father and a director of Amax, Inc. Reed made $427,000 by acquiring Amax stock options in March 1981, just before a takeover offer from the Standard Oil Co. of California ballooned the value of his purchase. In Alexandria, Va., jurors found former Assistant Navy Secretary George Sawyer not guilty of violating conflict of interest laws by allegedly failing to report that he had held job interviews with executives of General Dynamics Corp. in 1983, while dealing with the company’s contracts at the Pentagon. Navy Secretary John Lehman testified that Sawyer had informed him at the time of his interest in finding outside employment.