News and Observer story.

On Jan. 17, 2013, agents met Cannon at a SouthPark apartment rented by agents for $2,100 a month. It was outfitted with secret recording equipment.

That day, the undercover agent gave Cannon the $12,500 in cash by putting it on a coffee table in front of him. Cannon, according to the affidavit, looked nervously toward a window and covered the cash with a folder.

After the agent shut the blinds, Cannon put the bills to his ear, then fanned them.

The next day, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was indicted in Louisiana on bribery and money laundering charges. After the news broke, Cannon called the the undercover agent and tried to characterize his acceptance of the money as a business investment unrelated to his public office, the affidavit says.

In laying out his philosophy as a public official, Cannon told the agent that he would have helped him even without the $12,500. “I’m not one of those Chicago- or Detroit-type folk. … That’s not how I flow.”

In an ironic aside during that same meeting, Cannon said that he looked good “in an orange necktie, but not in an orange suit.”