Jackson mayor and other local Mississippi officials accused of bribery

JACKSON, Miss. — The mayor of Mississippi’s capital said Thursday that “he will continue to handle the business of the city” after he pleaded not guilty to charges related to allegations of a bribery scheme that have also led to the indictments of a prominent district attorney and a former City Council president.

Flanked by roughly two dozen supporters on the steps of a federal courthouse in downtown Jackson after his arraignment, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said he would remain in office.

“I am not guilty, and so I will not proceed as a guilty man,” said Lumumba, a Democrat who is in his second term and last month announced plans to run for a third term.

The allegations stem from what federal prosecutors have described in court documents as an effort also involving Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens and at least two City Council members to help developers get approval for a proposed hotel project near the city’s convention center.

The city’s efforts to get a hotel near the venue, which included taking out a multimillion-dollar loan in 2008 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, stretch back almost two decades. It faced a June 2025 deadline to complete the project, according to the federal indictment outlining grand jury charges against Lumumba, Owens and Banks.

Recent “developers” from Nashville, Tennessee, in contact with local officials and seeking to build the hotel were actually undercover FBI employees, according to the indictment, which was unsealed Thursday.

Owens is alleged to have “facilitated” inappropriate bribe payments to Lumumba, former City Council President Aaron Banks and Angelique Lee, who resigned from her council seat and pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to commit bribery, according to the indictment.

One of the “developers” approached Owens, a Democratic prosecutor who also owns a cigar bar in Jackson, in August 2023 about potential real estate opportunities in Jackson, according to the indictment.

Owens later told both “developers” that he had “a bag of f------ information on all the city councilmen” that allowed him to “get votes approved,” according to the indictment.

Owens' charges include one count of conspiracy to commit federal program bribery, honest services wire fraud, and money laundering; three counts of federal program bribery; and a count of lying to federal officers.

Lumumba faces five charges, including one count of federal program bribery and another count of money laundering. Banks has been charged with one conspiracy to commit federal program bribery, honest services wire fraud and money laundering, in addition to a count of federal program bribery.

The indictment alleges that in April, Lumumba, Owens and a relative of Owens’, Sherik Marve Smith, took a trip on a private jet to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, “paid for [by] the FBI on behalf of the developers.” Smith pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge last month, according to NBC affiliate WLBT of Jackson.

Authorities allege that during the trip, Lumumba, while on a yacht, accepted $50,000 “concealed” as five $10,000 campaign donations from developers and instructed a city employee to move up a deadline for interested parties to submit proposals for the hotel project, according to the indictment and a news release. Authorities have said they captured the exchange on video and audio, and the indictment includes screenshots from the recording.

Banks, who was not on the trip, is alleged to have asked for $50,000 in exchange for his support.

Federal authorities have accused him of accepting at least $10,000 in cash in an envelope from Owens.

“Banks and Owens understood that the money was being paid in exchange for Banks’ future vote(s) to approve the Developer’s proposed development project,” the indictment says.

Owens is accused of accepting at least $115,000 and the “promise of future financial benefits,” the Justice Department said in a news release. The FBI searched Owens’ business and his office at the Hinds County Courthouse in May.

“Leaders who are awarded the public’s trust should be focusing on the needs of the Jackson community, not looking to line their own pockets and benefit themselves,” Todd Gee, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, said in a news release Thursday.

Banks, a Democrat representing the city’s 6th Ward, did not respond to an NBC News reporter’s request for comment as he walked out of the courthouse with supporters. He pleaded not guilty Thursday.

Four years ago, Owens’ office brought the first charges in one of the largest cases of public corruption in Mississippi’s history — the misspending of at least $77 million in welfare funds meant to help residents in one of the country’s poorest states. At least seven people have pleaded guilty in relation to the scandal.

“This indictment is a horrible example of a flawed FBI investigation,” Owens told reporters after he pleaded not guilty Thursday.

“We think the truth has to come out — that cherry-picked statements of drunken locker room banter is not a crime,” he added before he departed with his legal team in a black SUV.

Owens did not indicate what statements he was referring to. At times, the indictment quotes him using profane language in his alleged dealings with the developers.

“I don’t give a s--- where the money comes from. It can come from blood diamonds in Africa, I don’t give a f------ s---,” Owens said at one point, the indictment alleges. “I’m a whole DA.”

In another instance, he is alleged to have used a profane term in describing what he buys in response to demands.

A trial has been set for Jan. 6 — four days after the qualifying period for the city’s 2025 mayoral election opens.

Bracey Harris is a national reporter for NBC News, based in Jackson, Mississippi.

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