Topic: Betty Jefferson

Barbara "Betty" Jefferson Jackson (born 1938 in Lake Providence, Louisiana) is the elected assessor of New Orleans' Fourth Municipal District; she was first elected on 1998 February 7 and was reelected in 2002 and 2006. Before her political career in New Orleans she lived for a number of years in Chicago. She is an older sister of indicted former U.S. Representative William J. Jefferson.

In 2009 Betty Jefferson was a defendant in racketeering charges also involving her brother Mose Jefferson, her daughter Angela Coleman, and Renée Gill Pratt. On 2009 June 5 all the defendants pleaded not guilty.

At a hearing before U. S. District Judge Ivan L. R. Lemelle on 2009 June 17, lawyers for Betty Jefferson and Angela Coleman requested a delay from the 2009 August 3 start date for the racketeering trial; at the same hearing, however, lawyers for Gill Pratt and Mose Jefferson requested that the racketeering trial begin as scheduled on August 3.