Former Hinds County district attorney Jody Owens has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for his role in a bribery scandal.
On Thursday, U.S. Judge Daniel Jordan on sentenced Owens to 41 months behind bars and ordered him to pay a fine of $100,000. Owens was charged with federal conspiracy linked to a scandal also involving former Jackson mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, former city councilman Aaron Banks, and others.
Court documents revealed that the group was involved in a bid-rigging scheme for a downtown Jackson convention center hotel project in exchange for bribes. Owens, Lumumba, and Banks are said to have taken bribes from undercover FBI informants posing as Nashville business developers for favorable treatment in the bidding process.
Instead of Jackson getting a new hotel, however, federal authorities exposed a broader string of public corruption through bribes, private planes, strip clubs, and yachts, court records assert.
On top of his sentencing, Owens was disbarred by the Mississippi Supreme Court after he resigned from his former post as district attorney. Since his resignation, Brad McCullouch has taken over the public office in the interim. Voters on Tuesday sent Darla Palmer and Gwen Agho to a runoff to be the county’s next head prosecutor. The runoff will take place Dec. 1.
As for Banks and Lumumba, the former city councilman is set to be sentenced on Thursday. The former mayor’s sentencing has been moved back to Nov. 20.
