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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

Clarion-Ledger reports:

“James Butler, the husband of Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler, was arrested today on a five-count indictment, the result of a continuing FBI task force investigation into public corruption in Madison County. Butler is charged with one count of conspiracy, one count of false pretense and three counts of mail fraud. He is the third person arrested in what prosecutors called a scheme to defraud an elderly Texas woman of the true value of 80 acres of prime development land in Madison County.”

Founding Editor Donna Ladd is a writer, journalist and editor from Philadelphia, Miss., a graduate of Mississippi State University and later the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she was an alumni award recipient in 2021. She writes about racism/whiteness, poverty, gender, violence, journalism and the criminal justice system. She contributes long-form features and essays to The Guardian when she has time, and was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Jackson Free Press. She co-founded the statewide nonprofit Mississippi Free Press with Kimberly Griffin in March 2020, and the Mississippi Business Journal named her one of the state's top CEOs in 2024. Read more at donnaladd.com, follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @donnerkay and email her at donna@mississippifreepress.org.