Tangled funds, hundreds in private loans and a political contribution from a supposed investor group made up of undercover FBI informants — this was all contained in a months-late marketing campaign finance report from Hinds County District Legal professional Jody Owens.
Owens, a second-term Democrat in Mississippi’s capital metropolis area, is preventing federal bribery fees, to which he’s pleaded not responsible. On the similar time, his current marketing campaign finance disclosure displays a pair of transactions that correspond with key particulars within the authorities’s allegation that Owens took cash from undercover informants to repay a neighborhood official’s debt.
Relating to funds from Facility Options Group — the corporate identify used within the FBI sting — to former Jackson Metropolis Councilwoman Angelique Lee, Owens allegedly acknowledged the necessity to “clear it out,” based on the indictment, which was unsealed in November.
“[L]ike we all the time do, we’ll put it in a marketing campaign account, or immediately wire it,” he mentioned, the indictment claims. “[T]hat’s the one means I would like the paper path to look.”
Brokers recorded a whole bunch of hours of conversations with Owens and different officers, and after his arraignment final 12 months, Owens responded to the fees, saying, “The cherry-picked statements of drunken locker room banter will not be against the law.”
All through 2024, a non-election 12 months throughout which federal authorities allege Owens funneled hundreds of {dollars} in bribes to Jackson’s metropolis officers, Owens loaned his marketing campaign greater than $20,000, based on his marketing campaign committee’s finance report. He’d received reelection in late 2023.
Owens and his attorneys didn’t reply to questions on his marketing campaign finance report.
Owens’ report, filed Might 30 – months late and riddled with errors – is the most recent instance of how Mississippi politicians can ignore the state’s marketing campaign finance transparency legal guidelines whereas avoiding significant penalties. It’s a lax authorized atmosphere that has led to late and illegible experiences, untraceable out-of-state cash that defied contribution limits, and, based on federal authorities, public corruption with marketing campaign finance accounts serving as piggy banks.
Enforcement duties are divided amongst many authorities our bodies, together with the Mississippi Ethics Fee. The fee’s govt director, Tom Hood, has lengthy complained that the state’s marketing campaign finance legal guidelines are complicated and ineffective.
“It’s only a mess,” Hood mentioned.
Owens filed the annual report months previous the Jan. 31 deadline, after reporting from The Marshall Challenge – Jackson revealed he had failed to take action. He paid a $500 nice in April.
He was additionally late submitting in earlier years, paying fines in some years and failing to pay the penalties in different years, based on data offered by the Ethics Fee.
The report, which Owens signed, is stuffed with omissions or miscalculations, with no strategy to inform which is which. The duvet sheet of the report offers the full quantity of itemized contributions and disbursements for the 12 months — $44,000 in and $36,500 out. However the physique of the report lists the line-by-line itemizations for every, and when the Marshall Challenge – Jackson and Mississippi At this time summed the person itemizations, the totals didn’t match these on the duvet sheet.
Based mostly on the itemized spending detailed within the physique of the report, Owens’ marketing campaign ought to have hundreds extra in money readily available than reported. Within the report’s cowl sheet, Owens additionally reported that he acquired extra in itemized contributions through the 12 months than he acquired in complete contributions, which might be not possible to do.
Whereas the secretary of state receives and maintains marketing campaign finance experiences, it has no obligation to evaluation the experiences and no authority to research their accuracy. Beneath state regulation, willfully submitting a false marketing campaign finance report is a misdemeanor. Expenses, nonetheless, are uncommon.
Owens is the one native official within the federal bribery probe — which is about to go to trial subsequent summer time — who stays in workplace. The federal government alleged that Owens accepted $125,000 to separate between him and two associates in late 2023 from a gaggle of males he believed had been vying for a improvement undertaking in downtown Jackson. Owens accepted a number of thousand {dollars} extra to funnel to public officers for his or her help of the undertaking, the indictment alleges. Using marketing campaign accounts was an vital function of the alleged scheme, based on the indictment.
Owens divvied up $50,000 from Facility Options Group, or FST, into checks from varied people or firms — allegedly meant to hide the bribe — to former Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba’s reelection marketing campaign, the indictment charged.
Lumumba accepted the checks throughout a sundown cruise on a yacht in South Florida, the indictment alleged. His marketing campaign finance report, filed earlier this 12 months, mirrored 5 $10,000 contributions close to the date of the journey, with no point out of FST.
Lumumba, who misplaced reelection in April, has pleaded not responsible.
Whereas the indictment accused Owens of claiming that public officers use marketing campaign accounts to finance their private lives, state regulation prohibits using political contributions for private use.
The indictment alleges Owens accepted $60,000 — some for the aim of funneling to native politicians — from the boys representing themselves as FST within the backroom of Owens’ cigar bar on Feb. 13, 2024. On his marketing campaign finance report, he listed a $12,500 marketing campaign contribution from FST two days later, the identical day the indictment alleges he paid off $10,000 of former Councilwoman Lee’s marketing campaign debt. Lee pleaded responsible to fees associated to the alleged bribery scheme in 2024.
Additionally on Feb. 15, 2024, the marketing campaign finance report Owens filed exhibits a $10,000 fee to 1Vision, a printing firm that used to go by the identify A2Z Printing, for the aim of “debt retirement.” Lee had her metropolis paycheck garnished beginning in 2023 to repay money owed to A2Z Printing, based on media experiences. No point out of Lee was made within the marketing campaign finance report filed by Owens. The printing firm didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Campaigns are allowed to contribute cash to different campaigns or political motion committees. If Owens’ committee used marketing campaign funds to repay debt owed by Lee’s marketing campaign, the transaction ought to have been structured as a contribution to Lee’s marketing campaign and reported as such by each campaigns, mentioned Sam Begley, a Jackson-based legal professional and election regulation professional who has suggested candidates about their monetary disclosures.
The alleged debt payoff on behalf of Lee will not be the primary time Owens has described transactions on his marketing campaign finance filings in ways in which might obscure how his marketing campaign is spending cash. Complicated or unclear descriptions of spending exercise are frequent on marketing campaign finance experiences throughout the state.
Owens beforehand reported that in 2023, he paid $1,275 to a workers member within the district legal professional’s workplace who additionally labored on his marketing campaign. The fee was labeled a reimbursement, which Owens defined in a Might e-mail to The Marshall Challenge – Jackson was for expenditures this individual made on behalf of the marketing campaign, “akin to meals for volunteers/staff, night/weekend canvassers, and election day staff.”
State regulation requires campaigns to itemize all contributions and bills over $200. Begley mentioned he believes Owens’ committee ought to have itemized any funds over $200 made by anybody on behalf of the marketing campaign.
Upfront funds, with the expectation of reimbursement by the marketing campaign, may additionally be thought-about a mortgage, based on a spokesperson for the secretary of state. Campaigns are barred from spending cash to repay undocumented loans.
The state Ethics Fee has addressed undocumented mortgage repayments in a number of opinions, outlining the required documentation to make repayments authorized.
Since 2018, the Ethics Fee has had the ability to difficulty advisory opinions upon request to assist candidates and campaigns type by means of legal guidelines that Hood, the fee’s govt director, mentioned aren’t all the time clear.
The fee has issued simply six opinions in seven years.
“I used to be stunned within the first few years that there weren’t extra,” Hood mentioned. “However now it appears to be clear that for no matter purpose, most individuals don’t suppose they want recommendation.”
