The prosecutor who first brought charges in the sprawling Mississippi welfare scandal is himself under criminal investigation. Jody Owens, the Hinds County district attorney, is the subject of a federal bribery probe, sources told Front Office Sports. The probe is separate from the investigation into how tens of millions of dollars of federal welfare funds were illegally diverted to Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre and dozens of others.
Owens and Jackson mayor Chokwe Lumumba are both subjects of the federal probe, which is in its “late stages,” and multiple charges are expected to be filed by federal prosecutors, the sources say.
Favre has not been charged criminally, although he is a defendant in a civil case filed by the Mississippi Department of Human Services that seeks to recoup the millions of misappropriated funds. Favre has maintained his innocence.
“Jody Owens’s life has been dedicated to public service, including as an intelligence officer in the United States Naval Reserves, Director of the Mississippi Office of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and presently Hinds County District Attorney,” one of Owens’s lawyers said in statement to FOS. “It is our understanding that the federal investigation does not involve Jody’s service as District Attorney. For the past 15 years, Jody has also been engaged in real estate development. This sort of private business activity is permitted by the law even during the time a person serves as a D.A. For the moment, we have no further comment as we await the outcome of that investigation.”
Multiple council members have also been eyed in the probe, according to one of the sources. On Wednesday, Jackson council member Angelique C. Lee abruptly resigned. Hours later, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against Lee on a single charge of conspiracy to commit bribery. The charge carries up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
According to the indictment, Lee accepted more than $13,000 in cash from two undercover FBI agents posing as Nashville-based real estate developers. One of the agents also spent an additional $6,000 on Lee “at a luxury retail store in the City of Jackson,” according to the indictment.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment.
“Circumstances that I am not at liberty to discuss at the moment, have led to this decision,” Lee said in a statement. “I will greatly miss working with each of you and I am proud of the work that we have done as a collective body for the City Of Jackson and its citizens.”
Messages left with Lumumba’s office from FOS were not immediately returned.
Owens’s office inside the on the upper floors of the Hinds County courthouse and his cigar business also located in Jackson were raided in May. During those raids, FBI agents recovered “thousands of dollars” in a safe, one of the sources tells FOS. FBI agents also visited Jackson City Hall that same day, according to published reports.
“This morning, FBI agents came to our offices,” a spokesperson of Owens’s office said in a statement to FOS after the raids. “We are fully cooperating with their efforts. The Hinds County District Attorney’s Office is fully functioning and continues its work on behalf of the citizens of Hinds County. That has been and will continue to be our primary focus. Currently, we have no further statements.”
Federal authorities have led the investigation into the welfare scandal for roughly two years. Last month, one of Favre’s business partners became the seventh person indicted by federal prosecutors in connection to the welfare scandal. The bribery probe into Owens, a state attorney, has no impact on the federal welfare investigation, and all those charged by Owens have long since been adjudicated.
Owens was elected Hinds County DA in 2019, and within weeks, Mississippi State Auditor Shad White brought his welfare investigation to Owens instead of then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi Mike Hurst. Owens was also a central figure in White’s book released last week, Mississippi Swindle, where Owens’s name appeared more than 140 times. During recent media appearances, White has avoided mentioning Owens by name.
White stood alongside Owens on the courtroom steps in February 2020 when the first criminal charges in the case were filed. Former director of the MDHS John Davis, Nancy and Zach New—who led a nonprofit where the funds were funneled through—were among the first indictments brought by Owens. Months later, federal prosecutors followed with similar charges.
“When Jody and I took the podium in the middle of the gray, breezy afternoon, I bragged on the agents, told the world why the case mattered, and explained why I’d chosen to take the case to Jody,” White wrote in his book. “I knew if I took the case to Mike, federal authorities might do what they did to our education case from 2017: reinvestigate the matter themselves and take years to come to the same conclusions. All the while, money would be streaming to the News and not helping the poor.”
