Former Hinds DA Jody Owens gets 41 months in prison after pleading guilty to corruption

By Molly Minta | Originally published by Mississippi Today

A federal judge sentenced former Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens to 41 months and former Jackson City Councilmember Aaron Banks to 45 months on Thursday, nearly two years to the day after federal prosecutors brought bribery charges against the two and Jackson’s mayor at the time, Chokwe Antar Lumumba.

As he handed down Owens’ sentence, U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III described his decision as “somber” but said Owens still had a bright future. 

“I actually think the future you have in front of you is better than the one that you were going down,” said the judge, who also ordered Owens to pay a $100,000 fine.

Jordan called Owens the “ringleader” of a bribery scheme spawned by an undercover FBI operation in Jackson in 2023.

Owens told the judge he had tarnished his family name. 

“When a case says ‘United States versus Jody Owens,’ what I want you to know is my son is Jody Owens, my father is Jody Owens, my great-grandfather is Jody Moncure,” he said. 

Owens apologized to his parents, his wife, his children, his former employees in the Hinds DA’s office and to the court. He did not offer an apology to the people of Hinds County. 

As the president of the Jackson City Council, Banks said he had a responsibility to protect the public trust. 

“The people of Jackson deserved better from me,” he said. 

Other Jacksonians ensnared in the case have yet to be sentenced, including former Jackson City Councilmember Angelique Lee and Owens’ cousin, Sherik “Marve” Smith.

The proceedings began with lengthy arguments from Lumumba and Banks over their presentencing reports, which judges use to help determine what punishment a defendant gets.

Owens, Banks, Lumumba and their attorneys sat together on the right side of the courtroom. The gallery was sparse, and Lumumba’s supporters left shortly after the judge took the former mayor’s objections to the presentencing report.

Lumumba, who attended Thursday’s hearing, contested the government’s recommended prison time, which Jordan will consider when he sentences the former mayor on Nov. 20. The judge foreshadowed that hearing when he said on Thursday that Lumumba could face between 37 and 46 months in prison.

Federal prosecutors indicted Owens, Lumumba and Banks on Nov. 7, 2024, after years of investigating suspected wrongdoing in Jackson. Mississippi Today previously reported that the capital city caught the attention of federal authorities during a yearslong conflict between Lumumba and the Jackson City Council over the selection of a garbage collection vendor. 

No charges ever arose from that matter. Instead, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a sting operation in 2023 and deployed two undercover FBI agents to pose as out-of-state real estate developers seeking to build a convention center hotel in downtown Jackson. 

Owens wound up going into business with them, serving as an intermediary to Lumumba, Banks and other Jackson officials, according to the federal indictment. 

The DA was a registered agent for the developers’ company in Mississippi, organized a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, fundraiser for Lumumba on their behalf, and used his campaign account to pay off Lee’s campaign debt to a local printing company, allegedly in exchange for her future vote.

Owens also gave Banks a $10,000 bribe and hired Banks’ daughter for an internship at the DA’s office that prosecutors asserted was funded by the purported developers.

The three former Jackson officials and a federal prosecutor appeared at times to relitigate the nature of the scheme. 

As Jordan evaluated Lumumba’s objections, the judge noted the mayor had taken a $50,000 bribe from Owens in exchange for moving up the city’s bid deadline. 

“The ask was to move the date of the RFQ,” Jordan said, referring to so-called requests for quotations, which is part of the project bidding process. 

Not so, responded Dave Fulcher, the federal prosecutor leading the case. 

“That is a strawman that has been set up by Lumumba’s counsel,” he said. “The bribery scheme was not, ‘We need him to move the RFQ.’ The bribery scheme was, ‘We need him involved.’” 

Owens was elected district attorney in 2019. His family has helped develop parts of southern Hinds County. 

Gary Kohlman, an out-of-state attorney representing Owens, called the portrayal of Owens in the presentencing report “unsettling” and asked the judge to consider that Owens was a complex person as evidenced by the dozens of supportive letters written by his family and friends. 

“It can’t be, in other words, that he led some complete double life for 40-something years doing all the work he did,” Kohlman said. 

“I totally accept that and agree,” Jordan responded. “Almost every defendant that comes in here, I can find something good in them.” 

But the judge noted that Owens discussed a bribery scheme with the faux developers the very first time he met them in person. 

“This happened before any jets, before any liquor was bought or any other entertainment was provided,” the judge said. “And during this meeting, he never said, ‘This was wrong, we can’t do this, I’m the DA.’ But he did tell the agents ‘if you want it, it’s yours.’” 

Banks, who was deemed indigent by the federal judge, represented Ward 6 in south Jackson from 2017 to 2025. A political organizer, he started working for the city during Lumumba’s father’s mayoral administration in 2013.

In the months before being drawn into the scheme, Banks told the judge, he was in the throes of “a season of personal desperation.” 

He said he had gone into debt assisting residents during the Jackson water crisis in 2022 and was stressed about raising money to run for mayor. 

“He was blindly motivated by his desire to become mayor of Jackson and unseat Lumumba,” said his court-appointed attorney, Carlos Tanner. “And that’s incredibly unfortunate.”

Banks and some of his family members cried as he walked out of the courtroom. He received a longer sentence than Owens in part because he had previously been convicted of two DUIs. He must also pay a $15,000 fine.

Tanner argued this was unfair, asserting that Banks played a smaller role in the bribery scheme than other participants, some of whom he asserted have not faced criminal prosecution. 

“The number of crimes that were committed in this episode are astounding,” he said.

Jordan said it would be hard to overstate the extent of the corruption in this case but that he would spare the public the most salacious details.

Before sentencing Banks, the judge suggested broader wrongdoing that might not yet be public. He referred to an incident, detailed in a presentencing report, in which Banks apparently promised to help an unknown person with city business if sent money by CashApp.

“I don’t think this is a one-time event based on what I’ve seen and read,” he said.

UPDATE, 11/5/2026: Added more photos, information about sentencing of Jackson City Councilmember Aaron Banks and more details from court hearing.

This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Source: Original Article