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Mukta Joshi joins Mississippi Today as investigative reporting fellow
Mississippi Today is pleased to announce that Mukta Joshi has joined Mississippi Today as an investigative reporting fellow through the 2024 Columbia University + INN Internship Program.
Joshi graduated with honors from Columbia Journalism School in 2024 as a fellow at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, where her master’s thesis explored the growing South Asian influence on American politics. She is also a professional photojournalist, and her work has been published in outlets including TIME, Al Jazeera, Hyperallergic, New York Focus and Autostraddle.
“We are so excited to have Mukta join our team,” said senior investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell, who oversees the criminal investigative reporting team at Mississippi Today. “She’s a talented young investigative reporter and lawyer, and we know with her help we can continue to expose law enforcement abuses by the ‘Goon Squad’ and others as well as to examine the collateral damage from such abuses.”
One of Joshi’s recent investigations into the sinister preparations for the recent G20 summit in New Delhi and their impact on the city’s poorest communities was selected by the Global Investigative Journalism Network as one of the eight best investigations from India in 2023.
Joshi is a 2019 graduate of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. She began her career as a corporate lawyer and most recently, led the legal research vertical at Land Conflict Watch, investigating and writing about land governance, environmental law and forest policy in India.
“I couldn’t be more excited to join the brilliant team at the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today, which has tirelessly been churning out deep-dive reportage on the criminal justice system. I’ve always believed that local investigations are what drive efforts towards accountability, and I’m eager to do my bit.”
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Ex-Noxubee County sheriff will serve one day in prison for lying to the FBI
For nearly two decades, former Noxubee County Sheriff Terry Grassaree has dodged allegations of criminal conduct as well as covering it up. On Wednesday, he was finally sentenced by a federal court: to one day in prison.
District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III also gave the 61-year-old retired officer a $2,500 fine and six months’ home detention for lying to the FBI when he denied that he made a jailed woman send him explicit photos and videos in exchange for favorable treatment.
“Power corrupts,” Jordan observed while sentencing Grassaree. “And few people have more power than a county sheriff.”
Grassaree had faced up to five years in prison, but federal sentencing guidelines recommended between zero and six months because he hasn’t been previously convicted.
Jordan rejected prosecutors’ recommendation to sentence Grassaree in the lower half of those guidelines and gave him the maximum under those guidelines.
Although Grassaree’s conviction centered on his lies to the FBI, a 2o23 investigation by Mississippi Today and The New York Times uncovered wide-ranging and serious allegations far beyond them.
At a minimum, the examination detailed gross mismanagement at the Noxubee County jail that repeatedly put female inmates in harm’s way. At worst, it told the story of a sheriff who operated with impunity, even as he was accused of abusing the people in his custody, turning a blind eye to women who said they were raped and trying to cover it up when caught.
As sheriff, Grassaree said he stoked fear into the citizens of Noxubee County by imitating his idol, wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. In the jail, he was called “Big Dog,” and allegations arose that he beat or choked people, including one of his fellow deputies.
On Wednesday, Jordan described what he called “a disturbing pattern of lawlessness in the county jail” that included witnesses saying Grassaree choked a female employee as well as allegations he beat inmates with a broomstick and “gave the greenlight” for the beatings of other inmates.
In a 2007 lawsuit, at least four people who had been arrested gave sworn statements accusing Grassaree of violence. Two of the people said he choked or beat them while they were in his custody. A third said he pinned her against a wall and threatened to let a male inmate rape her.
“I can’t ignore all of that,” Jordan said. “You ran that department.”
On Tuesday, Jordan sentenced former deputy Vance Phillips, who had sex with a jailed woman behind bars for years, to one day in prison, plus a $2,500 fine and eight months’ home detention, where he will be allowed to work his 60-hour-a-week job, play drums in the church band and visit his doctor if he wishes.
During Phillips’ sentencing hearing, Jordan remarked that she “wasn’t really a victim because she flirted and initiated the relationships.
The jailed woman, Elizabeth Layne Reed, said the judge’s remark blindsided her.
Reed — who spent four years in jail accused of a homicide that the district attorney eventually dismissed, concluding she was innocent — described her incarceration as “torture” and said the judge’s comments were akin to victim blaming.
“I’m the one in jail. They have the power over me. I never wanted to have sex,” she said. “I was afraid because I knew the power that the sheriff had.”
She denied that she initiated sexual contact with members of the sheriff’s office. She said she asked Phillips if he could get her a cellphone to use so she could contact her family.
But she didn’t have any cash on hand, she said, and asked Phillips if she could pay him at a later date.
“Well, there is another way you could get it in if you really wanted it,” she quoted him as saying. “That’s when it first started. He initiated every bit of it.”
By Wednesday, Jordan had changed his mind. “I do consider her to be a victim,” he said, owing to the diminished authority possessed by Reed at the time, and the unequal power dynamic between her and Phillips and Grassaree.
Jordan said Grassaree was a willing participant who lied about his actions. He allowed Reed to receive a contraband cellphone and other benefits. He even made her a trusted inmate, also known as a “trusty.”
In both Mississippi and federal prisons, it is a crime for an officer to bring in contraband. It is also a felony to have sex with any inmate. Under state law, a convicted officer faces up to five years in prison; under federal law, that maximum is 15 years.
But pursuing federal charges in cases involving state jails or prisons is complicated by guidance issued by the Department of Justice in 2018, which stipulates that officers cannot be federally prosecuted for violating a person’s civil rights if the person “truly made a voluntary decision as to what she wanted to do with her body,” particularly if she received a benefit or special treatment in exchange for sex.
Andrea Armstrong, a law professor at Loyola University, said the Prison Rape Elimination Act standards “are clear: sex between an incarcerated person and a staff member is sexual abuse. Full stop. That’s because an incarcerated person is under the total control and authority of staff. Fully voluntary and free consent in such situations is impossible.”
After Grassaree’s sentencing, his attorney, Aafram Sellers, said his client was facing the consequences of his actions, for which he takes full responsibility. “Law enforcement is held to a higher standard, to protect and serve,” Sellers said. “He made some bad choices. But this sentence reflects the career of a man who upheld the law and served his community.”
Sellers asked for probation for Grassaree, who has suffered a heart attack and is now caring for his 87-year-old mother, who lives next door.
Grassaree rose through the ranks of the Noxubee County Sheriff’s Department, from a deputy mopping floors, to chief deputy, to the elected position of sheriff, making him one of the most powerful figures in town.
The investigation by Mississippi Today and the Times revealed that allegations have dogged Grassaree for much of his time in the department.
At least eight men — including four deputies and Grassaree himself — have been accused by jailed women of sexual touching or abuse while Grassaree was in charge.
In her 2020 lawsuit, which was settled for an unknown amount, Reed described how she had been coerced into having sex with two deputies. In return, the deputies supplied her with contraband cellphones.
She also described sexual touching by Grassaree and additional deputies, including Damon Clark. None of the deputies besides Phillips was prosecuted. A grand jury did indict the three male inmates accused of rape, only to reverse itself a day later.
According to her lawsuit, Grassaree knew all about his deputies’ “sexual contacts and shenanigans” but did nothing to “stop the coerced sexual relationships.”
Instead of intervening, the lawsuit alleged, the sheriff “sexted” her and demanded that she use the phone the deputies had given her to send him “a continuous stream of explicit videos, photographs and texts” while she was in jail. She also alleged in the lawsuit that Grassaree touched her in a “sexual manner.”
It was revealed in court Wednesday that Phillips told authorities that when Grassaree confronted him, he admitted he had sex with Reed and that Grassaree sent him home for the day.
Sellers said Grassaree heard rumors about Phillips having sex, but never confirmed it. Grassaree denied touching Reed sexually.
Even now, no higher authority has reviewed how Grassaree ran the jail or whether his policies endangered women, because in Mississippi, as in many states, rural sheriffs are left largely to police themselves and their jails.
In 2006, after Grassaree and his staff left jail cell keys hanging openly on a wall, male inmates opened the doors to the cell of two female inmates and raped them, according to statements the women gave to state investigators. One of the women said Grassaree pressured her to sign a false statement to cover up the crimes, according to a report made by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. The other said that Grassaree pressured her into staying silent, telling her that if she spoke up about the rapes, he and other deputies would “lose their jobs,” according to her sworn statement.
Reed said Wednesday that “just because the justice system failed me, that doesn’t mean that others who went through it or are going through it should not speak up.”
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Deputy who procured sexual favors from a jailed woman gets one day in prison
A former Noxubee County deputy will spend one day in prison after a federal judge said Tuesday that the jailed woman he had sex with for years “wasn’t really a victim.”
District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III also gave Vance Phillips a $2,500 fine and eight months’ home detention that will enable him to continue his job with the ambulance service, go to church and see a doctor if he needs to.
The judge described the inmate — who accused Phillips and others of sexual abuse in a lawsuit — as a willing participant who exchanged sexual favors for contraband.
In both Mississippi and federal prisons, it is a crime for an officer to bring in contraband. It is also a felony to have sex with any inmate. Under state law, a convicted officer faces up to five years in prison; under federal law, that maximum is 15 years.
District Attorney Scott Colom, whose office handles criminal cases in Noxubee County, chose to pass his 2020 investigation on to federal prosecutors because of worries about getting a fair jury in such a small county.
It would take two years for a grand jury to indict Phillips and former Sheriff Terry Grassaree.
Instead of being charged with a sex crime, he faced federal bribery charges. In this case, the bribes were exchanging sexual favors and photographs for bringing contraband, including tobacco and cellphones, into the Noxubee County Jail.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Purdie said the jailed woman spent four years behind bars, from 2015 to 2019, for a homicide she didn’t commit and did what she had to do in order to survive. No officer was charged with bringing contraband into the jail, but she was.
In her victim impact statement read to the court, Elizabeth Layne Reed said she felt she had to give people what they wanted to avoid further punishment.
She said she was “heavily impacted” by what Phillips and his then-boss, Grassaree, did to her.
“I feel guilty for his family members who didn’t know what was going on, but I don’t feel guilty about Vance Phillips who knowingly did what he did,” she wrote. “Women and men are supposed to be protected while they are incarcerated.”
She said the abuse has created “trust issues” in her relationship with her husband.
She also said she prays that people who sexually abuse those behind bars are held accountable and that she hopes other victims “will use their voice and come forward” to help “stop the abuse that happens every day” behind bars.
Public Defender Princess Abby said Phillips was an officer who dreamed of becoming a state trooper. “Now that dream is out the window,” she said.
She argued for four months’ house detention, saying Phillips was an otherwise respected member of his community who played the drums for his church band and had no previous criminal history.
She said what happened was “outside his normal behavior” and that he is now married with three sons.
But Jordan noted that what happened was far from a one-time indiscretion. Instead, he said, Phillips had sex with the inmate for years.
He called what the then-deputy did “a considerable breach of public trust.”
But in sentencing Phillips, the judge also blamed the jailed woman and said, “It would be different if she was raped.”
In her 2020 lawsuit, Reed said that multiple deputies and Grassaree touched her sexually as well as demanded nude photographs from her contraband cellphone. Noxubee County settled that lawsuit for an undisclosed amount.
The judge noted that Phillips is currently working a 60-hour-week job and that he didn’t want to disturb that.
He said a stack of character letters said “glowing” things about Phillips, but he noted that many barely knew about the crime. One writer called the former deputy a “fall guy,” but Jordan said that wasn’t true because Phillips wasn’t the last deputy to have sex with the jailed woman.
Grassaree faces sentencing on Wednesday. He has already pleaded guilty to lying to an FBI agent on July 13, 2020, about making Reed take and share nude photos and videos in exchange for favorable treatment, which included making her a trusted inmate, also known as a trusty.
Jordan said the federal sentencing guidelines put Phillips’ prison time at between 8 and 14 months. The judge said the guidelines on Grassaree’s sentence are even less.
As Phillips walked out of the courtroom wearing a jeweled silver cross necklace, he told reporters, “I just want to thank God I’m not going to jail.”
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Who had Snoop Dogg hosting NBC’s Paris Olympics on their bingo card?
This was February of 2014. A group of us, including Malcolm White, were sitting in the Oyster Bar at Hal and Mal’s in downtown Jackson just past 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night. Snoop Dogg, the famous rapper and oft-times cannabis proponent, was supposed to have gone on stage at 9 in the big room, but had yet to arrive.
Malcolm’s cellphone rang. He answered. I heard only one side of a two-sided conversation between Mal and Snoop’s road manager.
“Yeah,” Mal said. “We’re just sitting here waiting….”
Mal raised his eyebrows, held up his phone, pointed at it, and listened for a few seconds.
“Yeah, we got a big crowd here, over 900 folks, and they’re getting a little anxious…”
The fact is, a few angry folks had already approached Mal asking for their money back.
“Snoop is just now leaving McComb, you say? He’s bringing a crowd? Oh boy…”
Mal listened some more, his expression becoming more than a little incredulous.
“Two hundred chicken wings! Man, it’s going on 10:30 on a Tuesday night in Jackson, Mississippi. We’ll have plenty to drink, some snacks, but there’s not gonna be 200 chicken wings. Y’all, come on…”
‘The star of the Paris games’
About 90 minutes later Snoop showed up with a busload of family and friends in tow. He went on just before midnight. He rapped and danced around the stage for 90 minutes. The sold-out crowd, dancing and singing along, loved him.
That was just a decade ago, so I called my good friend Malcolm this morning and we reminisced about that night. I asked him: “Ten years ago, did you have Snoop Dogg hosting the 2024 Olympics in Paris on your bingo card?”
“No,” Mal answered. “I did not.”
Neither did I.
But here he is night after night on our TV screens. With apologies to Simone Biles, perhaps the most athletic human being ever, Snoop Dogg has become the centerpiece of these Olympics. As an Associated Press report put it: “Snoop, 52, has become the star of the Paris Games, ascending to new heights with several memorable moments. He’s carried the Olympic torch, captivated the audience as NBC’s primetime correspondent, swam with Michael Phelps, attended the U.S. women’s soccer game with Megan Rapinoe, danced with Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles, and cheered on Caeleb Dressel alongside the swimmer’s wife and son.”
NBC reportedly is paying Snoop $500,000 a day, plus expenses. He’s come a long way since that Tuesday night gig at Hal and Mal’s 10 years ago.
“I’m pretty sure we got the family discount,” Mal says.
Some readers might wonder why Snoop, a California native already quite famous in 2014, was at Hal and Mal’s on a Tuesday night. Here’s the scoop, directly from Malcolm in his book “The Artful Evolution of Hal & Mal’s,” published by University Press in 2018: “We have hosted thousands of great artists and presented many memorable shows, but I get asked about Snoop Dogg more than almost anybody else. Calvin Broadus, Jr. (AKA Snoop Dogg) was born in 1971 in Long Beach, Cal., but his father Vernell Varnado, is from Magnolia, and his mother was born Beverly Tate in McComb. When he visits his people in southwest Mississippi, he delights us by dropping in at Hal & Mal’s, thrilling the sellout crowds and causing the stay-at-homes to marvel that he is playing our place.”
Arden Barnett, of Ardenland productions, booked the show and has booked Snoop for other Mississippi venues. Says Barnett, “He’s just as he appears. He has always been great, always as nice as can be, just about the nicest guy in the world.”
That niceness comes across the TV screen and also in person.
Archie Manning and his sons count Snoop as a pal. Manning met Snoop years and years ago when both participated in a celebrity flag football game at the Super Bowl. Snoop has appeared on the Manning’s ESPN Monday night football broadcast and has done a Corona beer commercial with Eli Manning.
“Snoop says he wants to be my fourth son,” Manning said last week. “He calls me Daddy Dogg. He’s a huge sports fan.
Snoop sent Manning a taped video greeting recently on the occasion of Manning’s 75th birthday. Eli Manning talked about the birthday video during his Jackson visit last week for his induction into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. “It was pretty cool, about what you’d expect,” Eli said. “Put it this way: I don’t think all that smoke was coming from any blown out candles.”
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UMMC downsizes specialized teams that transport sick kids, babies from hospitals around state
The University of Mississippi Medical Center in April laid off seven specially trained medical providers who transport children and babies in need of critical care from hospitals around the state to Jackson.
The cuts brought the total number of staff on the pediatric and neonatal transport teams from 21 to 14.
UMMC officials said the reduction was the result of a routine evaluation looking for operational efficiencies.
The transport teams offer timely, hospital-level care in a specialized ambulance for critically sick or injured children and babies. The teams are made up of specially certified paramedics, nurses and nurse practitioners, and the ambulances house more equipment and medicines than regular ambulances – “more than … most rural hospitals have,” according to a January 2023 UMMC press release highlighting a pediatric transport team member.
The teams can also provide care in a hospital’s emergency room before transporting the patient to Jackson.
Prior to the layoffs, the Mississippi Center for Emergency Services, which oversees the transport teams, housed one pediatric critical care ambulance and one neonatal critical care ambulance. Two of each provider plus a driver would go on each ambulance to respond to each call.
A former employee says both teams were “already strapped” to respond to the calls that came in before the teams were reduced and combined into one.
Further reducing their ability to respond to these calls, the employee said, “is a real disservice to the children of Mississippi.” The person spoke to Mississippi Today on the condition of anonymity out of career concerns.
UMMC did not answer questions from Mississippi Today specifically about how the decision to cut the teams was made or address what kind of impact it will have on children in need of this care in remote areas of the state.
“Medical Center units routinely evaluate their operational models to identify efficiencies. A thorough review of our transport programs revealed that we could redesign models for some teams and continue to fulfill responsibilities,” said Patrice Guilfoyle, a spokesperson for UMMC, in an emailed statement. “Appropriate allocation of resources allows for investment in more areas that address the needs of Mississippians.”
After the layoffs, however, there is one truck for both teams, and one pediatric and one neonatal provider total to respond to calls.
Neighboring Arkansas – which also has one children’s hospital in the state – has a similarly modeled transport team. It is cross trained for both pediatric and neonatal transports, according to a spokesperson with Arkansas Children’s.
“All Angel One transports are staffed by a nurse and respiratory therapist with support from medical control, an intensive care specialist from our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit or Pediatric Intensive Care Unit who can provide specialized guidance,” spokesperson Hilary DeMillo said.
UMMC’s chief financial officer said in May that the medical center is experiencing “very strong revenues” for both May and the year to date. In April, she also reported revenues of $177 million, or $16 million over budget.
“I do expect this year to be even better than this,” she said of future financial projections.
Transport volume numbers for the months of May and June – the two months following the layoffs – were at their lowest in a 12-month period for the pediatric transport team, according to records obtained by Mississippi Today through a public records request. The numbers for the neonatal team in May and June did not see a noticeable decrease.
Marc Rolph, executive director of communications and marketing for UMMC, said there was a two-week staff training period in May that “temporarily limited our operational capabilities.”
Rolph did not answer why the numbers were lower in June or how they compared to the same months’ numbers in previous years.
Mississippi Today also requested the number of missed calls – or requests for transports that came in and were not fulfilled – for a 12-month period beginning in June 2023. UMMC responded to the request that there were no such records.
Most Mississippi hospitals contacted by Mississippi Today declined to weigh in on the impact of the changes.
UMMC has the state’s only children’s hospital and the highest level neonatal intensive care unit and trauma center.
The hospital’s transport teams are voluntarily accredited by the Commission on the Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems and have been since July of 2015, according to Jan Eichel, the associate executive director of the organization.
The accreditation standards require two critical care providers per vehicle.
“It’s not uncommon to have a cross-trained team” like the new combined pediatric and neonatal transport teams at UMMC, she said. “They should be very proud that they are adhering to the highest standards in patient care and safety.”
Editor’s note: Kate Royals, Mississippi Today’s community health editor since January 2022, worked as a writer/editor for UMMC’s Office of Communications from November 2018 through August 2020, writing press releases and features about the medical center’s schools of dentistry and nursing.
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Federal aid addresses discrimination for thousands of farmers after years of delay
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has sent out long-awaited payments to minority farmers and others in need of aid, but some say it’s not enough to offset years of discrimination.
The department issued more than $2.2 billion in payments to more than 43,000 farmers across the country in the last week of July, with much of that money going to farmers in the Mississippi River delta states. That includes 1,265 farmers from Louisiana, over 13,000 in Mississippi, and 11,000 in Alabama.
Charlene Johnson Gaston’s family farms beef cattle near Lexington, Mississippi and applied for the program, called the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program. She said they have faced decades of discrimination.
“I am excited about this money being disbursed. I’m thankful for the people who already received these settlements and I’m waiting on ours,” said Johnson Gaston, who said she has yet to receive an official letter from the USDA.
“It would mean justice for my family,” she said.
The money aims to address a history of discriminatory lending practices by the USDA against Black and other minority farmers. A study shows that over the 20th century, Black farmers lost over $320 billion in land, partly due to that discrimination.
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said the Biden Administration hopes the money will help thousands stay on the farm.
“This financial assistance is not compensation for anyone’s loss or the pain endured, but it is an acknowledgement by the department,” he said at a White House press briefing on July 31.
Farmers have been waiting on this kind of money for years. An initial round of payments stalled after white farmers and banks sued over the first version of the program in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act. The plan had a provision that set aside $4 billion for socially disadvantaged farmers, meaning those who had faced racial or ethnic discrimination.
A provision in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 repealed that debt relief and replaced it with $3.1 billion for economically distressed farmers. Most of that money has already been doled out, Vilsack said.
The other component was the $2.2 billion for farmers who faced any type of discrimination by the USDA before 2021, not just racial. Black and brown farmers who were already expecting aid money had to fill out a new application and explain how they faced discriminated. That led some of them to sue the USDA.
Angie Provost and her husband June, who farm sugar cane in Louisiana’s Iberia Parish, helped push for the original legislation as they struggled to get loans in the past – due, they said, to discrimination from their local USDA offices.
“As [June] took over the farm, there have been numerous hurdles for him to cross that sort of harken back to the days of Jim Crow contract leasing and indentured servitude,” Angie Provost said.
Provost and her husband are also suing the USDA separately. She said USDA could have made the application process easier and less stressful for them.
Many farmers in Louisiana had trouble with the long application and with gathering proof they had been discriminated against, according to Ebony Woodruff, director of the Southern University Law Center Agricultural Law Institute for Underserved and Underrepresented Communities.
“Remember, a lot of this stuff happened decades ago, and in a place like Louisiana, we have hurricanes coming through, houses are destroyed, people didn’t have the paperwork to supplement their applications,” she said.
The USDA said it has tried to make it easier for farmers to get records from the agency to help them get proof.
“The problem is now that you have put the burden back on the farmer to prove the discrimination,” said Woodruff.
Monica Rainge, USDA Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, said the question of discrimination on the application was left open-ended on purpose.
“This was not an adversarial thing,” said Rainge. “It was really up to the producer to tell his or her own story about how they experienced discrimination.”
Now that the funding has gone out, Woodruff said the USDA should keep trying to fix equity issues affecting Black farmers. She wants to see more transparency from the agency, and for those who discriminated against loan applicants to be removed from those positions.
“The discrimination that’s happening in these local county committee offices is still occurring in 2024,” she said.
She added that her institute has lobbied the USDA to make its loans process easier for producers. Rainge said the USDA shortened the application from 29 pages to 13 and has also invested in more assistance for producers interacting with their local USDA offices.
“This program is a one-time payment, and we recognize that further investment will be needed to continue to level the playing field for farmers,” Rainge said.
Tegan Wendland contributed to this story, which is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
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