Jacksonians hoping for a conclusion to the corruption allegations against the capital city’s mayor, a councilman, and the county’s district attorney will have to wait until at least summer 2026.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan on Friday morning set the trial, which is expected to last six weeks, for July 13, 2026, during a status conference held at the Thad Cochran United States Courthouse in downtown Jackson.
“When I set this, that’s going to be the date. Someone’s going to be in the hospital for us to move it,” Jordan said.
A federal grand jury indicted Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens and Jackson City Councilman Aaron Banks last fall in a bribery scheme after concocting a sting involving undercover FBI agents posing as real estate developers. All three officials pleaded not guilty. The conference Friday was the first public hearing in the case since the November arraignment.
Prosecutors wanted a trial in early 2026. Defense attorneys wanted a trial in September or October of 2026. The judge split the difference.
“The right to a speedy trial is also a public right,” Jordan said.
The judge has some experience overseeing court spectacles involving Jackson mayors. Jordan presided over the 2009 felony civil rights trial against former Jackson Mayor Frank Melton, a case he referenced several times Friday. When the U.S. Department of Justice trial lawyer Nicholas Cannon said he thought they might need one to two days to select a jury, Jordan informed the prosecutor that it took a week for parties in the Melton case to compile a jury.
“Ninety percent had seen about the case in the news,” Jordan said. “I suspect it’s going to be at least that here given the changes in how cases like this are covered, social media and whatnot. I would be shocked if we picked a jury in a day or two. I think a week would actually be doing pretty well.”
Lumumba is still running for reelection this year and will face 11 challengers in the Democratic Party primary for mayor April 1. Banks is not running for reelection, leaving the position open to one of nine candidates running in the Democratic primary. Owens has said he will not step down as district attorney and he does not face an election until 2027.
None of the politicians were present inside the courtroom Friday morning as defense counsel and prosecutors discussed the process for sharing large volumes of evidence in the case and hashed out a series of dates and deadlines leading up to the trial.
The 32-page indictment unsealed in November told a detailed story about how federal agents pretending to be high-rolling developers flattered Owens, allegedly enticing the district attorney to schmooze Lumumba and Banks on behalf of their proposal to build a long-awaited convention center hotel downtown. Owens allegedly helped the fictitious investors bribe Lumumba with $50,000 in campaign contributions and Banks with $10,000 in cash in exchange for favors — a solicitation due date change from the mayor and the promise of a future vote from the councilman.
The lengthy charging papers contained many salacious quotes from Owens gathered through secretly recorded conversations and photos of Owens handling cash and sitting with Lumumba on a yacht in Florida.
The evidence compiled by the federal government and turned over to defense counsel includes 44,000 pages of records and 500 hours of audio recording, Banks’ lawyer Carlos Tanner revealed during the status conference.
Tanner said Friday the evidence he’s received extends far beyond the allegations made in the indictment, referencing “multiple investigations and spinoffs and such.”
“From the looks of the indictment, you’re talking about a two to three month window,” Tanner said. “… The discovery goes back two to three years.”
The defense teams are still waiting to receive transcripts of the recordings and data from the cellphones of their co-defendants.
In court, this material is called discovery, and defendants are entitled to review it entirely to prepare their defense, which is why trial dates often get pushed back.
The trial was originally set for Jan. 6 — a date that was as uncanny as unlikely. Within a couple weeks, all parties agreed that the case is complex and that defendants would need much longer to review the discovery, according to a joint motion to continue the case.
“There are three Defendants; the nature of the prosecution includes charges that typically require extensive proof (for example money laundering and racketeering); and the discovery apparently includes hundreds of hours of recordings and thousands of pages of other evidence that must be thoroughly reviewed to properly prepare for trial,” reads Judge Jordan’s November order to continue the case.
Jordan directed the parties to confer and offer three potential trial dates by mid-December. They did not agree on dates, with the government proposing to try the case in early 2026 and the defendants proposing dates four to six months later. But by this point, defendants had not yet received discovery from the government. “Defense lawyers were operating ‘in the blind,’” Banks’ lawyer Carlos Tanner wrote in his January motion.
“Even the ‘speaking’ indictment in this case does not fully reflect the length of time the Government began its investigation nor the full extent of its investigative activities,” Tanner wrote in the January motion. “Until I started skimming the materials in an effort to organize the documents and other evidence the Government had provided me, I was not aware of the vast number of people and entities referenced in these materials.”
In February, U.S. Magistrate Judge Lakeysha Greer Isaac signed a protective order requested by the government that prohibits the dissemination of any discovery materials beyond the parties, legal staff, witnesses or experts in the case. The order also encourages attorneys, when necessary, to file any sensitive information attached to pretrial motions under seal.
Tanner said Friday that after reviewing the initial discovery, defense counsel wanted a later trial date in September or October of 2026, but Jordan, citing the public’s right to a speedy trial, settled on July.
Defense teams and prosecutors will meet separately again before June 26 to go over any questions about discovery. Jordan set the next status conference for Oct. 1. Parties will have a Feb. 6, 2026, deadline for dispositive motions — that is, filings to settle the case without going to trial — and a May 29, 2026, deadline for any plea change.
Lumumba was indicted on one count each of conspiracy, bribery, racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering. Owens was charged with the same, plus two additional counts of bribery and making false statements to the government. Banks was charged with conspiracy and bribery. If convicted, the most serious charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering come with prison sentences of up to 20 years each, while bribery carries 10 years, conspiracy 5 years and making false statements 5 years.
The FBI sting in Jackson ensnared two other alleged co-conspirators, former Councilwoman Angelique Lee and Owens’ business associate and cousin Sherik “Marve” Smith, who both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery last year. They have not been sentenced.
Lumumba is represented by Jackson attorney Thomas Bellinder and Detroit attorneys Gerald Evelyn and Jeffrey Edison. A fourth attorney, Winston Thompson from Jackson, withdrew from Lumumba’s defense in February.
Owens is represented by local attorneys Gerry Bufkin, Rob McDuff and D.C.-based attorney Gary Kohlman. Banks is represented by local attorneys Tanner and Tom Rich.
Prosecuting the case are local assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles Kirkham and Kimberly Purdie and from D.C., U.S. Department of Justice Public Integrity Section trial lawyers Cannon and Madison Mumma.
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