It’s easy to Google “Lumumba federal indictment PDF” and read the whole thing. I recommend you do it.
You will be amazed. In all my years of journalism, I’ve never witnessed a more depressing case of political corruption.
It looks like all those rumors about our top local government officials running the Jackson drug trade are true. That would certainly explain how the drug trade, the gangs and the gang warfare have gone on forever.
Perhaps now we can see some progress in Jackson now that the root of the crime has been uprooted.
Like many others, I was fooled by Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens. He seemed like a good guy. The indictment paints a completely different picture. Consider this quote from Owens in the indictment:
“I don't give a (expletive deleted) where the money comes from. It can come from blood diamonds in Africa, I don't give a (expletive deleted.) I'm a whole DA. (Expletive deleted.) My job, as I understand it, with a little paperwork, is to get this deal done, and get it done most effectively ... We can take dope boy money, I don't give a (expletive deleted.) But I need to clean it and spread it. I can do it in here. That's why we have businesses. To clean the money. Right? I don't give a (expletive deleted.) You give us cash, we deposit it and give it back that way. That's easy.”
That pretty much says it all. Here is the elected official in charge of prosecuting criminal activity in Hinds County bragging about how he launders drug money. And he says he doesn’t care who is hurt. It’s all about using his office to make himself rich.
This is the most disgusting case of corruption I have ever seen in my life.
It is also the most stupid thing I have seen in my life. Here we have the DA and the mayor, plotting payoffs and money laundering, and doing it on their smartphones.
Did no one give these guys the memo that everything you say on your smartphone can be recorded and tracked? Heck, McDonald’s can hack your smartphone and text you when you’re hungry and need a Big Mac. They didn’t think the FBI could listen in? The indictment should include a charge of profound stupidity.
Did Lumumba and Owens never read about the conviction of Chris Epps? Epps was head of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and took bribes. That situation revealed the power of the FBI to hunt down and convict crooks. If the FBI can catch Epps being careless, why would Lumumba and Owens think they could operate so brazenly?
Throughout the whole Lumumba administration I kept thinking, “How could this mayor be so incompetent? What am I missing?” The answer is now in: Our mayor is fully capable of acting with the requisite stupidity not only to leave our citizens without water and garbage collection for weeks, but to walk right into an obvious FBI trap.
Did these guys just ride into town on a turnip truck?
During the nutty garbage negotiations, I wrote many times that it appears there is more to this than meets the eye. Allegations of influence peddling were rife on social media and traditional media.
The head of the Jackson FBI spoke to our Rotary Club and announced their main focus was to prosecute white collar crime. If I were mayor or DA, I’d be as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof.
I would never say anything in a text or smartphone about anything. I’d be talking face-to-face outside after first patting down the other guy for a wire. Did these guys ever watch the Sopranos? The Godfather?
Perhaps the drug and crime underworld culture has so completely infested Jackson that they didn’t even give it a second thought. That is what is so scary and disturbing.
The biggest Jackson government project on the table is a hotel next to the convention center. That’s a perfect sting set up for the FBI. Anybody could see that.
Then you have a bunch of unknown developers with no track record coming to town making hints about how to “get things done around here.” Councilman Ashby Foote, who would never take a bribe, smelled that a mile away when they took him to lunch.
Instead, Lumumba and Owens get in a private jet and fly down to a Miami yacht where they are wined and dined and handed tens of thousands of dollars in money. Owens even brought a special satchel to put the money in.
How could they not see the trap? How could they not know the yacht is wired with every camera and recording device known to man. The stupidity is mind boggling.
As they say, a fool and his money are easily parted. But this has got to take the cake.
In the indictment Owens assures the mayor that these FBI guys aren’t FBI guys. “I’ve done background checks. They’re not FBI by the way,” Owens tells Lumumba when he introduces them. Not!
Owens and Lumumba talk about how they are going to disguise the payoffs as campaign contributions. Wow, that’s slick. Only one problem: Your conversation about disguising the money is being recorded. That sort of messes up your plan to disguise.
Apparently the same incompetence that ran our city into the ground may also be putting Lumumba in jail. Poetic justice.
