Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba responded to speculation that he may be a target of the ongoing FBI bribery investigation in remarks on Monday. The mayor, who is seeking reelection next year, denied having anything to do with the investigation into whether Jackson elected officials received bribes to use their political influence to sway the development of a downtown hotel project.
“To be clear, with respect to any allegations or speculation on that, I have never conspired with anyone to commit a crime,” Lumumba told reporters Monday following a press briefing at City Hall. “That’s all that I will share. There may come a time and place where I will expound on that at an appropriate moment.”
Ward 2 City Councilwoman Angelique Lee is the only elected Jackson official that investigators have named so far; she resigned from her seat in August hours before pleading guilty to a federal bribery charge. On Oct. 18, the FBI made public a bill of information documenting the decision to also charge Jackson businessman Sherik Marve Smith with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery.
Smith pleaded guilty to the charge, which carries a possible maximum sentence of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines, at the Thad Cochran Courthouse in Jackson on the same day.
In the bill of information, the FBI alleged that Smith conspired with an unnamed person to “corruptly give, offer and agree to give things of value, including cash payments and campaign contributions, to Unindicted Co-conspirator B and Unindicted Co-conspirator C from Individual 1 and Individual 2 in exchange for Unindicted Co-conspirator B and Co-conspirator C committing official acts in their roles as elected officials of the City of Jackson, Mississippi.”
In part, the FBI alleged, Smith funneled a $10,000 check to the re-election committee of Unindicted Co-conspirator C, whose identity is still unknown to the public.
While Lumumba did acknowledge during the press briefing on Monday that he’d previously met Smith “a couple of times,” he reiterated that he “never conspired with him or anybody else to commit a crime.”
When asked about his campaign finance information, the mayor confirmed that he had not filed campaign finance reports since 2022. “Unfortunately, that is not un-customary for my campaign,” he said.
Before her indictment, the FBI raided Lee’s home in May, the same month agents raided the businesses and office of Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens. Federal authorities have not said whether the raids were connected or why they raided Owens’ properties.
Lee’s sentencing date is set for Nov. 13.
On Monday, the FBI declined to comment on what led the agency to launch an undercover operation into the possibility that Jackson officials were accepting bribes in exchange for using their political influence in favor of a particular vendor for the commercial development project.
“To preserve the integrity and capabilities of the investigation, I cannot share details of the ongoing process,” an FBI spokesperson said in a statement to the Mississippi Free Press.