Lost+Found Coffee Company @ 248 South Green Street, Tupelo,MS. inside Relics in Downtown Tupelo. Open Monday through Saturday from 10:00am till 6:00pm.
With most any restaurant or coffee house, it’s a balance between atmosphere, menu, and know how. For a coffee shop, Lost & Found has it going on!
You could spend the better part of a day just strolling through both floors of the antique building looking at all the treasures. When your ready for a coffee break, the knowledgeable baristas can help you choose the perfect pick me up!
They have everything from a classic cup of joe to the creamiest creation you could imagine! From pour overs to cold brews. From lattes, mochas, to cappuccino’s, Lost & Found Coffee Company has got ya covered!
So the next time you want to hunt for lost treasures, or find the perfect cup of coffee, Lost & Found Coffee Company has got ya covered! See y’all there!
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Do you thrive on the unexpected? Are you waiting for the next fire to crop up?
Have you ever noticed that you can plan something so intricately and you are still going to catch the glitches when life throws you a curve ball? It is one of the beauties of life that we can never prepare for. The unexpected. The only difference is our response to the unexpected. Do we have a knee jerk reaction that finds us swerving to gain back control of our life? Or do we instead just go with the flow and decide to embrace the scenic route life decided to take us on? Our response to life can cause us more stress or we can just enjoy it for what it is in that moment of time. I used to thrive on the unexpected. It was part of my career for many years. The never knowing what “fire” was going to sprout up that day and how I was going to need to put it out. Even this week as we launched our newest book in my publishing company. I thought I had it all planned out only to run into major “hiccups” within 72 hours of the launch. I could either stress out or take it in stride.
Slow and Steady
As my dad retired I watched him take a different approach to life than I had ever seen him take before. I mean, all you have to do is climb up in the cab of his king ranch Ford pick-up and see he is a changed man. He drives slower than anyone should even be allowed to drive out on the roads these days. He knows how to drive, so don’t go yelling at him next time you are stuck behind him. Trust me, my mom does enough yelling for all of us at him about that! He just takes life these days. His sentiments are that he lived in the fast lane his whole life. Rushing to be on time to work, rushing to come home to his family, the constant busy we get entangled with as adults…now, he doesn’t have to be busy and he is going to enjoy that. Truth is, I can’t even be mad at him for that. Now that I am an adult out here rushing from one thing to the next, I totally could use some driving twenty miles per hour in my life some days. Took me getting to nearly forty to even be able to say that though.
The lesson in his wisdom can be heard by all. Some things we lose it over won’t even amount to anything five years from now, yet we gave them so much energy in the moment. All the things we think are so important that we must do and do now. Most will not really matter years from now, yet we poured our soul into them. What would change if we took the time to just enjoy life? To just flow with things as they happened? When hit with something we didn’t expect, we embraced it instead of fighting it? What would happen? I dare say we might have more peace? I probably would be a lot calmer. I probably wouldn’t lose my temper near as much. I probably wouldn’t have anxiety or stress on the daily. I would probably take time to enjoy life more. I certainly wouldn’t yell at the slow driver in front of me.
What about you? Next time you get behind someone driving slowly…take back the name calling and curse words. Maybe take back all of the assumptions that they don’t know how to drive. Maybe use it as a reminder to take a moment, roll down your window, soak in the sunshine. I can promise you that wherever the heck you are going, you will still get there. Maybe that person figured out life and you can use their wisdom too. If they are driving a blue king ranch Ford truck, I can assure you that he is just enjoying his day and he would want you to enjoy yours too. Matter of fact, I wish I had listened to his wisdom a lot more in my earlier days instead of waiting until now.
Here is a plain, searchable text version (most other versions we found were Images or PDF files) of City Of Tupelo Executive Order 20-018. Effective Monday June 29th at 6:00 PM
The following Local Executive Order further amends and supplements all previous Local Executive Orders and its Emergency Proclamation and Resolution adopted by the City of Tupelo, Mississippi, pertaining to COVID-19. All provisions of previous local orders and proclamations shall remain in full force and effect.
LOCAL EXECUTIVE ORDER 20-018
The White House and CDC guidelines state the criteria for reopening up America should be based on data driven conditions within each region or state before proceeding to the next phased opening. Data should be based on symptoms, cases, and hospitals. Based on cases alone, there must be a downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14-day period or a downward trajectory of positive tests as a percent of total tests within a 14-day period. There has been no such downward trajectory in the documented cases in Lee County since May 18, 2020.
Hospital numbers are not always readily available to policymakers; however, from information that has been maintained and communicated to the City of Tupelo, the Northeast Mississippi Medical Center is near or at their capacity for treating COVID-19 inpatients over the past two weeks without reopening additional areas for treating COVID-19 patients. The City of Tupelo is experiencing an increase in the number of cases of COVID-19. The case count 45 days prior to the date of this executive order was 77 cases. That number increased within 15 days to 107, and today, the number is 429 cases. The City of Tupelo is experiencing increases of 11.7 cases a day. This is not in conformity with the guidelines provided of a downward trajectory of positive tests. By any metric available, the City of Tupelo may not continue to the next phase of reopening.
Governor Tate Reeves in his Executive Order No. 1492(1)(i)(1) authorizes the City of Tupelo to implement more restrictive measures than currently in place for other Mississippians to facilitate preventative measures against COVID-19 thereby creating the downward trajectory necessary for reopening.
That the Tupelo Economic Recovery Task Force and North Mississippi Medical Center have formally requested that the City of Tupelo adopt a face covering policy.
In an effort to support the Northeast Mississippi Health System in their response to COVID-19 and to strive to keep the City of Tupelo’s economy remaining open for business, effective at 6:00 a.m. on Monday, June 29, 2020, all persons who are present within the jurisdiction of the City of Tupelo shall wear a clean face covering any time they are, or will be, in contact with other people in indoor public or business spaces where it is not possible to maintain social distance. While wearing the face covering, it is essential to still maintain social distance being the best defense against the spread of COVID-19. The intent of this executive order is to encourage voluntary compliance with the requirements established herein by the businesses and persons within the jurisdiction of the City of Tupelo.
It is recommended that all indoor public or business spaces require persons to wear a face covering for entry. Upon entry, social distancing and activities shall follow guidelines of the City of Tupelo and the Governor’s executive orders pertaining to particular businesses and business activity.
Persons shall properly wear face coverings ensuring the face covering covers the mouth and nose,
1. Signage should be posted by entrances to businesses stating the face covering requirement for entry. (Available for download at www.tupeloms.gov).
2. A patron located inside an indoor public or business space without a face covering will be asked to leave by the business owners if the patron is unwilling to come into compliance with wearing a face covering
3. Face coverings are not required for:
a. People whose religious beliefs prevent them from wearing a face covering. b. Those who cannot wear a face covering due to a medical or behavioral condition. c. Restaurant patrons while dining. d. Private, individual offices or offices with fewer than ten (10) employees. e. Other settings where it is not practical or feasible to wear a face covering, including when obtaining or rendering goods or services, such as receipt of dental services or swimming. f. Banks, gyms, or spaces with physical barrier partitions which prohibit contact between the customer(s) and employee. g. Small offices where the public does not interact with the employer. h. Children under twelve (12). i. That upon the formulation of an articulable safety plan which meets the goals of this
Executive Order businesses may seek an exemption by email at covid@tupeloms.gov
FACE COVERINGS DO NOT HAVE TO BE MEDICAL MASKS OR N95 MASKS. A BANDANA, SCARF, T–SHIRT, HOME–MADE MASKS, ETC. MAY BE USED. THEY MUST PROPERLY COVER BOTH A PERSON‘S MOUTH AND NOSE.
Those businesses that are subject to regulatory oversight of a separate state or federal agency shall follow the guidelines of said agency or regulating body if there is a conflict with this Executive Order.
Additional information can be found at www.tupeloms.gov COVID-19 information landing page.
Pursuant to Miss. Code Anno. 833-15-17(d)(1972 as amended), this Local Executive Order shall remain in full effect under these terms until reviewed, approved or disapproved at the first regular meeting following such Local Executive Order or at a special meeting legally called for such a review.
The City of Tupelo reserves its authority to respond to local conditions as necessary to protect the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens.
Honeyboy and Boots are a husband and wife, guitar and cello, duo with a unique style that is all their own. Their sound embodies Americana, traditional folk, alt country, and blues with harmonies and a hint of classical notes.
Drew Blackwell, a true Southerner raised in the heart of the black prairie in Mississippi. First picked up the guitar at fourteen, he was greatly influenced by his Uncle Doug who taught him old country standards and folk classics. Later on in high school, he was mentored and inspired to write (and feel) the blues by Alabama blues artist Willie King. (Willie King is credited for bringing together the band The Old Memphis Kings.)
Drew has placed 3rd in the 2019 Mississippi Songwriter of the Year contest with his song “Waiting on A Friend” and made it to the semi finalist round on the 2019 International Songwriting Competition with his song “Accidental Hipster.”
Honeyboy (Drew) can also be found belting out those blues notes as the lead vocalist for the Old Memphis Kings and begins everyday with a hot cup of black coffee!
Courtney Blackwell (Kinzer) grew up in Washington State and comes from a talented musical family. She began playing cello at the age of three taking lessons from the cello bass professor Bill Wharton at the University of Idaho. Her mother was most influential in her progression of technique, tone quality, and ear training. Since traveling around much of the South, she has enjoyed focusing on the variety of ways the cello is used in ensembles. When she plays, you will feel those groovy bass lines making way to soaring leads create an emotional and magical connection between you and her music.
Courtney enjoys working in the studio, collaborating with artists and continuing to challenge the way cello is expressed.
They have opened for such acts as Verlon Thompson, The Josh Abbott Band, Cary Hudson (of Blue Mountain), and Rising Appalachia.
Honeyboy And Boots have performed at a variety of venues and festivals throughout the southeast, including the 2015 Pilgrimage Fest in Franklin, TN; Musicians Corner in Nashville; the Mississippi Songwriters Festival (2015-2018); and the Black Warrior Songwriting Fest in Tuscaloosa, AL (2018-2019). They also came in 2nd place at the 2015 Gulf Coast Songwriters Shootout in Orange Beach, FL.
They have two albums, Mississippi Duo and Waiting On a Song, which are available on their website, iTunes, Amazon, and CD Baby.
The duo also just released their fourth recording: a seven-song EP called Picture On The Wall, which was recorded with Anthony Crawford (Williesugar Capps, Sugarcane Jane, Neil Young). It is now available on Spotify, Itunes, Google Music, and CD Baby.
Who or what would you say has been the greatest influence on your music?
My Uncle Doug, because he began to teach me guitar and introduced me to a lot of great older country music.
Favorite song you’ve composed or performed and why?
“We Played On” because it’s about our family reunions, where we would sit around and play guitar and share songs.
If you could meet any artist, living or dead, which would you choose and why?
Probably Willie Nelson. He’s my all time favorite.
Most embarrassing thing ever to happen at a gig?
A guy fell on top of me while I was performing. I was sitting down. He busted a big hole in my guitar.
What was the most significant thing to happen to you in the course of your music?
Getting to perform at Musicians Corner in downtown Nashville. Probably the biggest crowd we’ve ever been in front of.
If music were not part of your life, what else would you prefer to be doing?
I don’t know, maybe fishing or golf.
Is there another band or artist(s) you’d like to recommend to our readers who you feel deserves attention?
Our friends, Sugarcane Jane. They are a husband/wife duo from the Gulf Shores area. Great people and great artist.
Years from now, we will remember many of the vivid images from a rainy night in Oxford and Ole Miss’ thoroughly convincing 28-10 victory over mighty Georgia:
Of worthy Ole Miss Heisman Trophy candidate Jaxson Dart limping to the locker room early, the game seemingly over almost before it started. But, no, redshirt freshman Austin Simmons rallied the Rebels, directing a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to tie the game at 7. Defeating a team that has won 53 of its last 56 and two of the last three national championships requires so many huge contributions. None were bigger than what Simmons, just turned 19, did. The lanky kid from Miami stands 6 feet, 4 inches tall, but he played much taller than that Saturday night.
Of Dart limping back onto the field, his left ankle heavily taped, and providing clutch play after clutch play in a remarkable display of grit and and character. Dart made so many plays, both with his arm and his legs, but the one I’ll remember is when he escaped the Georgia pass rush, somehow getting free while running to his left, turned the corner and rambled 28 yards, clearly favoring the left ankle, before blowing up a Georgia safety who finally – and painfully – made the tackle. It was the biggest play of a third quarter drive that extended the Rebels’ lead to 25-10.
Of a smothering, ball-hawking Ole Miss defense that came at Georgia quarterback Carson Beck from so many angles he never seemed to get settled. Last year, on a similarly rainy day, Georgia smoked Ole Miss 52-17, gaining 611 yards of total offense, 300 of it on the ground. The Rebels clearly were out-manned, so they went out and got some new men, spending heavily on defense in the transfer portal. Georgia could not block them all. The Rebels signed the aptly named Princely Umanmielen from Florida, Walter Nolen from Texas A&M and Chris Paul from Arkansas, Trey Amos from Alabama and others. And before you call it “the best team money can buy,” remember this: You have to buy the right ones and then you have to coach them. Those new guys have meshed well with returners such as J.J. Pegues and Suntarine Perkins in coordinator Pete Golding’s defense that often looks as if it is playing with 13 guys instead of 11.
Of a squirrel, who stole the spotlight and stopped the game for nearly a minute in the second quarter, scampering onto the field and darting this way and that. It eventually headed toward the Georgia sidelines, scattering Bulldogs players including the quarterback Beck, who had better luck evading the squirrel than he did the Rebels’ pass rush.
Of Ole Miss receivers running so free in the Georgia secondary you’d almost swear they must have smelled just awful. We haven’t seen this many receivers consistently get so open since Steve Spurrier was drawing up ball plays at The Swamp in Gainesville. Keep in mind, Ole Miss was doing this without its best receiver Tre Harris – “the best receiver in the country,” Lane Kiffin says – who missed his third consecutive game. For that matter, the Rebs were also playing without starting running back Henry Parrish Jr.
Of Kiffin, the mastermind of it all, choking up briefly during his postgame interview with ESPN’s Molly McGrath when talking about Dart. We don’t often see that side of Kiffin but you could tell this one meant the world to him. This was the so-called signature victory his otherwise highly successful tenure at Ole Miss has lacked.
Of Caden Davis’ kicking and Fraser Masin’s punting. As previously typed, you don’t win games like this without multiple, huge contributions, and those must include the kicking game. Davis, who has one of the strongest legs in football, was a perfect 5-for-5 on field goals, including a 53-yarder. Masin, from Brisbane, Australia, punted only twice but one was a Ray Guy-like 65-yard boomer that flipped the field late in the second quarter.
Of Ole Miss fans rushing onto the field, not once but twice in a wild, raucous celebration that rivaled the one after a similar conquest of Alabama 10 years earlier. The postgame flood of humanity likely will cost the Rebels $250,000, which Ole Miss must pay to Georgia. Maybe, the Bulldogs can use it to help buy an offensive tackle who can block Umanamielen and Perkins on the edge. But then, these days, that probably will cost more than 250 grand.
One thing is certain: Ole Miss should move ahead of Georgia in the playoff rankings. Anyone who witnessed Saturday night’s dismantling of the Bulldogs (397 yards to 245) can testify to that. This wasn’t just a victory, it was a statement.
So what’s next? Ole Miss entered the game ranked No. 16 in the new 12-team playoff rankings. Georgia was No. 3. The Rebels should easily move up into the top 12 and should make the playoffs if they can defeat Florida and Mississippi State to end the regular season. No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Miami and No. 15 LSU all lost Saturday. Ole Miss’ two defeats have come by three points each to Kentucky and LSU. The Rebels really are two plays away from 10-0.
Kiffin said beforehand that to win it all, a team eventually will have to beat Georgia. After watching what happened in Oxford, we can all agree that someone is going to have to beat Ole Miss. Currently, that’s a chore.
Marshand Crisler, the former Hinds County interim sheriff and candidate, faces up to 10 years in prison after a federal jury in Jackson found him guilty Friday of soliciting and accepting bribes from a man with previous felony convictions and a pending violent charge.
Crisler was charged with soliciting and accepting $9,500 worth of bribes during his unsuccessful 2021 campaign for Hinds County sheriff in exchange for favors and giving the man ammunition he can’t possess as a felon.
The jury took about two hours to reach a unanimous verdict on both charges.
He will remain out on bond until a sentencing hearing scheduled for Feb. 6, 2025.
When the verdict was read Friday afternoon, Crisler and family members seated behind him remained silent. On the way out of the courthouse, he referred comments to his attorney John Colette.
Colette told reporters outside the courthouse that they are disappointed in the jury’s decision and have plans to appeal. He added that Crisler maintains his innocence, and that he and his family are upset about the jury’s decision.
Over three days, the jury heard testimony from sixwitnesses and reviewed evidence including recordings of conversations between Crisler and Tonarri Moore, the man with past felony convictions and pending state and federal charges who the FBI recruited as an informant.
Moore made the recordings for investigators. During several meetings in Jackson and around Hinds County in 2021, Crisler said he would tell More about investigations involving him, move Moore’s cousin to a safer part of the Hinds County jail, give him a job with the sheriff’s office and give him freedom to have a gun despite prohibitions on Moore having one.
After the government finished calling its witnesses, Colette, made a motion for judgment of acquittal based on a lack of evidence to support charges, which Senior Judge Tom Lee dismissed.
Friday morning, the jury heard from Crisler himself as the defense’s only witness.
In closing arguments, the government reminded the jury that Crisler accepted money from Moore and agreed, as a public official, to act on a number of favors.
Crisler didn’t report any money as a campaign contribution, the government argued, because Crisler didn’t want it to become public that he was taking bribes from a felon.
“How he did it shows why he did it,” said Charles Kirkham of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Defense attorney Colette told the jury that the evidence doesn’t prove bribery. Crisler was trying to secure campaign funds from Moore, which is not illegal.
Colette asked and jury instructions allowed the jury to consider whether there was entrapment of Crisler, who he said was not a corrupt law enforcement officer
“This entire case,” Colette said. “This corruption was all set up by the FBI so they could knock it down.”
The government got the last word and emphasized that the bribery doesn’t require the agreed acts to be completed.
In response to accusations of entrapment, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bert Carraway said Crisler wasn’t reluctant to take the money, agreed to perform favors or break the law, making the analogy that Crisler never took his foot off the gas and kept accelerating.
Amy St. Pé and Jennifer Schloegel will compete in a runoff election on Nov. 26 for an open seat on the Mississippi Court of Appeals after no candidate in the three–person race won a majority of the vote’s cast in Tuesday’s election.
After the Associated Press reported 99% of the vote, St. Pé received the largest share at 35.5%, with Schloegel second at 32.9%. Ian Baker, the third candidate in the race, received 31.6%.
The AP on Friday had not yet declared Schloegel to be the second person advancing to the runoff race, but Schloegel told Mississippi Today that Baker on Friday afternoon called her to concede the race. Schloegel is a Chancery Court judge in Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties. St. Pé is an attorney in private practice, a municipal court judge in Gautier, and a city attorney for Moss Point.
The District 5 seat, which is made up of the counties along the Gulf Coast, became open when Judge Joel Smith decided not to run for reelection.
Now that Schloegel and St. Pé are advancing to a runoff election, it ensures that a woman will fill the open seat. After the election, half of the judges on the 10-member appellate court will be women.
The Court of Appeals race is now the second major runoff election that will take place just two days before Thanksgiving. A runoff election for the Central District seat on the state Supreme Court will also take place between incumbent Justice Jim Kitchens and Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County.
Jeanne Carter Luckey, a Mississippi Gulf Coast philanthropist who served as the state’s Republican National committeewoman, died on Thursday, Nov. 7. She was 63.
An ardent conservative, Luckey was a key figure in the Republican Party of Mississippi. For more than 30 years, she served the party as president of the Mississippi Federation of Republican Women, co-chair of the Mississippi Republican Party and as a delegate to the Republican National Convention, where she spoke earlier this year, according to her bio on the GOP’s website.
Luckey worked her way up the party by training Republican candidates and volunteers throughout Mississippi after becoming involved in politics in college. On social media, tributes from prominent Republicans across the state noted how she seemed to know everyone in the conversative movement, from former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to President-elect Donald Trump.
Gov. Tate Reeves called Luckey a family friend and praised her for representing Mississippi to the RNC.
“Mississippi will miss you, Jeanne!” Reeves wrote.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann wrote that Luckey’s impact on Mississippi will be felt for years to come.
“Her passion for life, her family, and the issues that were important to her was immeasurable,” Hosemann said.
Luckey, who held degrees from the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi, was also known for her service on the governing board of the state’s public universities. She was appointed to the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees in 2018 by former Gov. Phil Bryant.
“Jeanne Luckey brought an energy and a commitment to her work as a trustee that resonated throughout our state’s public university system, and we are all better for having worked with her,” Al Rankins, the IHL commissioner, said in a statement Friday. “Students for years to come will benefit from her dedication to higher education in Mississippi.”
During her tenure on the board, Luckey started a task force to examine the university system’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Luckey had been in a wheelchair since she was in a car accident nearly 20 years ago.
Prior to the accident, Luckey was an avid runner who notched between five and 13 miles a week, according to her social media. She had also worked as a special education teacher in the Ocean Springs School District. More recently, she owned a real estate holding company called JCL, LLC, and Magnolia State Development Group.
“A brilliant mind and devoted public servant, she championed education throughout her life, even as an undergraduate at Ole Miss in her decision to pursue special education,” Ole Miss Chancellor Glenn Boyce said in a statement.
Luckey also served on several boards supporting arts and culture on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, including the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, the Great Southern Club in Gulfport, and the Gulf Coast Debutante Society. She reportedly loved the arts and had seen nearly 100 Broadway plays.
While she recently battled health challenges, the Ocean Springs Weekly Record reported that Luckey unexpectedly passed away peacefully in her sleep.
Luckey is survived by her husband, Alwyn, an Ocean Springs attorney who was her high school sweetheart, and their two daughters, Laurel and Taylor.
Republican Julie Fedorchak will be the first woman to represent North Dakota in the U.S. House of Representatives. Fedorchak soundly secured the seat with nearly 70 percent of the vote. When asked how it felt to be the first woman to represent her state in the House, Fedorchak told The North Dakota Monitor that she was honored.
“I think it’s great to have diversity in genders, in backgrounds, in perspectives,” Fedorchak said. “We need to have as diverse of representation as we can get in Washington, and I’m happy to be part of that.”
Fedorchak’s victory means Mississippi is the final state to have never sent a woman to the lower chamber of Congress. The state has one of the worst track records when it comes to women’s representation in politics. No woman had been elected as governor or served in either chamber of Congress until 2018 when Gov. Phil Bryant appointed Cindy Hyde-Smith to replace Sen. Thad Cochran in the U.S. Senate. Prior to that, it was the only state in the country with that distinction.
The number of women running for U.S. House seats dropped 20 percent this year — and far fewer Republican women made it past their primaries than in 2022, Jasmine Mithanireported for The 19th last month. Women were only 16 percent of Republican House nominees this year. In contrast, 46 percent of Democratic House nominees were women.
This sting that brought bribery charges against Jackson officials this week is far from the first time the FBI has used a yacht and a strip club in Miami in an undercover operation.
Don’t count on it being the last.
What started in 1978 as an FBI investigation into mobsters stealing art in New York City soon led to the shores of Jersey, the halls of Congress and, yes, the beaches of Miami.
After customs agents seized a drug dealer’s boat, the FBI used the 65-foot Cheoy Lee yacht, named “The Left Hand,” to hold parties with politicians.
“It gleamed with the predictable varnished parquet decks, teak paneling — and a wide variety of eavesdropping and recording devices,” Time magazine reported.
A phony Arab sheik handed out bribes for sponsoring legislation. Six congressmen took the bait, including U.S. Rep. John J. Jenrette Jr, who declared, “I’ve got larceny in my blood.”
By the end, 19 had been convicted, including those congressmen, a U.S. senator, a New Jersey mayor and other corrupt officials in Abscam, the FBI codename for the operation.
FBI agents used the yacht again in a 1980 operation involving agent Joseph Pistone, who pretended to be an expert jewel thief named Donnie Brasco.
Pistone’s cover was almost blown when a mob leader spotted an article in Time magazine on the Abscam tale that showed the picture of the yacht the FBI used to entertain congressmen.
Pistone’s story was depicted in the 1997 film, “Donnie Brasco,” featuring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino.
The Abscam operation had long faded from the headlines when the 2013 film, “American Hustle,” portrayed the real-life investigation.
The movie starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper brought new attention to the FBI operation, which resulted in convictions and prison terms for 19 people.
Miami yachts and strip clubs have continued to arise in FBI undercover investigations, including one that bears a striking resemblance to the case in Jackson.
Testimony revealed that the FBI’s Cincinnati office spent more than $100,000 in 2018 to fly Cincinnati City Council member Jeff Pastor to Miami and treat him to expensive liquor, a yacht cruise and Tootsie’s Cabaret, a high-end, fully nude strip club memorialized in a 2015 song by Drake.
Pastor was accused of collecting $55,000 in bribes, much of it in cash. He was quoted as telling undercover agents that he should be paid $200,000 for his help and that he wanted a “monthly retainer” for his assistance.
FBI agents posed as developers, aided by developer Chinedum Ndukwe, a former safety for the Cincinnati Bengals who served as an undercover informant.
A federal grand jury indicted Pastor and two other Cincinnati City Council members in a pay-to-play scheme in exchange for votes or support for development projects. The main one was the city’s dilapidated Convention Place Mall, which, like downtown Jackson, had fallen on hard times.
“Where do you guys find these LLCs?” then-council member P.G. Sittenfeld asked an undercover FBI agent. “Do I not want to know?”
“Yeah, you probably don’t,” the agent replied.
“As long as it’s like…,” Sittenfeld said.
“Yeah, it’ll pass, it’ll pass the muster test,” the agent said.
“As long as it passes muster and like a person with a name,” Sittenfeld said. “My political enemies, like, not to freak you guys, but they like to poke around this s—.”
Sittenfeld, who was considered the favorite to serve as Cincinnati’s next mayor, was quoted as saying he could “deliver the votes.”
He, Pastor and another city council member were each sentenced to between one and two years in prison. Sittenfeld is appealing his jury conviction.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba boarded a yacht off the coast of Florida with the top prosecutor in charge of fighting crime in his city and several rowdy out-of-state men who said they wanted to drop millions revitalizing downtown.
Lumumba, who is running for reelection in 2025, had planned to wear his normal suit and tie during this fundraising trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the mayor’s spokesperson said, but the men assured him it was a casual affair. He opted for dark jeans and a black button-up.
As they cruised through the Atlantic on a boat stocked with expensive booze in April, the supposed developers were angling to arrange a deal between Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens and the mayor.
The investor group, known as Facility Solutions Team, had given Owens $50,000 that he divvied up into campaign checks to Lumumba from multiple donors.
Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Owens, who moonlights as a businessman and consultant, had been working for the company since the previous year to entice local officials to support their proposal for a long-welcomed downtown hotel complex in the capital city.
Liquor flowed at Owens’ downtown tobacco lounge where the men first met and regularly spent time in a room hidden behind a bookcase door. A video shows one of the gregarious real estate moguls dancing to club music at the well-lit, nearly empty bar. In Miami, the developers took the mayor and district attorney to a 76,000-square-foot “full nude” cabaret called Tootsie’s and indulged in evening cigars.
But the high-rollers weren’t who they appeared to be. They were FBI agents and an informant using a familiar playbook — masquerading as the same Goodfellas-esque characters, flaunting the same yacht and dropping thousands of taxpayer funds at the same strip club — they’ve used to bust public officials in other cities. One of the undercover cops was publicly condemned by the FBI for having a sexual relationship inside a Cincinnati penthouse suite that the government rented as part of their sting there, according to news reports.
By the time Lumumba and Owens took the sunset cruise, the city had already opened a bid soliciting information from prospective developers for the downtown project. According to the feds, the mayor could help them by shortening the time to respond, hopefully hurting the competition.
From the yacht, Lumumba made the call to change the deadline. One of the undercover agents handed the mayor the campaign checks while they were still on the boat, prosecutors allege.
A few days later, prosecutors alleged Lumumba took out nearly $15,000 of that by writing checks from his campaign to himself and cashing them.
Federal indictments against Owens and Lumumba unsealed Thursday accuse them of several counts including conspiracy, bribery, racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering — some of which come with possible sentences up to 20 years. Owens is also accused of making false statements to the FBI.
Lumumba announced the indictment Wednesday before it was unsealed, denying the allegations and calling the case “political prosecution.” They both pleaded not guilty Thursday.
The agents were drawn to Mississippi’s capital as early as December of 2022 after years of suspected corruption among its leaders. And they recorded.
“I don’t give a shit where the money comes from. It can come from blood diamonds in Africa, I don’t give a fucking shit,” Owens said, according to the indictment, during one of their raucous meetings at his cigar shop. “I’m a whole DA.”
“We can take dope boy money,” he added, “… but I need to clean it and spread it.”
Outside the federal courthouse Thursday, Owens described his quotes in the indictment as “cherry-picked,” and, echoing President-elect Donald Trump’s rationale for his reported vulgarity from 2016, “drunken, locker room banter.”
Jackson City Council member Aaron Banks, who allegedly took cash bribes and favors in exchange for his future vote on the development, also pleaded not guilty in the case on Thursday. He did not speak with reporters.
Another city council member Angelique Lee was the first to resign and plead guilty in August to her part in the scheme, including a $6,000 FBI-funded shopping spree for, among other things, Valentino sandals and a Christian Louboutin tote bag. Owens’ cousin and business associate, Sherik “Marve” Smith, also pleaded guilty in October to acting as a go-between for the district attorney with both Lumumba and Banks.
This kind of political corruption not only erodes public trust, it “hampers economic development and further exacerbates inequality,” according to global anti-corruption coalition Transparency International.
When officials choose contracts with companies based on bribes and kickbacks rather than fair competition, it can increase the costs and reduce the quality of basic services and goods. In communities already facing high poverty, which are more susceptible to corruption, people “don’t necessarily have time to hold their government to account because they don’t have the resources or the ability to do so,” said Transparency International researcher Caitlin Maslen.
“So it just further drives their vulnerability, and of course, at the end of the day, the people who are benefitting from that are corrupt public officials,” Maslen said.
Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens (right) addresses a question as Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba (left) and Jackson Police Chief James Davis during a Violent Crime Prevention Summit held at the Two Mississippi Museums, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Jackson has made national headlines in recent years for its crumbling infrastructure, which Lumumba largely inherited when he took office in 2017 and has left residents without clean water — or sometimes without water at all — at their faucets.
Partly to blame was a highly political and badly bungled $90 million water billing and meter installation contract with German-based manufacturer Siemens signed a decade earlier, and the city got its money back through a court settlement in 2020. But the lawyer, one of Lumumba’s top political donors, took $30 million of that.
The Capital City caught the eye of federal authorities during a years-long conflict between the mayor and council starting in 2021 over selecting a garbage collection vendor, resulting in recurring emergency contracts.
Once in the spring of 2023, residents didn’t see their trash picked up for 17 days.
The mayor lobbed bribery allegations against council members to explain the stalemate and the FBI reportedly examined the ordeal.
If federal criminal investigators gathered evidence of corruption related to the garbage procurement or the other attention-grabbing snafus in city government in recent years, they haven’t released it to the public.
Instead, the FBI decided to concoct its own bribery scheme.
The agents found an obvious weakness: The city’s desire to build a hotel complex downtown on Pascagoula Street on three empty parcels across from the 15-year-old convention center — a long running saga of questionable characters, financial miscalculations and bidding missteps.
Lots used for parking in front of the Jackson Convention Complex Center, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
In a separate investigation, the FBI had already found that Jackson’s previous mayor took $80,000 in donations and gifts from a contractor who bid on the same project, according to transcripts from a 2022 trial in Atlanta. They never charged him.
Getting Owens to partner with FST, their development front, proved crucial to the undercover agents’ plan. Owens bragged to them that he and his cousin “‘own enough of the city’ and that he had ‘a bag of fucking information on all the city councilmen’ that allowed him to ‘get votes approved,’” according to the indictment.
The district attorney and mayor, both Democrats, have a friendship. Owens lent an air of credibility to the undercover scheme that without, local politicians may have never entertained the men.
At a Feb. 12 dinner Owens arranged to introduce Lumumba to his partners, the district attorney said, “I’ve done background checks. They’re not FBI by the way,” according to the indictment.
To secure indictments, the agents had to provide the officials a benefit — whether cash, fancy clothes, a job for a family member, a private driver, or simply a campaign contribution — and record them agreeing to take some official act, however insignificant to their company actually securing a deal with the city.
In late March, Owens and the agents took Lee, who represented northwest Jackson on the city council, out to dinner at Pulito Osteria Italian restaurant in Belhaven. As they were leaving, one of the agents handed Lee a bag of $3,000 in cash. “Oh my god,” Lee said, according to a recording transcript read in court. “… I’m not reporting this.”
“I mean it’s cash, why would you report it? Don’t report it,” the FBI agent responded, then thanked Lee for her support for their project.
“You’ve got more votes coming,” she responded. “I’ll make sure of that.”
In Lee’s case, she admitted to agreeing to approve closing a small portion of Farish Street between two city parcels so the developers could build on top of it — a vote that was not then actually slated to come before the council. Lee also agreed to approve the actual development proposal, which would also have occurred several steps ahead in the process.
To ensnare the mayor, who does not vote on development projects, the agents exercised some creativity in establishing an official act. They asked Lumumba to close the deadline to respond to the city’s procurement two weeks earlier than planned under the guise that, prosecutors allege, it would exclude their competition — though two other firms managed to squeak through their proposals just in time, according to public records.
The indictment includes a photo from the yacht of the mayor, sitting next to Owens, talking on his phone to his city planning director.
A photo included in the federal indictment shows Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, left, talking on the phone while sitting with Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens on the yacht.
The city never selected FST as the winning proposer and the council never took a vote on the project — not that it mattered for the purpose of charging the officials.
“It’s a broad statute … Under the conspiracy statute, (the crime is) doing an official act in exchange for some type of benefit, and it’s the contemplation of doing it in exchange for that benefit,” said attorney Aafram Sellers, who represented Lee through her guilty plea. “The fact that it wasn’t imminent that they were going to do it doesn’t matter.”
Weeks after the alleged bribes were delivered, the FBI raided Owens’ businesses and the district attorney’s office, where they found $20,000 in cash hidden in a lockbox disguised as a book titled, “The Constitution of The United States of America,” according to the indictment. They also seized phones from the mayor and the two city council members.
The FBI found $20,000 in cash hidden in a lockbox disguised as a book titled, “The Constitution of The United States of America,” according to the indictment.
The investigation has been a slow burn in the months since, with the feds waiting until just after the presidential election to snag the big fish.
In cases where there’s evidence a public official has taken a direct personal benefit, such as cash or expensive gifts, in exchange for some official action, the government’s case for bribery is typically a slam dunk.
In Cincinnati, the federal government secured a conviction and two-year prison sentence for Cincinnati City Council member Jeff Pastor after he allegedly took $55,000 in bribes, much of it cash. Testimony in that case revealed that the agents also took Pastor to Miami and, like they did for Owens and Lumumba, treated him to expensive liquor, a yacht cruise and Tootsie’s Cabaret.
But when the only benefit to the official is a campaign contribution, a fine line exists between bribery and plain old politicking — especially in a political environment fueled by lax campaign finance requirements and a robust lobbying industry.
And in some cases resulting from these same FBI stings elsewhere, the criminality hasn’t been so clear.
Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, whom the undercover agents attempted to bribe with tickets to the broadway show Hamilton, was acquitted last year on one charge of lying to the FBI. A judge dismissed several other charges alleging he promised city contracts in exchange for donations during his 2018 run for the governor of Florida, according to POLITICO.
Cincinnati Councilman Alexander “PG” Sittenfeld, who was convicted last year of taking $20,000 in campaign contributions in exchange for his support of a development project in a nearly identical FBI sting, was released from prison early in May — a rare occurrence — after the court found his appeal raised a “close question” about his guilt.
Though agents recorded Sittenfeld saying questionable things like, “I can move more votes than any single other person,” he argued there was no evidence his future vote or lobbying effort was predicated on him receiving the donation. This exchange — what’s known as a “quid pro quo” — has to be explicit for a campaign donation to be considered a bribe. With his pro-development record, Sittenfeld argues he would have voted in favor of the developers regardless of the donation.
Dozens of high-profile legal scholars, including President Donald Trump’s attorney general and President Barack Obama’s White House counsel, signed a brief to the court that argued Sittenfeld’s conduct was not criminal.
The authors said that the councilman’s “statements of puffery” “typify the everyday discourse between politicians and their supporters.” Sittenfeld’s appeal is pending.
U.S. Attorney Todd W. Gee for the Southern District of Mississippi, addresses a reporter’s question at a news conference, Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023, in Jackson, Miss. Approximately 40 people with connections to multiple states and Mexico were arrested Tuesday, Jan 23, 2024, after a four-year federal investigation uncovered multiple drug trafficking operations throughout East Mississippi, federal prosecutors announced. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
The prosecution of Owens, Lumumba and Banks is being handled by President Joe Biden appointee U.S. Attorney Todd Gee, a Vicksburg native who previously served as lead counsel for U.S. Congressman Bennie Thompson on the House Homeland Security Committee.
Thompson, the only Democrat in Mississippi’s delegation, recommended Gee for the position. Most recently, Gee was a deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice.
But the agents who conducted the sting came from out of state.
Sources close to the investigation said they believed two of the FBI agents posing as Nashville developers “Brian” and “Rob” were the same agents who went by “Brian” and “Rob” in similar investigations in Cincinnati and Columbus. The short, bald man playing the wealthy yacht-owning boss “Pauli” during Lumumba’s fundraiser, matches the description of the agent who went by “Vinny” in the Ohio cases.
Chris Lancaster, a realtor from outside of Nashville whose name was listed on the public development proposal in Jackson, shares a name with the businessman who worked undercover in a similar FBI sting in Tallahassee with an agent who also went by “Brian,” according to news reports. The logos used in those operations mirror the logo FST used.
These FBI agents’ assignments featured in criminal cases against at least the following public officials, according to news reports:
Andrew “PG” Sittenfeld, Cincinnati City Council member
Jeff Pastor, Cincinnati City Council member
Larry Householder, Ohio Speaker of the House
Andrew Gillum, Mayor of Tallahassee
Scott Maddox, Tallahassee City Commissioner
Paige Carter-Smith, executive director of the Tallahassee Downtown Improvement Authority
In Cincinnati and Columbus, the primary undercover agents went by aliases “Brian Bennett” and “Rob Miller.” Miller received a letter of censure from the FBI for his unprofessional conduct during the investigation. Like “Pauli” in the Jackson investigation, “Vinny” made a cameo appearance in the Cincinnati case, albeit a memorable one. At trial, Vinny described his persona as a “high-balling,” “wealthy investor boss,” the local TV station reported, who “liked to spend time on his yacht in Miami” and “was rich and rude.”
In Tallahassee, the newspaper characterized the agent known as “Brian Butler” as “bald-headed and stocky” and an agent known as “Mike Miller,” posing as an Atlanta-based developer, as “mysterious” and a “handsome bearded man” — descriptions matching the agents sources said dealt with the Jackson officials.
Lancaster, who had reportedly partnered with “Brian” in Tallahassee, appears to own a legitimate real estate firm in Hendersonville, Tennessee. The company boasts the down-to-earth sales style of Lancaster and his son: “muddy boots and dirty leather gloves in their pocket.”
Sources said two women, who they believe were also undercover agents, often accompanied the supposed developers. Those women joined Lee, the councilwoman, on her shopping spree at Maison Weiss women’s clothing store in Jackson’s Highland Village shopping center, sources said.
“Some of these four agents have checkered pasts and others have even engaged in misconduct in this particular investigation,” defense lawyers for Gillum, the former Tallahassee mayor, said in a court motion in his case, according to media reports. “Some have gotten plastered with alcohol during undercover meetings, some have actually offered and bought drugs, and some have even tried to ensnare their targets with women.”
The local FBI office did not respond to questions about these allegations.
By the time the out-of-state FBI agents came to Jackson, the city had been trying and failing to secure a developer to build a hotel complex on three empty blocks of Pascagoula Street for nearly two decades, especially since the $65 million convention center opened in 2009.
Lots used for parking in front of the Jackson Convention Complex Center, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Under former Mayor Frank Melton in 2007, the city sold most of the land in question — a business deal that took years to unravel — to a Texas-based company pushing a proposal tied to a controversial developer previously charged and acquitted in a bribery scandal. Jackson Redevelopment Authority, which manages and oversees city property, eventually passed on that proposal in 2011.
At the end of former Mayor Harvey Johnson’s administration in 2013, he and then-Mayor-elect Chokwe Lumumba Sr. announced they’d reached a deal on a $60 million development in partnership with Hyatt Hotels. But it also fell through.
The next mayor, Tony Yarber, took at least $14,000 worth of campaign donations and other favors that prosecutors alleged Atlanta-based pastor and political consultant Mitzi Bickers gave him in an attempt to secure a piece of the convention center hotel project and a city wastewater contract in 2016. The FBI investigated this but eventually zeroed in on Bickers, who was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison for accepting $3 million in bribes to steer contracts in Atlanta when she served as the city’s director of human services.
But Yarber also said he had no direct oversight of the awarding of Bickers’ contracts, which ultimately failed, and he was never charged. The $75 million hotel proposal Bickers helped put together, which Jackson Redevelopment Authority was still considering as the Bickers investigation became public, unsurprisingly died.
Asked about the current corruption probe in Jackson, Yarber said, “I’m just glad to be on the other side of the street watching this time.”
“But if there’s any difference, guess who didn’t get indicted?” Yarber told Mississippi Today Monday, denying that he ever testified to taking bribes from Bickers. “There was a lot of allegations. It was a lot of stuff, a lot of talk, a lot of writing. But yeah, no.”
Shortly after current Mayor Lumumba took office, the city spent at least a year developing a detailed downtown revitalization scope of work, which included a market analysis report, before issuing a Request for Proposals, or RFP, in 2019. An RFP is the document that spells out the city’s needs and officially solicits development proposals. Of the companies that responded to the bid, the city chose to interview one, but found their presentation insufficient and declined to pursue it, then-director of planning and development Mukesh Kumar told Mississippi Today.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba (center) and Jackson Police Chief James Davis (right), listen as U. S. Marshals Service Director Ronald L. Davis (left) answers a question, during a Violent Crime Prevention Summit held at the Two Mississippi Museums, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023 in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
The opportunity that those three empty blocks of Pascagoula street holds — or the missed opportunity it represents now — is bigger than downtown Jackson.
“Quality of life and being a revenue-generating economic driver for the city of Jackson is what that property has potential to be,” said Jhai Keeton, the current director planning and development. “It impacts everybody in central Mississippi. This is the heart of the state of Mississippi. Everybody says, ‘So goes Jackson, so goes the state.’ So goes that property.’”
The Tennessee realtor-turned-undercover-informant Lancaster and FBI agent Brian poked around Jackson for months before officially establishing FST in Miami in June of 2023.
The company was incorporated by a Jack Steele — which happens to be the pseudonym of an FBI informant who reportedly lived in Florida. It listed an operating address in Hendersonville, Tennessee, also where Lancaster’s company is located.
The next month in July, the city and Jackson Redevelopment Authority issued a new RFP for a convention center complex on the long-vacant downtown property.
Weeks later, while Lancaster was in town visiting a local lobbyist FST had hired, the informant asked where he could grab some cigars, and the lobbyist recommended the Downtown Cigar Company. The indictment said the informant had “a genuine interest in the products.”
The phony developer chummed it up at the lounge on Pearl Street — which the FBI would raid less than a year later — and shortly after met the owner, known to most as the county’s top prosecutor.
The indictment makes allusions, using Owens’ own quotes, to the DA running a larger money laundering operation out of the cigar bar: “I can do it in here. That’s why we have businesses. To clean the money. Right?” Owens said.
The indictment alleges Owens told the agents he was mixing the cash he received from them with “dope money and drug money and more than a million dollars” and storing it at the district attorney’s office. But the indictment does not include charges related to these comments.
Before Hinds County voters elected Owens as district attorney in 2019, the Terry native headed up the Mississippi office of the Southern Poverty Law Center, where he brought class action lawsuits on behalf of disenfranchised Mississippians and exposed unconstitutional child imprisonment. There, he was also accused of sexually harassing several women colleagues.
He opened Downtown Cigar Company in 2018. He also claims to be the co-founder and co-owner Magnolia 360 LLC, a real estate and property management firm run by the owner of a California-based tree service company.
Republican State Auditor Shad White, right, and Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens discuss the auditor’s office investigation of the former director of Mississippi’s welfare agency and four other people, accused of embezzling millions in federal money meant for the poor, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
In early 2020, State Auditor Shad White, who went to the same church as Owens while they both converted to Catholicism, brought the local DA the findings of an eight-month investigation that would rock the state for years to come. State welfare officials and a politically-connected nonprofit had been illegally funneling millions of federal assistance for the poor to their family, friends and professional athletes.
Owens swiftly indicted six individuals before the U.S. Attorney’s Office or FBI were even looped into the investigation — to the dismay of the federal government. Owens hasn’t charged any additional people in the case since.
Early on, the agents’ conversations about development in downtown Jackson were frenetic. Keeton, the city planning director, said they talked about “buying Farish Street.”
“They were saying all the fuzzy, feel good stuff,” Keeton said.
He said he got turned off after they invited him to a strip club and after they once asked to push a meeting later in the day because they were “still hungover from last night,” Keeton recalled.
In the fall of 2023, FST didn’t participate in the city’s then-open bid for downtown development proposals. By the deadline for submissions, the city had received none.
Regardless of the opportunity the agents would later pretend to pursue, they wanted Owens on their team. In November of 2023, Owens won reelection. The agents came to Jackson to celebrate with him, secretly recording him into the night.
“This is the part time job,” Owens said, describing his role as district attorney, “to get leverage for the full time job. This is the part time job to get the conversations and the access.”
All while the U.S. Attorney’s Office was operating a sting on Owens the businessman at night, during the day, it was coordinating with Owens the prosecutor on grand jury matters.
The day after the election, Owens and Smith negotiated payment of $100,000 each for their roles in consulting the developers, the indictment alleges. A third person, identified as a witness, negotiated payment of $50,000.
The next month, Owens sent the agents the city’s previous RFP and took the first of two trips to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, north of Miami, to meet with the men. During a meeting on their yacht, the agents handed the district attorney $125,000 in cash — the fees for Owens and his associates. Owens said that cash was “easier,” according to the indictment, “and that he had brought a bag on the trip specifically for that purpose.”
The District Attorney’s Office’s policies and procedures do not prohibit the prosecutor from having outside business interests. In his latest Statement of Economic Interest he’s required to file with the Mississippi Ethics Commission, Owens listed himself as a partner for Facility Solutions Team.
“If the money is for an innocent purpose on the face of it, they (the FBI) are basically financing the target to keep them involved and that shows a lack of judgment at least,” longtime San Francisco trial lawyer James Brosnahan told Mississippi Today.
Brosnahan, who has practiced for over six decades, including five years as a federal prosecutor, argued that’s what undercover agents did to his client, former school board member and political consultant Keith Jackson. Undercover FBI agents had hired Jackson and paid him “to do perfectly lawful things,” Brosnahan told reporters after Jackson pleaded guilty in 2014 to bribing former California state Sen. Leland Yee with campaign contributions.
“They also promised him great wealth. After they had done that, they began to embroil him in the matter that brings him to his plea,” Brosnahan said. “What authorized them to come into the Bay Area and do what they did? Is this government doing what we want them to do? My answer is no.”
Brosnahan also found that in the course of its Bay Area investigation, the FBI sent agents disguised as real estate investors to Joe Montana to lure him into the corruption sting. “It shows the deepest lack of judgment I can imagine,” Brosnahan said at the time. But the former 49ers quarterback didn’t bite, according to media reports.
Angelique Lee speaks at a Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign rally at the state Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Monday, June 18, 2018, calling out for lawmakers and statewide elected officials to address education more fully. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
In January, Owens began setting up meetings with each of the city council members so his new supposed business partners could gauge their interest in working with them.
“There was very little discussion of what they were offering,” council member Vernon Hartley said.
Hartley said the men wanted to pay for his salmon croquette at Walker’s Drive-In, but he insisted on paying his own bill. While some of the council found the phony developers unimpressive, Lee, and allegedly Banks, took the bait.
During their first meeting with Banks, one of the FBI agents asked what the council member would need to support the development moving forward.
“Fifty grand as soon as possible would help,” Banks said, according to the indictment.
The next night, Banks was pulled over for drinking and driving, but he wasn’t booked; the state trooper released him to Owens, WLBT reported. A judge would later require Banks to install a breathalyzer in his car’s ignition.
Banks wasn’t the only one dealing with personal issues. Lee, who was also charged with a DUI the previous year, was in thousands of dollars in debt from her 2020 election campaign. The sign printing shop she allegedly stiffed had sued her, and the court began garnishing her city council wages in 2023, WLBT reported.
The annual pay for Jackson City Council members, a part time job, is around just $25,000.
In the following weeks and months, agents spent thousands wining and dining the politicians at expensive restaurants around Jackson.
In the back room at the cigar lounge one night, Owens handed Banks an envelope containing $10,000, the indictment alleges, and asked the council man if he was comfortable taking cash because it was “not a check like we normally do.”
To make sure Banks was on board, prosecutors allege, FST also funded a paid internship position at the district attorney’s office for Banks’ family member and a driver service for Banks as he dealt with the aftermath of his DUI arrest — benefits totaling $6,300.
Two days later, Owens allegedly made the $10,000 payment towards Lee’s campaign debt in exchange for her future vote.
While this was going on, the city and Jackson Redevelopment Authority opened a new downtown project bid on Jan. 31. This time, the bid was a Request for Statements of Qualifications, which solicits information from prospective developers but does not require as many details about specific construction plans. The city said it was seeking a 335-room hotel, open entertainment space and parking garage.
By the end of February, the request was set to expire in two weeks and Keeton, the planning director, said the city hadn’t seen any nibbles — besides from FST. Keeton said he asked the mayor to extend the deadline to April 30 to give developers more time to respond.
“When it was extended, someone said to me that the (FST) developer was like, ‘Well, if it’s about money, we’ll wire $90 million tomorrow,’ and I said, ‘For what?’ That’s stupid,” Keeton said. “When you talk money around people that don’t have money, they get excited about it.”
FST pretended to partner with a Michigan-based construction and property management company called Contour Development to form the joint venture Jackson Development Group, according to the team’s 32-page statement dated March 10.
The document names Owens and his cousin Smith as the development group’s local partners. In describing Owens’ qualifications, it says his company Magnolia 360 manages more than 100 affordable homes and three apartment complexes in Jackson and that Owens has “spent the last decade recruiting business and developments in downtown Jackson.”
On the same day FST finalized the proposal, Owens wrote City Hall using his district attorney’s office email to confirm the investor group would be hosting a fundraiser for the mayor in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Owens indicated he was writing “Per Mayor Lumumba’s request.”
On March 19, Owens filed paperwork to incorporate FST in Mississippi, listing the cigar lounge as the address and his personal email as the contact, and he also opened a Mississippi bank account for the company.
Owens emailed Lumumba’s executive assistant Tiffany Murray an itinerary for the Florida trip, which included a “sunset cruise.” He attached an official letter, dated a month earlier on Feb. 10 and signed by Lancaster, inviting the mayor to the fundraiser to discuss their proposal for a state-of-the-art mixed-use development in downtown Jackson.
“We have a private charter that me and my detail will accompany the Mayor on,” Owens wrote.
Mississippi Today retrieved the emails through a public records request.
Days before the trip, prosecutors allege the agents met with Owens and Banks and told the officials they wanted the bid response deadline moved back and Banks responded, “If that’s an advantage for you guys, yes.”
Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba speaks during a news conference at City Hall in Jackson, Miss., regarding updates on the ongoing water infrastructure issues, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
At a mansion on a street lined with palm trees in Fort Lauderdale, sources said the mayor delivered impassioned remarks about Jackson’s challenges and its potential.
Lumumba, an attorney, first ran for mayor when he was just 30 years old in 2014 shortly after his father, former Mayor Chokwe Lumumba Sr., died eight months into office. After Lumumba’s loss in that election, he ran again in 2017 and earned a stunning 55% of the vote in a field of nine candidates in the Democratic primary. After his election, he promised to make Jackson “the most radical city on the planet.”
On the yacht with the FBI agents, Owens explained to Lumumba how he was dividing up the money — which the government alleged was meant to conceal the bribe. “We filtered it through several accounts in a way we comfortable doing,” Owens said, according to the indictment.
Owens assured Lumumba that the team was delivering $50,000 then, but that it planned to deliver more down the road, “to make sure there’s no worries about you financially in this thing cause you’re as big part of this thing as anybody,” according to the indictment.
The informant then asked Lumumba to move the Statement of Qualifications deadline, the indictment alleges. The mayor called Keeton, his planning director overseeing the bid process.
Keeton is described the phone call: “Phone rings. ‘What’s up boss man?’ ‘Aye man, let’s go ahead and move that date back.’ ‘Alright cool.’ ‘Alright goodbye.’ That was the conversation.”
The request didn’t come as a surprise, Keeton said, because the bid had already been open longer than planned and the mayor didn’t “want to lose anyone we’ve got hoping to get new people.”
The indictment alleges that Lumumba understood the campaign donation from the developers was in exchange for him directing his employee to change the deadline, but it does not include quotes from Lumumba about this.
Unlike Owens, the indictment does not heavily quote Lumumba. The mayor is quoted saying “yeah” three times and “okay” once in reference to the structure of the campaign contributions, but the indictment does not quote him in reference to the date change.
Later that night, the indictment alleges, the agents showered cash on Lumumba at the strip club.
While Lee and Banks allegedly took cash and other personal favors, the only bribe Lumumba has been charged with taking are the campaign contributions. Lumumba declined to provide Mississippi Today a record of his most recent campaign contributions, which he is not required to report until January.
Mississippi campaign finance law is notoriously loose, and there are almost never consequences for non-reporting. The state has no limit on the dollar amount an individual, LLC or PAC can donate to candidates, and there is no prohibition on donations from those doing business with the government or “gift law” curbing lavishment from lobbyists.
In theory, laws requiring candidates to disclose their campaign contributors should provide the transparency needed to examine whether wealthy contractors are buying politicians. But the statutes are confusing, and where the law is clear, there is little enforcement, especially on the municipal level.
Though Lumumba is statutorily required to file campaign finance reports with the city clerk annually in non-election years, Lumumba has not filed a report since his 2021 reelection.
“Unfortunately, that is not uncustomary for my campaign,” he said at a press conference in October, the Clarion Ledger reported.
Municipal Clerk Angela Harris would not answer questions about her office’s handling of nonfilers. The Secretary of State, which receives reports from state candidates, is required to turn over possible reporting violations to the Mississippi Ethics Commission. But the ethics commission director Tom Hood said to his recollection, his office had never received notice of a possible violation from a city clerk, and there’s no mention of city candidates in the law that authorizes the commission to assess fines.
Meanwhile, pay-to-play in state government is so common, State Auditor White casually described the occurrence in a Facebook post advertising a recent study his office commissioned: “A lot of waste … works like this: a lobbyist walks in the door and convinces an agency head they need to buy a new thing. The lobbyist and the agency head go to a lawmaker and ask them to appropriate some money for the new thing (and the lobbyist gives the lawmaker a campaign donation, just for good measure). The money gets appropriated, the agency head buys the thing, and everyone is happy – except the taxpayer, who had no idea this was happening.”
According to a 2023 Mississippi Today investigation, Gov. Tate Reeves has received $1.6 million in campaign donations from companies that have received more than $1.4 billion in state contracts or grants since 2003.
Sittenfeld’s lawyer stressed to jurors that the councilman had taken 1,800 donations during his campaign, but the only ones causing him trouble were those from the FBI agents. “If any of the other donations were illegal, you would have heard of them,” the lawyer said in closing arguments, according to news reports.
Both Lumumba and Owens made no indication of plans to step down from office. The trial likely won’t occur for months or longer. Each of them strongly defended themselves against the charges.
During one of the meetings with the agents, in which Owens described how he “want(ed) the paper trail to look” for the campaign contributions, the state’s most populous county’s top prosecutor made his goal known: “At the end of the fucking day, my most important job is to keep everybody out of jail or prison because I’m not fucking going.”
Tonarri Moore, who was recruited by the FBI to work as an informant and collect evidence against Marshand Crisler, testified for over an hour Thursday about offering the former interim Hinds County sheriff $9,500 in bribes between September and November 2021, during Crisler’s sheriff campaign.
Moore began cooperating with the federal government following a September 2021 Drug Enforcement Agency raid on his home. Moore testified that nobody asked him about targeting Crisler and he told an agent he was not bribing him. Then he was asked whether Crisler would accept a bribe.
“Let’s see,” Moore said about working with the FBI to see what Crisler would offer in exchange for money.
The government argues Crisler made promises to tell Moore about any criminal investigations involving him, to move a member of his family to a safer place in the county jail, to give Moore a job with the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department and to allow him to possess a firearm despite a felony conviction.
The jury heard recordings of meetings where those alleged promises were made, and Moore was asked to recall them.
Crisler has pleaded not guilty to a bribery charge and a charge for giving ammunition to Moore, who is unable to possess it as a convicted felon under federal law.
On Thursday, Moore was brought to court from the Madison County jail in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. He is being held on a state charge of conspiracy to commit murder relating to the May death of a Jackson man. The recordings were made before Moore was detained.
In previous court records Moore was referred to as “Confidential Human Source 1.” The government revealed his identity Wednesday during the first day of trial.
During cross examination, Crisler’s attorney, John Colette, asked Moore about his previous convictions, how he began to cooperate with the FBI and a plea deal he entered into with the U.S. Attorney’s Office this year in exchange for his testimony.
Late Thursday morning, without the jury present, Colette was allowed to cross-examine Moore about his previous convictions and how he began to cooperate with the FBI to investigate his client.
Colette asked Moore about other bribes he’s allegedly made to Jackson and Hinds County officials. He admitted a $100,000 bribe to someone in the district attorney’s office. But he invoked his Fifth Amendment right or said he did not recall when asked about bribes to people in city government and Jackson police officers.
Moore confirmed during questioning by Colette that he is expected to testify against Torrence Mayfield, a former Jackson police officer and 2021 sheriff’s candidate, as part of his plea deal with the federal government. Mayfield faces federal charges for trying to sell a firearm to Moore, despite his felony conviction.
Earlier in the day, the government finished questioning Daniel Ratliff, a former FBI task force officer involved with the Crisler investigation who recruited Moore as an informant.
The jury also heard briefly from other witnesses.
FBI supervisory special agent Jamaal King testified about working with a unit whose work includes interception of phone calls. Hinds County Undersheriff Jarrat Taylor testified about the office’s hiring practices and the ability to move people at the jail. Kyle Kirkpatrick, of the Secretary of State’s Office, testified about campaign finance and reporting amounts, such as the $9,500.
Trial is expected to last one more day with closing arguments before the case is handed over to the jury for deliberation.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The mayor of Mississippi’s capital city, the top prosecutor in the state’s largest county and a Jackson city council member have been indicted on conspiracy and bribery charges in a case that has already forced the resignation of another city council member, according to federal court records unsealed Thursday.
The charges against Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens and Jackson City Council member Aaron B. Banks were brought after two people working for the FBI posed as real estate developers who wanted to build a hotel near the convention center in downtown Jackson and provided payments to officials, including $50,000 for the mayor’s reelection campaign, according to court documents.
Lumumba, Jody Owens and Banks were scheduled to make initial appearances Thursday before a magistrate judge.
Lumumba released a video statement Wednesday saying he had been indicted and calling it a “political prosecution” to hurt his 2025 campaign for reelection.
“My legal team has informed me that federal prosecutors have, in fact, indicted me on bribery and related charges,” said Lumumba, who is an attorney. “To be clear, I have never accepted a bribe of any type. As mayor, I have always acted in the best interests of the city of Jackson.”
The Associated Press left a phone message Thursday for Owens’ attorney, Thomas Gerry Bufkin. Federal court documents did not immediately list an attorney for Banks.
Lumumba and Banks were elected in mid-2017. Owens was elected in 2019 and took office in 2020. All three are Democrats.
Jackson City Council member Angelique Lee, a Democrat, first elected in 2020, resigned in August and pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges as the result of the same FBI investigation. Her sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 13.
In May, FBI agents raided Owens’ office and a cigar bar he owns in downtown Jackson. Among the items found in the district attorney’s office was a lockbox made to look like a book labeled as the U.S. Constitution, containing about $20,000 in cash, with about $9,900 showing serial numbers confirming it was paid by the purported developers to Owens, according to the newly unsealed indictment.
Owens boasted to the purported developers about having influence over Jackson officials and “facilitated over $80,000 in bribe payments” to Lumumba, Banks and Lee in exchange for their agreement to to ensure approval of the multimillion-dollar downtown development, according to the indictment. The document also says Owens “solicited and accepted at least $115,000 in cash and promises of future financial benefits” from the purported developers to use his relationships with Lumumba, Banks and Lee and act as an intermediary for the payments to them.
Lumumba directed a city employee to move a deadline to favor the purported developers’ project, and Banks and Lee agreed to vote in favor of it, according to the indictments unsealed Thursday.
Sherik Marve Smith — who is an insurance broker and a relative of Owens, according to court documents — waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge in the case Oct. 17. He agreed to forfeit $20,000, and his sentencing is set for Feb. 19.
Smith conspired to give cash payments and campaign contributions to two Jackson elected officials, and the money came from the purported developers who were working for the FBI, according to court documents.
Owens, Lumumba, Smith and the purported developers traveled in April on a private jet paid by the FBI to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, according to the newly unsealed indictment. During a meeting on a yacht that was recorded on audio and video, Lumumba received five campaign checks for $10,000 each, and he called a Jackson city employee and instructed that person to move a deadline for submission of proposals to develop the property near the convention center, the indictment says. The deadline was moved in a way to benefit the purported developers who were working for the FBI by likely eliminating any of their competition, the indictment says.
The mayor said his legal team will “vigorously defend me against these charges.”
“We believe this to be a political prosecution against me, designed to destroy my credibility and reputation within the community,” Lumumba said.