Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, former Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and former Jackson City Council Member Aaron Banks declined to plead guilty by a federal judge’s Friday deadline on charges they face in an FBI operation that roiled Jackson officials in 2024.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan set the deadline last year in an effort to ensure orderly resolution of a complex case. An expert says, though, that nothing would prevent the three men from pleading guilty before or during a trial.
Owens, Lumumba and Banks are the remaining defendants in the case. They are set to go to trial on July 13 in what the judge previously wrote he expects to be a month-long proceeding…