Interview with Squandered Heritage's Karen Gadbois

By Lolis Eric Elie

What to make of Karen Gadbois, a cancer survivor art dealer who found something suspicious in the high number of demolitions performed in the wake of the levee failures? Gadbois followed that thread until it became clear that the demolitions were just one aspect of the shady dealings of the administration of Mayor C. Ray Nagin in the years immediately following Hurricane Katrina. With an investigative reporter's instincts and tenacity, Karen helped unravel the scandal at the New Orleans Affordable Homeownership agency. Moreover, she helped uncover many other inappropriate and illegal actions of the Nagin administration. Using Karen's work as the starting point for his own, television news reporter Lee Zurik won a Peabody Award for his investigation of NOAH.

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