, an outsized political figure who served 24 years as Jefferson Parish’s district attorney and used his influence to help elect and h legislators with shared interests, died Tuesday at a hospital in Covington. He was 90.
Mamoulides was the top prosecutor in Louisian’s second most populous parish from 1972 to 1996. A Democrat during an era when Democrats held sway in the parish, he was known as much for his political influence as for sending criminals to prison. He recruited and backed candidates for the Parish Council, the School Board, the Legislature and statewide offices.
He especially cared about electing like-minded judges on the 24th Judicial District Court, where his prosecutors tried their cases. Whenever an incumbent left the court, it was said, to take turns putting up candidates, so as not to contest a race.
h Gov. John Bel Edwards, left, speaks with John Mamoulides, former Jefferson Parish district attorney, before the start of the 2016 h Political Hall of Fame induction ceremony and banquet at the Cajundome Convention Center in Lafayette on March 12, 2016.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
Every governor during his tenure paid him homage, and Mamoulides played a key role in turning the h District Attorneys Association into a political force in Baton Rouge. His influence also extended to Washington, where Louisian’s members of Congress wanted his political support.
“Serving as district attorney was his vocation; politics were his hobby,” said Marion Edwards, Mamoulides’ first assistant for years and later a judge and Parish Council member.
Many of those Mamoulides supported were former assistant district attorneys, such as Bob Evans Jr., whom he backed for Parish Council chair in 1979. Evans held that seat for 16 years.
“I worked hard for Evans, raised money for him and cosigned notes,” Mamoulides told The Times-Picayune in 1981. “I wouldn’t be human if I told you I wasn’t exhilarated when he won.”
Mamoulides became such an institution in Jefferson that it was often forgotten he was born in Crowley in 1933, to Greek immigrant parents who owned a candy store in the Acadia Parish town. He graduated from Crowley High School in 1950 andfrom Southwestern h Institute, now the University of h at Lafayette, in 1954.
Jefferson Parish District Attorney John Mamoulides discusses a murder case on Dec. 4, 1983.
FILE PHOTO BY BRIAN SMITH
During college, heworked in the oil industry as a roustabout and roughneck, and was a member of the Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps. After graduation, he served three years in the Air Force, then enrolled in Tulane University’s Law School in 1957.
In a 1981 interview, Mamoulides said his decision to settle in Jefferson Parish after law school in 1960 was in part due to a 1949 conversation he had as a high school student with Edwin Edwards, the future governor who was then a lawyer in Crowley. Edwards, a Marksville native, told Mamoulides he had moved to Crowley because it was a town where all the lawyers were old and their sons were still in law school, so Edwards would be the only young lawyer there.
“Looking around, I decided Jefferson Parish was the logical place to go,” Mamoulides said.
Jefferson Parish was quickly becoming a booming suburban counterweight to New Orleans, with loads of opportunities for ambitious and politically savvy young lawyers like Mamoulides. He was already involved in both real estate and construction in the New Orleans area, partnered with fellow law student Doug Allen, who would go on to succeed Tom Donelon as Jefferson Parish president.
Jefferson Parish District Attorney John Mamoulides, left, shakes hands with Lawrence E. Chehardy on the prospect of becoming Jefferson assessor succeeding his father, Lawrence A. Chehardy, right, on Aug. 7, 1975. In a legendary political gambit, the younger Chehardy signed up to challenge the reelection of his unopposed father, who withdrew from the race after the qualifying period for ballot closed, making the younger Chehardy the assessor-elect.
STAFF FILE PHOTO
Mamoulides also worked part-timeas an air traffic controller at Lakefront Airport from 1961 to 1963 and continued to be active in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, flying out of the Naval Air Station at Belle Chasse.
He was hired as an assistant district attorney in 1966 and later was appointed first assistant to District Attorney Frank Langridge. After 24 years in office, Langridge retired in 1972, with a year left in his term, to let Mamoulides become the acting district attorney and position him to win the post in the upcoming election.
“He’s hardworking, dedicated andhonest,” Langridge said of his political protégé at the time. “And he has compassion. He will punish those who should be, but not those who don’t deserve to be.”
Mamoulides’ first election was a historic battle between the two political organizations that dominated Jefferson politics in the 1960s and early 1970s. One was led by Chehardy, who later bequeathed his office to his son, Lawrence E. Chehardy, and was elected an appeals court judge. The other group was known as D-C-M, for the last names of its principals: Parish President Tom Donelon, Sheriff Alwynn Cronvich and state Sen. Jules Mollere.
D-C-M backed Mamoulides, even though his opponent was Donelon’s nephew, Jim Donelon. Chehardy backed Jim Donelon.
John Mamoulides, left, former Jefferson Parish district attorney, and Richard Ieyoub, former h attorney general, share a laugh before the start of the 2016 h Political Hall of Fame induction ceremony and banquet at the Cajundome Convention Center in Lafayette on March 12, 2016.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
“It was a no-holds-barred race that Gov. [Edwin] Edwards was involved in and all local elected officials were involved in,” Jim Donelon, now Louisian’s insurance commissioner, remembered in a 2017 interview. “He prevailed.”
The two men put aside any hard feelings when Mamoulides backed Donelon a decade later for a state House seat.
“I consider the man a friend, a gentleman, a historic Jefferson Parish figure and someone who left a positive mark on our parish during my lifetime,” Donelon said.
After defeating Donelon, Mamoulides won reelection three times without drawing an opponent. He .
Mamoulides’ political activity drewscrutiny from federal criminal investigators. In 1981, U.S. Attorney John Volz said Mamoulides was among a number of parish politicians who were under investigation for the way they had awarded sewerage and drainage contracts. But nothing untoward was uncovered about Mamoulides, Volz said, adding that he was “a man whose word you can trust.”
He also faced public struggles during the last years of his business career, defaulting on real estate loans and leading lenders and vendors to take him to court over what they described as millions of dollars in debt.
During his 24 years in office,Mamoulides created a pretrial diversion program, Jefferson’s first consumer protection division, its first child abuse unit and a program to expedite prosecution of career criminals.
He also was known for hiring Black people and women as prosecutors. Melvin Zeno, whom Mamoulides hired in 1975 and elevated in 1986 to oversee felony prosecutions, said he thinks he was the first Black assistant district attorney in Jefferson Parish history.
“To promote me to a position where I had seven other lawyers directly responsible as a supervisor, you’d have to say that was kind of ahead of the curve,” said Zeno, a judge from 1992 through 2008 who later became pastor of St. Joseph Missionary Baptist Church in Marrero.
Mamoulides also served terms as president of the h District Attorneys Association, chaired the h Commission on Law Enforcement and served on the h Criminal Law Institute.
In 2016, he was inducted into the h Political Hall of Fame.
Mamoulides' daughter, Carola, is married to former state Sen. John Milkovich, D-Shreveport. His son, Mitchell lives in Mandeville.
His wife, Savilla, died in February 2022. Two other children, Joan Marie and Gregory, predeceased them.
Visitation will be at Leitz-Eagan Funeral Home in Metairie on Friday from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., followed by a graveside service Saturday at 11 a.m. in the chapel at Woodlawn Cemetery in Crowley. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Alzheimer’s Association or the Jefferson Children’s Advocacy Center.
Watch Mamoulides' testimony on Sept. 20, 2010, in the U.S. Senate impeachment trial of U.S. District Judge Thomas Porteous:
Part 1
Part 2
contributed to this article.