Case ensnared Jackson’s former mayor and council leaders in development project
Jody Owens, the former district attorney of Mississippi’s largest county, was sentenced Thursday to more than three years in prison for taking bribes in a scheme that ensnared a number of Jackson city officials. The court also ordered Owens to pay a $100,000 fine. Former Jackson City Council President Aaron Banks was sentenced the same day to almost four years in prison for his role in the scheme.
Owens was charged on accusations that he solicited $250,000 in bribes in exchange for awarding city contract bids to certain people.
“He took an oath to uphold the law, and yet he solicited $250,000 in bribes to rig what should have been a fair and open bidding system for city contracts,” U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan said during the court hearing, WLBT-TV in Jackson, Mississippi, reported.
“I can’t begin to tell you the shame I feel,” Owens said in court. “I betrayed myself, my family, my friends, and my colleagues, by my foolish and repugnant actions.”
The indictment accused Owens of taking bribes from two FBI agents posing as real estate developers and facilitating more than $80,000 in bribes to Banks, former Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and Angelique Lee, the Democratic former vice president of the Jackson City Council, in exchange for their help advancing a development project.
Last summer, Lumumba pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy related to the scheme. He is scheduled to be sentenced at a later date. Lee and Sherik Marve Smith, a relative of Owens, pleaded guilty to the federal bribery charges in 2024.
Owens was first elected district attorney in 2019. Before that, he had been the lead attorney in Mississippi for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a liberal-leaning group known for bringing lawsuits over issues including civil rights.
He ran as a criminal justice reformer, saying he would focus on prosecuting violent crime while looking for alternatives to jail and prison for nonviolent offenders.