JACKSON, Miss. — For out-of-state developers hoping to bring a win to Mississippi’s capital, their pitch was flat. The city had long been searching for someone to develop part of downtown Jackson, and when two men showed up expressing their interest in late February, City Council member Virgi Lindsay agreed to meet with them at an upscale steakhouse in a nearby suburb.
But they had “no vision,” Lindsay said in an interview, and they were short on details. She could not recall whether they even offered a business card. She left the dinner — after having paid for her own meal, a personal policy that is a holdover from her days as a newspaper reporter, she said — not expecting to join them at a ribbon-cutting any time soon.
“I just thought I would never see them again, because I just felt like they were so poorly prepared,” Lindsay said. “I certainly did not suspect they were connected to the FBI.” Now, Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, who invited her to the meeting and was present, is accused in a federal indictment filed in the Southern District of Mississippi of participating in and facilitating a bribery scheme that ensnared the mayor and members of the City Council.
The out-of-state “developers” were FBI agents. As part of a sting operation, they sought support from officials in Jackson, the state’s largest city, for a phony hotel deal in exchange for cash and perks like shopping sprees and personal security details. Owens, Mayor Chokwe A.
