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WTF is wrong with you Mississippi?

TonyTexas

By TonyTexas
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TonyTexas

TonyTexas 10530

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About as fucked up a story as you’ll see. To add insult to injury, the mom’s brother was beaten to death by cops in 2019. 
 

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A Mother’s Search for Her Son Leads to a Pauper’s Grave and More Questions

Bettersten Wade spent months calling the police for help finding her son, without being told that an off-duty officer driving an S.U.V. had fatally struck him on the same day she last saw him.

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Bettersten Wade, center, searched for her son for more than five months, unaware that he had been buried behind the local jail in a ragged cemetery for the poor and unclaimed.Credit...Emily Kask for The New York Times

By Rick Rojas

Reporting from Jackson, Miss.

Nov. 19, 2023Updated 5:50 p.m. ET

For months, Bettersten Wade called the police in Jackson, Miss., desperate for any update or sign that detectives were making progress in tracking down Dexter, her 37-year-old son who left their home one day in March and vanished.

Each conversation ended in frustration. They never seemed any closer to finding him, she said.

And yet, records show that investigators for the Jackson Police Department knew exactly where Dexter Wade was. An off-duty police officer driving an S.U.V. had struck and killed him on the same day that his mother last saw him, according to officials and coroner’s records. A deputy coroner said he was identified by a bottle of prescription medication he was carrying and through fingerprints.

Ms. Wade kept searching for more than five months, unaware that her son had been buried behind the local jail, in a ragged cemetery for the poor and unclaimed where graves are marked by small, numbered signs poking out of the dirt.

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An unmarked grave where Dexter Wade was buried. Credit...via Ben Crump

“All that time, they knew where he’s at,” Ms. Wade said of the Jackson police in a recent interview. “They knew who he was.”

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Officials in Jackson, a city of 150,000, have described Mr. Wade’s burial and the long delay in informing his mother of his death as regrettable but honest mistakes, a matter of miscommunication within an overburdened police department.

But Ms. Wade was not inclined to give the police the benefit of the doubt. Four years ago, three officers had been charged with murder after they pulled her brother from his car and slammed him to the ground.

Ms. Wade wanted her son removed from the unmarked pauper’s grave. She wanted to be there when it happened, praying over his remains as they were raised from the dirt. And she wanted answers — from an independent autopsy and, she hoped, an investigation into her son’s death and how it was handled by the police.

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“You can’t write it off as a mistake, you can’t write it off as a miscommunication,” Ms. Wade said. “I don’t exactly know why they did it. That’s what I want to find out.”

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Dexter WadeCredit...via Ben Crump

What happened to Mr. Wade drew national attention when NBC News reported on the case on Oct. 25. The next day, Mr. Wade’s family retained Ben Crump, the civil rights lawyer who handles high-profile cases of police misconduct across the country.

Activists and elected officials have now joined Ms. Wade in urging federal investigators to step in.

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“The system owes Mr. Wade’s family an explanation for the callous manner in which his untimely death was mishandled,” Representative Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, said in a 

 

Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Jackson’s mayor, addressed Mr. Wade’s death in a speech last month, saying that he had not seen any evidence of police misconduct or “malicious intent.” Mr. Wade’s death, and the failure to tell his mother about it for months, “honestly was an unfortunate and tragic accident,” he said.

Still, lawyers for Mr. Wade’s family said that city and police officials have failed to provide any clarity about how his death was handled. The preliminary findings from an independent autopsy directly contradicted some of the statements from officials, including that he was not carrying identification.

“The fact that Dexter had a state identification card and several other identifying items,” Mr. Crump said in a statement, “shows us that there was a concerted effort to keep the truth and manner of his death from his family.”

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The Hinds County coroner did not respond to messages seeking comment on Friday. A spokesman for the Police Department referred a reporter to the city’s spokeswoman, who said on Friday that the city was in no position to comment on what was in Mr. Wade’s possession.

“From the moment the coroner arrived on the scene of the accident until the moment Dexter Wade was buried, his body was in the custody of Hinds County and not the City of Jackson,” Melissa Faith Payne, the spokeswoman, said in a statement.

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Family and friends of the Wade family wait after Mr. Wade was exhumed.Credit...Emily Kask for The New York Times

On March 5, Mr. Wade left home with a friend, his mother said. After about a week without hearing a word from him, she called the police to report him missing. It was unusual for him to leave home for a long period without sharing his plans with her. “He’d always let me know,” she said.

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He had worked as a roofer, and he mostly stuck close to home, mowing the lawn and spending time with his children on visits. His mother knew he had been struggling with mental illness. He moved in with her after he was released from prison in 2017.

“After them six years, something just happened,” she said, referring to the time he spent incarcerated for an armed robbery conviction.

Coroner’s records show that at about 8 p.m. on March 5, Mr. Wade was hit while apparently trying to cross the southbound lanes of Interstate 55, southwest of downtown Jackson. Officials said the driver was an off-duty police officer in a department vehicle.

His death was ruled accidental by the Hinds County coroner. A toxicology screening found phencyclidine, known as PCP, and methamphetamine in his system.

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The coroner’s office called Hinds Behavioral Health Services, which had prescribed the medication he was carrying. The clinic confirmed that Mr. Wade was a patient and provided the coroner’s office with his mother’s name and a phone number, according to notes attached to his death certificate.

A deputy coroner tried the phone number, records showed, but there was no answer. Ms. Wade said she did not receive a call. Then, the information was given to the police to try to reach Ms. Wade. The deputy coroner checked in with the police several times over the next few months to ask if anyone planned to claim the body, and there were no updates, according to notes in the coroner’s records.

On July 14, Mr. Wade was buried at the Hinds County Penal Farm.

Ms. Wade kept calling the missing persons investigators at the Police Department. Over the summer, the detective handling the case retired and a new investigator took over. Within two weeks, an officer showed up at Ms. Wade’s home, telling her that her son had died.

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Mr. Wade is removed from an S.U.V. and transported to the funeral home hearse. Credit...Emily Kask for The New York Times

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Ms. Wade was shocked and infuriated by the failure to inform her sooner. She believes she should have been familiar to the department: Not only had she hounded the agency to help find her missing son, she had also been a visible critic of the Jackson police after her brother, George Robinson, was fatally beaten by officers in 2019.

An internal investigation into Mr. Robinson’s death cleared the officers of wrongdoing before the county prosecutor revived the case and brought criminal charges. Charges against two of the officers were later dismissed; a third officer was convicted of manslaughter by culpable negligence and sentenced to five years in prison.

Ms. Wade was hopeful that exhuming her son could bring her a measure of peace. 

A letter from the county’s lawyer confirmed that Mr. Wade’s body would be exhumed on Nov. 13 at 11:30 a.m. “It is the procedure of the coroner to exhume the body from the burial site in the presence of representatives of the Hinds County Sheriff Department, coroner’s office and the funeral home that will receive the body,” the letter said.

Instead, when Ms. Wade and employees of the funeral home showed up on Monday morning, his remains had been dug up hours earlier by an unsupervised public works crew.

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Ms. Wade broke into tears as she stood in the pauper’s cemetery, dressed in black. She was crushed. She was angry. She was exhausted.

“I don’t matter,” she said. “It don’t matter what I think and what I feel. Nothing matters.”

The family’s lawyers said a “chain of custody” had been broken, denying them a chance to know how the remains had been handled. “We don’t know whether he was in a box, whether he was in a bag, what exact condition he was in,” said Dennis C. Sweet, one of the lawyers.

Mr. Wade’s body had not been embalmed, according to the preliminary findings of the independent autopsy released on Thursday. It showed blunt force injuries to his skull, ribs and pelvis, and his left leg was severed.

His wallet was in his front pocket. It had his credit card, his health insurance card and his state identification card, which listed the address where he had lived with his mother

 

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Armybrat

Armybrat 40917

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5 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Mississippi is full of racists and racist cops?

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2023-08-04/the-goon-squad-how-rogue-mississippi-officers-tried-to-cover-up-their-torture-of-2-black-men

Well yeah.

But Kinda odd, as Jackson has a black mayor, city council, and chief of police. 
Maybe this was just a coverup of one of their friends, or just negligent incompetence? 
Austin is capable of the same sorry story.

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Neonmoon

Neonmoon 38130

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1 hour ago, Armybrat said:

Maybe this was just a coverup of one of their friends, or just negligent incompetence? 

I think it’s going to a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B, but Mississippi has a long history of racist cops killing black people, including very recently, so it’s not a bridge too far to posit that theory in this case 

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hookemATL

hookemATL 11907

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2 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

I think it’s going to a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B, but Mississippi has a long history of racist cops killing black people, including very recently, so it’s not a bridge too far to posit that theory in this case 

Plus it’s what cops do!  To serve, protect, and disproportionately murder minorities. FAC

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Bevo

Bevo 13601

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6 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Makes me wonder just who was driving the SUV and killed her son. 
That could be the key to a possible coverup conspiracy.

Mom & family certainly deserve the truth…. and some compensation from Jackson.

Definitely. Was there anything in the article? You would think that it would be mentioned.

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Armybrat

Armybrat 40917

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16 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

The weird part was a black officer was convicted of killer the woman’s brother in 2019. 

You’d think they’d handle this one by the book if it was an accident. If it was an accident, that’s some extreme negligence to the point of malicious incompetence. 

Correct.

18 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Definitely. Was there anything in the article? You would think that it would be mentioned.

No mention of the SUV driver’s identification.

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Covri

Covri 6253

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13 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

No mention of the SUV driver’s identification.

It was an off duty police officer that hit him.

"Bettersten Wade spent months calling the police for help finding her son, without being told that an off-duty officer driving an S.U.V. had fatally struck him on the same day she last saw him."

 

There is a whole lot of fuckery in this story:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/19/us/jackson-mississippi-dexter-wade-missing-buried.html#:~:text=Coroner's records show that at,by the Hinds County coroner.

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Covri

Covri 6253

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This Reddit comment is a good summary with a link to the uncle's death story which is also fucked up:

 

Spoiler

People need to know the FULL story. The buried man, Dexter Wade, was run over by an off duty Jackson police officer. That same police department murdered (via head trauma from being slammed to the ground and stomped on) Dexter's 61 year old uncle 4 years earlier during an encounter that they never gave an explanation for. Dexter's mother, Bettersten Wade, has filed legal actions against the police for her brother's death. ....and then her son is run over by them. Then, they dont identify him, despite Dexter having his labeled prescription medication on his person. Oh, and also his credit card. Oh, and also HIS ID IN HIS POCKET. Her mother spent months looking for him, filed missing person reports, and continued calling the police for updates. The police said they didn't know where he was, despite his body being in their own morgue listed as a John Doe. Finally a new coroner was hired and the new coroner figured out who he was after a few days. Then the police claimed they couldn't figure out the address of his family and they were never notified of Dexter's death. Eventually Dexter was buried in a pauper's cemetery where unidentified bodies are laid to rest. A month later, the police "figure out" they goofed and actually contact the family. A month later his mother is able to complete the process to have his body exhumed for an autopsy. His family requested to be present to make sure nothing went wrong. Then police exhumed him at 8am instead of the scheduled 11:30 time and family wasn't there yet. "Oops." The county claims they don't know who authorized the early exhumation. Then when body is examined, his ID and credit card are found in his pocket.

But city and county officials claim there's no cover up. Nothing to see here.

Here's an article from 2019 about his uncle's death at the hands of the same department.

https://mississippitoday.org/2019/01/23/beloved-elderly-mans-death-after-arrest-motivates-community-highlights-growing-tension-with-police/

 

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Armybrat

Armybrat 40917

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My family knows about closure or the lack thereof. 
Almost 20 years ago my son’s ex, the mother of my twin grandchildren, was violently assaulted, raped, nearly beaten to death and left for dead by some POS animal. 
She eventually recovered enough to be mostly functional, but still suffers from the effects of brain damage. 
The twins, in 8th grade at the time, were quite traumatized by this horrific crime that nearly took their mom from them. 
The POS perp has never been caught. and probably has gone on to repeat his crimes.

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Bevo

Bevo 13601

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1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

The weird part was a black officer was convicted of killer the woman’s brother in 2019. 

You’d think they’d handle this one by the book if it was an accident. If it was an accident, that’s some extreme negligence to the point of malicious incompetence. 

I was reading the bio of the mayor, and you would think that he would be on top of things.

https://www.jacksonms.gov/contacts/chokwe-antar-lumumba/

 

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Don Johnson

Don Johnson 4757

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3 hours ago, Bevo said:

This thread seems pretty cloaky - black victim, black city council, mayor, and chief of police, no evidence of racism, no delving into the incompetence of the city of Jackson, lots of accusations...

I can almost guarantee every person involved in this was black.  JPD is almost entirely black.  

 

1 hour ago, Bevo said:

I was reading the bio of the mayor, and you would think that he would be on top of things.

https://www.jacksonms.gov/contacts/chokwe-antar-lumumba/

 

Lumumba overseas a city that is the murder capital of the US, can't provide drinking water or trash pickup.  He doesn't care.  

 

55 minutes ago, Bevo said:

But, the guy was walking across the freeway at night, right? Or no cameras?

The victim was high on PCP and walking across the interstate at night and everyone's first reaction is that the cop must be drunk?

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Covri

Covri 6253

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14 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

I can almost guarantee every person involved in this was black.  JPD is almost entirely black.  

 

Lumumba overseas a city that is the murder capital of the US, can't provide drinking water or trash pickup.  He doesn't care.  

 

The victim was high on PCP and walking across the interstate at night and everyone's first reaction is that the cop must be drunk?

Oddly that NYT article is the only one to mention the drugs in his system, no other article I've seen mentions it. Multiple articles do mention it was an off duty officer in a police cruiser/suv which is probably leading to speculation why more is not released about that part of the incident if it was in a JPD vehicle presumably with dash cams.

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Don Johnson

Don Johnson 4757

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4 minutes ago, Covri said:

Oddly that NYT article is the only one to mention the drugs in his system, no other article I've seen mentions it. Multiple articles do mention it was an off duty officer in a police cruiser/suv which is probably leading to speculation why more is not released about that part of the incident if it was in a JPD vehicle presumably with dash cams.

NBC mentioned the meth and PCP

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna121697

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Covri

Covri 6253

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15 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

NBC mentioned the meth and PCP

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna121697

Good catch, I think I read a different nbc article and a couple Mississippi based news articles. What do you think about the exhumation happening hours earlier the scheduled? That seems fucked up too given all the other shirt that had already occurred.

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Don Johnson

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11 minutes ago, Covri said:

Good catch, I think I read a different nbc article and a couple Mississippi based news articles. What do you think about the exhumation happening hours earlier the scheduled? That seems fucked up too given all the other shirt that had already occurred.

I haven’t seen that, and anything is possible, but I’d lean more toward incompetence than conspiracy.  JPD can’t even answer 911 calls on a normal basis, it’s no surprise they didn’t find the time to identify and notify the family in this case. 
 

 

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Covri

Covri 6253

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9 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

I haven’t seen that, and anything is possible, but I’d lean more toward incompetence than conspiracy.  JPD can’t even answer 911 calls on a normal basis, it’s no surprise they didn’t find the time to identify and notify the family in this case. 
 

 

It was in the NYT article I linked above and some others 

 

"A letter from the county’s lawyer confirmed that Mr. Wade’s body would be exhumed on Nov. 13 at 11:30 a.m. “It is the procedure of the coroner to exhume the body from the burial site in the presence of representatives of the Hinds County Sheriff Department, coroner’s office and the funeral home that will receive the body,” the letter said.

Instead, when Ms. Wade and employees of the funeral home showed up on Monday morning, his remains had been dug up hours earlier by an unsupervised public works crew."

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Don Johnson

Don Johnson 4757

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25 minutes ago, Covri said:

It was in the NYT article I linked above and some others 

 

"A letter from the county’s lawyer confirmed that Mr. Wade’s body would be exhumed on Nov. 13 at 11:30 a.m. “It is the procedure of the coroner to exhume the body from the burial site in the presence of representatives of the Hinds County Sheriff Department, coroner’s office and the funeral home that will receive the body,” the letter said.

Instead, when Ms. Wade and employees of the funeral home showed up on Monday morning, his remains had been dug up hours earlier by an unsupervised public works crew."

Gotcha. They may have tried to cover something up, although I’m not sure what exactly that would be. Removing the wallet would’ve been priority #1 for me. 
 

My best guess is, in a city where most public services are not done correctly, this public service was not done correctly. 

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Don Johnson

Don Johnson 4757

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Semi related to the OP and definitely related to the thread, a few updates...

On 11/20/2023 at 8:21 AM, Neonmoon said:

The weird part was a black officer was convicted of killer the woman’s brother in 2019. 

You’d think they’d handle this one by the book if it was an accident. If it was an accident, that’s some extreme negligence to the point of malicious incompetence. 

Turns out that officer's conviction was overturned and the prosecution may have been shady as shit.

https://www.wlbt.com/2024/11/21/anthony-fox-his-own-words/

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JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Months after he was cleared in the death of George Robinson, a former Jackson Police officer is speaking out, saying he was targeted by the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office for doing his job too well.

Anthony Fox spent 552 days in prison after being convicted of culpable negligence manslaughter in the death of Robinson, a 62-year-old West Jackson man.

Fox, now a detective with the Clinton Police Department’s K-9 Unit, maintains his innocence, saying he even turned down multiple plea offers that would have guaranteed him no jail time in exchange for a guilty plea.

He believes District Attorney Jody Owens set him up because he was taking too many drug dealers off the streets. During his career, Fox amassed numerous awards, including Officer of the Year, Officer of the Quarter, and multiple commendations.

 

Why would we believe the AD would be crooked?  Oh, he and the Mayor were indicted on bribery charges in an FBI sting....

“I’m not trying to overemphasize this, you guys, but my ability to prosecute people... there’s only one me. So, right now, every police agency comes to us. Everybody needs something. Every file comes to us. Everybody needs something fixed.”

.....

 “We never give them the asking price. I buy pu**y, I buy cars, I buy cows, I buy drugs, whatever. My point is, like [Banks] need 50, you get 30. He gets installments. That’s my game. Some people will overpay and say, ‘I’m the guy who needs more and some people will choose who to pay. He wants 50? We’ll give him 15 this and 15 next year.’”

......

“I don’t give a s**t where the money comes from. It can come from blood diamonds in Africa, I don’t give a f**king s**t. I’m a whole DA. F**k that s**t. My job, as I understand it, with a little paperwork, is to get this deal done, and get it done most effectively,” he said.

Quote

 

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Indictments released on Thursday allege Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens was using his position to leverage support for his full-time job as a developer.

On Thursday, indictments were unsealed in the federal bribery case against Owens, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, and Ward Six Councilman Aaron Banks.

The three are facing multiple felony counts in connection with a case to solicit and accept bribes for their support to bring a convention center hotel to downtown Jackson.

According to the indictment, Owens was “ready, willing, and predisposed to engage in bribery at least as early as October 16, 2023,” and bragged that he had enough dirt on all city council members to get votes approved.

Two confidential human informants posing as FBI agents had been involved with Owens at least dating back to 2023, and even congratulated the DA on being re-elected to a second term.

“During Owens’ re-election victory party on November 7, 2023, upon being congratulated by the developers, Owens responded unprompted that his position as district attorney was ‘the part-time job. The full-time job is developing... This is the part time job, to get leverage for the full-time job.’”

The day after his re-election, documents show Owens, Hinds County businessman Sherik Marve’ Smith and an unidentified witness met with the developers, where he and Smith negotiated an upfront payment of $250,000 to help the developers get support for their project.

Owens received his first payment of $125,000 cash in December, after he was flown by private jet to Ft. Lauderdale, where he met with the so-called developers on a yacht.

After taking the money, he allegedly told developers about all the power he wielded in the county.

“I’m not trying to overemphasize this, you guys, but my ability to prosecute people... there’s only one me. So, right now, every police agency comes to us. Everybody needs something. Every file comes to us. Everybody needs something fixed.”

In January of this year, the indictment shows Owens informed developers the city of Jackson would soon issue an RFQ for a downtown development project, and the developers expressed interest in obtaining the project and the council’s support.

“Owens stated that they would need to avoid paying the city council members too much money upfront. Specifically, Owens stated: ‘I don’t know if you have been around addicts before, right? You can give them a little blow, a little blunt, a little drink. But if you them a case of whiskey, and you give them a kilo of coke, and you them a motherf***ing pound of weed. They will die,’” the documents state.

The meetings with council members came soon after. On January 11, the developers met with Owens, Smith and Banks. At that meeting, Banks told Owens he would need $50,000 to support their project, with $25,000 now and $25,000 later.

Owens then informed developers of Banks demand, telling them, “We never give them the asking price. I buy pu**y, I buy cars, I buy cows, I buy drugs, whatever. My point is, like [Banks] need 50, you get 30. He gets installments. That’s my game. Some people will overpay and say, ‘I’m the guy who needs more and some people will choose who to pay. He wants 50? We’ll give him 15 this and 15 next year.’”

The meetings took place at the Downtown Cigar Company, Owens’ company, and in his private office, which he called his, ‘war room.”

The Downtown Cigar Company was raided recently by the FBI. It is associated with Hinds County...
The Downtown Cigar Company was raided recently by the FBI. It is associated with Hinds County DA Jody Owens.(WLBT)

Following that meeting, the developers raised concerns that they didn’t have enough support for the project. Owens said they already had the “leadership,” in the form of Lumumba and Banks, and that the other council members were “pawns.”

He then told the informants that public officials finance their lives through their campaign finance, and that the best way to influence them was through campaign contributions. Owens said the money had to come through the state, and that he had to clean the cash by donating it through a Mississippi company.

“I don’t give a s**t where the money comes from. It can come from blood diamonds in Africa, I don’t give a f**king s**t. I’m a whole DA. F**k that s**t. My job, as I understand it, with a little paperwork, is to get this deal done, and get it done most effectively,” he said.

In February, developers gave Owens $60,000 in cash - $25,000 for himself, $25,000 for Banks, and $10,000 for Lee. The cash would be stored in a safe place at the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office until it was distributed.

Banks received $10,000 on February 13, understanding it was being paid for his vote on the developers’ project. Banks also accepted employment for a family member and a protective detail service from developers.

Between March and May 2024, the developers spent $1,500 on Banks’ protective detail and $4,800 for the family member’s employment.

Lee received $10,000 on February 15 to pay her outstanding campaign debt via a wire transfer from Owens. Owens later sent developers proof of the payment via a text.

The former city councilwoman needed the money, in part, because her checks were being garnished as part of a court settlement to repay $21,000 in printing expenses for her campaign.

In August, Lee pleaded guilty to accepting nearly $20,000 in bribes and cash. As part of her plea deal, she is having to repay the amount.

Owens offered other advice to the developers as well, including the need to garner the mayor’s support, saying Lumumba could “do damage” to their project through the RFQ process. Owens also was said to have called city officials regarding dates in the RFQ.

An RFQ is a request for qualifications. Cities issue such requests when seeking firms to take on professional projects. Earlier this year, Jackson issued an RFQ for a convention center hotel. The FBI informants, posing as Facility Solutions Team, responded. Owens was included as a partner on their proposal.

The RFQ was issued in January. The original deadline to response was March 12. However, that was extended to April 30 to allow for additional submissions.

At a meeting on March 5, Owens was said to have contacted a city employee multiple times regarding the decision to move the date. He also was said to have discussed an impending trip Lumumba would take to Florida to meet with developers. Later that day, he texted developers he had contacted the mayor, and the mayor was “aware of the developers’ desire to move the RFQ submission deadline up.”

[READ: Mayor on bribery scandal: ‘I have never conspired with anyone to commit a crime’]

As for the Florida trip, Owens said it would be a campaign fundraiser, “and that they could either have ‘ten guys with ten checks’ for Lumumba or Owens could give Lumumba ten checks in one envelope.’

“What we used to do, if people wanted to stay under the radar, you just give a bunch of different checks from a bunch of different companies,” he said.

On March 10, Owens called developers to tell them that the mayor was on board with the plan, and on March 19, he opened a checking account in the name of the developers’ company for the purpose of “funneling and concealing future bribes.”

On April 2, Lumumba, Owens, Smith, and developers traveled to Florida via a private jet paid for by the FBI on behalf of the developers. After arriving, the mayor and Owens met with the developers in a private room on a yacht. The meeting was recorded and a transcript from the discussion was included in the indictment.

Owens: “We want to be very mindful of out-of-state money.”

Lumumba: “Yeah.”

Owens: “So, what this team did was give us the money, being me, and we just filtered it through several accounts in a way we [were] comfortable doing.’”

Lumumba: “Yeah.”

Owens: “So, we did five $10,000 checks to make it very simple, and then we get past the process, to our second phase, maybe in Jackson, maybe somewhere else... we’ll do something similar.”

Lumumba: “Yeah.”

Owens: “... to make sure there’s no worries about you financially in this thing cause you’re as big [a] part of this thing as anybody.”

Then, at the behest of developer one, Lumumba then made a call to a city employee directing them to move the RFQ deadline to April 15. Developer 2 later handed the mayor five $10,000 checks.

Only days earlier, Banks told developers he also was working with the city to move the date of the RFQ, and said he could “threaten to hold up the salary raises of city employees in order to achieve the developers’ ends,” court records state.

The city’s website states that Banks is currently chair of the council’s Finance Committee. In that role, he led efforts to set the city’s budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

Lumumba makes a call to a city employee to move the date of an RFQ to benefit FBI agents...
Lumumba makes a call to a city employee to move the date of an RFQ to benefit FBI agents posing as developers. He sits next to Hinds DA Jody Owens.(U.S. District Court Southern District of Mississippi)

Later, Owens took another $50,000 in cash for himself. That night, the mayor, Owens, the developers, and others went to a local club.

On April 5, a check of $9,500 was made payable to the mayor for his campaign account. On April 8, another check of $5,000 was made payable to Lumumba for his account. Both checks were cashed.

On May 22, the FBI executed a search warrant at the DA’s Office. During the search, agents found $20,000 in cash in a book with the titled, “The Constitution of the United States of America.” Approximately $9,000 of that was confirmed to have the same serial numbers as cash given to him by the FBI.

Owens is charged with eight counts, including one count of conspiracy, three counts of federal program bribery, use of interstate facility in aid of racketeering, honest services wire fraud, and making false statements. If convicted, he faces up to 90 years in federal prison and $2 million in fines.

Lumumba faces five counts: conspiracy, federal program bribery, use of interstate facility in aid of racketeering, honest services wire fraud, and money laundering. He faces up to 75 years in prison and fines of up to $1.5 million.

Banks is charged with conspiracy and federal program bribery. He faces up to 15 years in prison and fines of $500,000.

 

 

On 11/20/2023 at 9:33 AM, Bevo said:

I was reading the bio of the mayor, and you would think that he would be on top of things.

https://www.jacksonms.gov/contacts/chokwe-antar-lumumba/

 

Oh, he was on top of things.  On top of getting kickbacks from FBI informants posing as real estate developers.

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