Eddie Jordan

Who is Eddie Jordan?

Eddie Jack Jordan, Jr., was the district attorney for Orleans Parish, Louisiana from 2003 until 2007, when he resigned. A member of the Democratic Party, Jordan was the first African American to have held the elected position. He announced his resignation on October 30, 2007, when a court rendered a large judgment against his office on behalf of white employees that the D.A. had earlier dismissed on account of their race.

Jordan was born to Mr. and Mrs. Eddie J. Jordan, Sr. He grew up in the middle class Pontchartrain Park neighborhood of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. He graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut in 1974, and was then awarded a scholarship to the Rutgers University School of Law in New Jersey, from which he graduated in 1977. After being admitted to the bar and practicing in Pennsylvania for some four years, Jordan returned to Louisiana in 1981 to teach law at Southern University in Baton Rouge. He became a member of the Louisiana bar the following year.

In 1984 Jordan returned to New Orleans to serve as assistant U.S. attorney under then-U.S. Attorney John Volz, a Republican appointed by U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan.

In 1994, Jordan he was named United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana by his fellow Democrat, President Bill Clinton. As U.S. Attorney, he supervised the prosecution of Governor Edwin Washington Edwards which resulted in the imprisonment of Edwards and several conspirators. Jordan has been criticized for not also having indicted former U.S. Representative Cleo Fields as an Edwards conspirator despite Federal Bureau of Investigation video showing Fields stuffing $20,000 into his pockets. Jordan became a well-known figure on television with his trademark moustache and derby hat.