Noah W. Cross - Cross As Sheriff

Cross As Sheriff

Cross was first elected sheriff in 1944, when James Houston Davis won the first of his two nonconsecutive terms as governor. Cross was, nevertheless, unseated in 1948 by his predecessor, Hartwell Love. That year Earl Kemp Long was elected to the first of his two full terms as governor. Cross then unseated Love in January 1952 in the runoff election which propelled Robert F. Kennon of Minden to the state's highest constitutional office.

On January 1972, days prior to the February 1 general election in which Edwin Edwards defeated Republican David C. Treen for governor, a federal grand jury in Alexandria, the seat of Rapides Parish in Central Louisiana, began investigating Cross. On May 6, Cross was convicted on two counts of perjury for having lied to a grand jury about his acceptance of bribes to protect prostitution and gambling in Concordia Parish. The case was prompted by the padlocking on orders of District Attorney William C. Falkenheiner of the former Morville Lounge, operated by Curt Hewitt, who had come to Concordia Parish from St. Landry Parish, where he had owned the Peppermint Lounge and paid bribes to Sheriff Cat Doucet.

In Cross's trial before U.S. District Judge Nauman Scott of Alexandria, two bar operators testified that they made weekly payments to either Cross or the Concordia chief deputy to keep from being arrested. J.D. Richardson, one of the bar operators, testified that Cross was paid $200 per month to allow the bar to operate. Cross denied ever having taken the money. He faced four years in prison and a $10,000 fine. His conviction came the Saturday before the Tuesday, May 9, inauguration in Baton Rouge of Edwin Edwards as governor.

After the perjury conviction, Cross was charged with jury tampering and obstruction of justice. In June 1972, Cross petitioned for a new trial, a month before he took office for his seventh nonconsecutive term as sheriff. In a second trial in Alexandria in January, 1973, Cross was again found guilty of perjury. In March 1973, he filed a motion for an appeal. The request for an appeal was rejected by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. Cross then changed his plea to guilty in the jury tampering case. Judge Scott ordered him to report to U.S. marshals in Shreveport for transportation to federal prison on April 16, 1973.

Cross then resigned as sheriff to enter the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas. He faced six years after the second trial.

Cross was ultimately released from prison after serving less than half of the sentence. He was a member of the Louisiana and national sheriff's associations. A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography credits him with having modernized operations of the sheriff's department. Cross died thereafter in Ferriday at the age of sixty-eight. He is interred at Natchez City Cemetery in nearby Natchez, Mississippi.

Though he was known for longevity in office, Cross was not the longest-serving Concordia Parish sheriff: that designation went to Eugene P. Campbell, who served from 1908 until his death in office on January 30, 1940.