Jody Owens, the district legal professional in Mississippi’s capital metropolis who faces trial on federal corruption costs, has been fined for failing to reveal his most up-to-date marketing campaign fundraising and spending. However the state’s weak and much-criticized marketing campaign finance enforcement system could spare him from the strongest sanctions — the lack of his authorities wage.
Owens, a second-term Democrat, was charged final yr with disguising bribes to native metropolis authorities officers as marketing campaign donations to purchase favors and steer affect over a fictitious real-estate improvement venture for which he was working as a guide. Owens has pleaded not responsible.
As of Monday, Owens nonetheless hadn’t filed a compulsory report of his marketing campaign committee’s 2024 monetary actions. The report was due in January. Lacking that deadline led to Owens incurring a $500 state wonderful. Though he paid the wonderful final month, Owens nonetheless hasn’t supplied the report. State legislation says his wage as district legal professional ought to be frozen till he information the report — a obligatory sanction that has not often, if ever, been used.
District attorneys in Mississippi are paid $134,400 a yr.
Owens instructed The Marshall Mission – Jackson on Thursday that he plans to file the report quickly, including that “public officers ceaselessly file marketing campaign finance studies after the deadline.”
A spokesperson for the secretary of state confirmed that Owens contacted the workplace early final week to ask about submitting his late report.
Public information present that candidates and officeholders generally lapse of their reporting necessities and file error-filled or illegible studies. This long-known downside, in addition to the small print of the bribery scheme federal officers allege Owens helped orchestrate, spotlight the extent to which Mississippi’s marketing campaign finance legal guidelines stay a dysfunctional system of lax guidelines and restricted enforcement.
Owens is amongst 5 individuals who have been charged with bribery and corruption, with federal prosecutors saying that greater than $100,000 modified palms, a lot of it by way of marketing campaign finance accounts, to safe favorable remedy for a fictitious downtown resort venture concocted by the FBI as a part of a sting operation.
Regardless of the legislation towards spending marketing campaign donations for private use, federal authorities alleged that Owens described to undercover FBI sources a system by which “public officers finance their private lives by way of their marketing campaign accounts,” making marketing campaign donations “the best strategy to affect them.”
In a press release final yr following his arraignment in court docket, Owens referred to as feedback attributed to him within the indictment “drunken locker-room banter.”
Three defendants — Owens, Jackson Mayor Chockwe Antar Lumbumba and Metropolis Councilman Aaron Banks — pleaded not responsible in November. Two extra — former council member Angelique Lee and native businessman Sherik Marve’ Smith — pleaded responsible earlier final yr.
Of the defendants, Owens is the one one who will nonetheless be in workplace as of July. Lumumba was defeated final month in his re-election bid and Banks didn’t search re-election.
Owens received’t must face voters once more till 2027, if he seeks a 3rd, four-year time period. A trial in his bribery case is scheduled for July 2026. A conviction would pressure him out of workplace. In any other case, there’s no requirement that he resign or take a go away of absence whereas he faces legal costs.
A number of distinguished state officers have referred to as for stronger enforcement of Mississippi’s marketing campaign finance legal guidelines, with some pointing to the Jackson bribery scandal as purpose to behave. However the legislature has repeatedly did not take up such laws.
Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican, instructed The Marshall Mission – Jackson in a press release that new legal guidelines and more durable enforcement are nonetheless wanted.
“Our workplace acknowledges, but once more, the quite a few loopholes in Mississippi’s marketing campaign finance legal guidelines,” Watson stated. “Whereas we admire the legislature has made efforts to fund a brand new on-line reporting system, we now have tried for the final three classes to enhance the power to implement Mississippi’s marketing campaign finance legal guidelines however have confronted resounding opposition. Maybe, the legislature will lastly see the necessity for our strong reform efforts.”
On paper, Mississippi has penalties for failure to heed a minimum of essentially the most primary reporting necessities. By legislation, candidates can’t seem on the poll in the event that they aren’t present in reporting necessities, election winners can’t take workplace if they’ve excellent studies and officeholders can’t be paid in the event that they fail to comply with ongoing reporting necessities.
Nonetheless, enforcement includes a tangle of state and native officers working beneath generally inconsistent legal guidelines.
Anybody with an lively marketing campaign account in Mississippi was required by the tip of January to file studies itemizing donations to that marketing campaign fund in addition to any cash spent out of the fund all through 2024. Owens missed that deadline and was amongst 18 sitting elected officers to take action, based on an inventory compiled by the Secretary of State’s workplace.
The Secretary of State’s Workplace retains the marketing campaign finance studies for statewide and district workplace candidates, however can’t take any direct motion to implement the legislation or penalize violators. As a substitute, the workplace should report delinquent candidates or officeholders to the state Ethics Fee, which may then levy fines.
In an April 4 letter, the Mississippi Ethics Fee notified Owens that he was being issued a $500 wonderful for failing to submit his annual marketing campaign finance report.
Owens paid the $500 wonderful in April, based on Ethics Fee Director Tom Hood. The letter knowledgeable Owens that he was nonetheless required to finish his marketing campaign finance disclosures.
Below Mississippi legislation, Owens can’t be paid his wage till he submits the report — the strongest sanction that’s on the books.
The issue? Hood stated he’s not conscious that this legislation barring funds to public officers who don’t file their marketing campaign finance studies has ever been enforced. It’s not solely clear who would implement it.
In response to questions from The Marshall Mission – Jackson about this legislation, Owens merely stated he wasn’t conscious of any public officers having their wage withheld over delinquent marketing campaign finance studies.
District attorneys are state staff and are paid by the Division of Finance and Administration, an government department company. When requested about whether or not the company has withheld or will withhold the Hinds County prosecutor’s wage, a division spokesperson stated that the company “is unable to withhold a wage from any particular person with out an official, authorized notification.”
An opinion from the state Legal professional Common in 2000 suggested a neighborhood authorities that it did have the duty to withhold wage funds from elected officers who don’t submit marketing campaign finance studies, however the opinion additionally stated that the native authorities didn’t must attempt to recuperate wage funds that had been mistakenly made throughout a delinquency interval.
Owens has did not file marketing campaign finance studies earlier than. Public information present that since 2019, the Ethics Fee has fined Owens and his marketing campaign committee 5 instances for failure to file monetary disclosure studies.
On the native stage, together with county and municipal governments, enforcement can generally be just about nonexistent. Marketing campaign finance studies for these workplaces are filed with native clerks. These clerks are alleged to ahead such studies to the Secretary of State’s workplace, however that generally doesn’t occur, and it’s not clear whether or not the Ethics Fee even has the facility to wonderful native officers.
For instance, as mayor of Jackson, Lumumba additionally did not file any annual marketing campaign finance studies from 2022 by way of early 2025, and confronted no penalties or sanctions. After he filed all of the delinquent studies, native information retailers reported that not all the mathematics appeared so as to add up from one report back to the subsequent.
And generally officers who’re fined for late marketing campaign finance studies don’t even pay the fines.
Nonetheless, the Ethics Fee can’t do something if sanctioned people don’t pay the fines. As a substitute, the fee should refer such instances to the Legal professional Common’s Workplace.
