Chokwe Antar Lumumba is seeking to dismiss federal bribery charges against him, but Jacksonians can’t read the former mayor’s arguments because of a blanket restriction on public access to filings in the case.
Lumumba’s motion to dismiss comes weeks after a co-defendant in Jackson’s bribery scandal, Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, filed his own motion to dismiss the case. That filing was replete with hundreds of pages of sensitive material, including grand jury testimony, photographs of undercover FBI agents and investigative documents containing allegations of local government corruption.
The disclosures prompted the U.S. Attorney’s Office to ask the federal judge overseeing the case, Daniel Jordan, to restrict most filings in the case until all parties involved could review and propose redactions…