Former La.Gov., 83, Marries 32-year-old Prison Pen Pal

By Elisha Maldonado | July 29 2011 4:59 PM

In a simple ceremony on Friday in Louisiana's French Quarter, former Gov. Edwin Edwards, who celebrates his 84th birthday next month, married a 32-year-old woman who befriended him during his federal prison sentence for bribery and extortion, the Associated Press reported.

REUTERS

Louisiana's former four-term Governor Edwin Edwards speaks to the media in Baton Rouge January 8, 2001 after a federal judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison and levied a $250,000 fine for racketeering and corruption. Edwards, his son Stephen and three others were convicted in May, 2000, of racketeering, extortion, mail and wire fraud and conspiracy for demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars from applicants for riverboat casino licenses.

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When Edwards, a Democrat elected to four terms as governor in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, was asked how he managed to score a years-younger wife, he said, "People who don't know me don't know what a wonderful, pleasant and modest fellow I am."

He also told reporters that his new bride, Trina Grimes Scott, who first wrote to him while he was in prison, visited him regularly there.

"The prison was in love with her - they used to watch her walk across the parking lot," Edwards said, laughing. "They made me the camp hero."

For his role in a bribery and extortion scheme to rig riverboat casino licenses during his fourth term in the early 1990s, Edwards spent eight years in federal prison; he completed six months of home detention and regular reporting to a Baton Rouge halfway house in July.

The two have not discussed why Grimes, Edwards' third wife, chose him as a pen pal.

"It's great, I'm very happy," the bride said. She has posted wedding updates on her Facebook page, which does not list an occupation.