NEW ORLEANS – Colorful former Gov. Edwin Edwards, who turns 84 next month, Friday married a 32-year-old woman who befriended him during his federal prison sentence for bribery and extortion.

Edwards, a Democrat who served four terms as governor in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, did most of the talking after he and bride Trina Grimes Scott emerged from an elevator at the Monteleone Hotel in the French Quarter.

“People who don’t know me don’t know what a wonderful, pleasant, modest fellow I am,” Edwards said when asked how a man his age managed to land a much-younger wife.

He told reporters how Grimes, who started writing him letters while he was in prison, visited him there regularly on weekends and holidays in recent years.

“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.”

The two have not talked about what prompted her to choose him as a pen pal.

Edwards was last elected governor in 1991, when he faced former Ku Klux Klan wizard David Duke, who ran as a Republican.

Edwards spent eight years in federal prison for his role in a bribery and extortion scheme to rig riverboat casino licenses during his fourth term in the early 1990s.

In July, he completed six months of home detention and regular reporting to a Baton Rouge halfway house.

Grimes became Edwards’ third wife in what he described as a small, private ceremony.

 

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