Noah W. Cross
Noah Webster Cross (October 3, 1908 – November 22, 1976) was a controversial Democratic sheriff from Ferriday in Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana, who served from July 1, 1944 until July 1948 and again from July 1952 until April 4, 1973, when a conviction for perjury and a failed appeal forced him into federal prison. Cross was succeeded by Fred L. Schiele (1933–2002), a former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, who was appointed by Governor Edwin Washington Edwards, pending a special election, to fill the remainder of Cross' term. Schiele had run unsuccessfully in the 1967 primary against Cross. At the time of his resignation, Cross was the senior sheriff in Louisiana in terms of service.
Cross was first elected sheriff in 1944 in the same election which brought James Houston "Jimmie" Davis to the first of his two terms as governor. He was unseated, however, in 1948 by Hartwell Love in the same year in which Earl Kemp Long was elected to the first of his two full terms as governor. Cross 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 of the old Morville Bar on orders of District Attorney William C. Falkenheiner. In his 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 and his wife, Iola D. Cross (February 28, 1910 – July 23, 1997), an English teacher at Ferriday High School, had three daughters: Diane Brakinridge, Kay Faulkner, and Lydia C. Wilson (born August 23, 1950). Lydia Wilson is the widow of Roger Wayne "Butch" Wilson (1948–2006), a Wisner native and a 40-year law enforcement officer who began his service as a deputy to his future father-in-law, Noah Cross. Wilson was also the chief of police for eight years in Ferriday and was thereafter a deputy under Sheriffs Schiele (1973–1980) and Hubert Lee McGlothin (1984–1990).
Cross was ultimately released from prison after serving less than half of the sentence. He died thereafter in Ferriday at the age of sixty-eight. He is buried in 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 T. Campbell, who served from 1908 until his death in office in February 1940.