Jazz musicians Irvin Mayfield and Ronald Markham are now in the custody of federal prison authorities after the pair separately reported to their assigned correctional facilities on Wednesday. The two men were initially ordered to surrender on January 5 but U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey approved a motion for a one-week delay.
Mayfield and Markham, longtime friends and business partners, were convicted of funneling more than $1 million from a nonprofit that supported public libraries in New Orleans to fund the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra along with private expenses. They were each sentenced to 18-months in prison.
Mayfield, 44, was assigned to Federal Prison Camp Pensacola, a minimum-security facility 166 miles east of New Orleans in Pensacola, Florida. Markham began serving time at Federal Correction Institute Pollock, a medium-security prison in Pollock, Louisiana, 219 miles north of New Orleans in Grant Parish.
In 2018, Mayfield and Markham initially pleaded not guilty to a total of 24 grand-jury indictments that included conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice. On November 10, 2020, both men confessed guilt to one count of conspiracy to defraud the New Orleans Public Library Foundation (NOPLF) out of approximately $1,316,232, much of which was spent to sustain the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO) which employed both men. Mayfield served as artistic director while Markham was the president and chief executive officer. Both eearned salaries of $100,000.
Miranda Restovic and husband Ronald Markham attended Irvin Mayfield’s 37th birthday party in 2014. Markham was sentenced to 18 months in a federal prison in 2021 after he plead guilty to stealing $1.4 million dollars in coordination with Mayfield from the nonprofit New Orleans Public Library Foundation. Restovic is executive director of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and rented office space to the Foundation while her husband served on the Foundation’s board. Photo by Brandt Vicknair.
Mayfield was a founding member of NOJO in 2002. Between December 2008 and May 2010, NOJO relied heavily upon funds from the Edward Wisner Foundation, a charitable trust administered by the City of New Orleans. In February 2011, funding from the Edward Wisner Donation ceased, causing financial distress for the organization. In August 2006, Mayfield became a board member of the NOPLF and chairman by 2010. Markham joined the NOPLF board in 2009. The two men schemed to transfer funds from the NOPFL investment fund into NOJO’s account, all while personally enriching themselves.
Mayfield commissioned a 24-karat gold-plated bejeweled trumpet, spent $39,000 for a prepaid concert at Carnegie Hall and $18,000 for lodging and meals at the Ritz-Carlton in New York. A single breakfast at the luxury hotel totaled $1,435.
In addition to the prison sentences, Mayfield and Markham are required to pay restitution of $1.1 million toward NOPLF at a rate of $500 monthly installments that began this month. A $200,000 payment has already been made by NOJO. At the rate of installments, it would take nearly 92 years to recoup the stolen funds. In an effort to regain losses more quickly, NOPLF filed suit against the two men and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra in November 2021.
As ex-convicts under a three-year supervised release, both men will be required to conduct 500 hours of free music lessons for New Orleans youth under supervised release in coordination with such organizations as the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation and the New Orleans Recreation Department.
