Jackson Free Press

On March 10, Mayor Frank Melton called a press conference to thank the U.S. Attorney and the FBI for helping Jackson "clean up corruption" that Melton called "systemic" in the municipal court system.

"We've had two people from court services plead guilty to corruption. That's been a long time coming," Melton said.

The mayor explained that two deputy clerks, Cynthia Annette Simmons and Regina Joy Brown, had deleted records and wiped away criminal histories, allowing dangerous criminals to return to the streets unpunished.

In a federal investigation, Simmons and Brown pled guilty on March 8 to accepting bribes—a story reported the day before Melton addressed the media about it, but without representatives of the investigative agencies present.

Melton made it clear Friday that the primary suspects for making the pay-offs to the women were members of the Wood Street Players, who allegedly used the fraud to sanitize their criminal records—perhaps explaining why warrants that Melton promised for the arrest of Vidal Sullivan did not turn up in searches.

"I'm not suggesting a link. I'm telling you there's a link," Melton said. "After I was elected I told the public that we had corruption at municipal court services and now we're finding out that that indeed is the case."

This is not a new accusation from Melton. In 2003, as director of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, Melton accused Municipal Court Clerk Brenda Thomas of obstruction of justice for accepting money from members of the Cohea Street Money Boys and the Wood Street Players—whose members reportedly overlap—to erase their criminal records.

"We have very specific instances with specific individuals," Melton told The Clarion-Ledger in 2003. He went on to say that he would make "a complete, full public disclosure as to what has been going on with the judicial system in Hinds County" when the investigation was complete.

Nine months later, however, Hinds County Judge Mike Parker threw out the arrest warrant, saying the warrant had not yet been served. Thomas' attorney, Herbert Lee, told The Clarion-Ledger in 2004 that Melton's warrant was faulty because he had taken unsubstantiated information from an affidavit to make his charges.

Melton testified that he gave specific information to substantiate the warrant to Hinds County Justice Court Judge Ivory Britton.

Two months later, in November 2004, bail bondsman Jimmie "Jimmy Jam" Johnson, who Melton had accused of being involved in the scheme with Thomas, was murdered.

At the March 10, 2006, press conference, Melton said he believed the two clerks—Simmons and Brown—had also worked with murdered bail bondsman Johnson.

Melton said Friday that the clerks had erased records for Vidal Sullivan—thus helping keep him out of jail. "If you call court services to access that particular record and that record is not found, and you go to another source and find 51 interdictions, that is very inappropriate and that has been addressed with the pleading of those two individuals," Melton said.

However, sources inside the court system tell the JFP that municipal clerks would only be able to erase misdemeanors, as felony charges are registered in multiple locations and cannot be so easily deleted.

Furthermore, sources say that these two clerks came to the attention of federal investigators because of a civil suit filed against the city of Jackson, Sebrena Crawford v. City of Jackson, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in 2004. That suit alleges that Simmons removed complaints lodged by Sebrena Crawford against Grover Hamilton for assaults, sexual assaults and batteries against her and her children in 2002.

She is suing Hamilton, the clerks and the city of Jackson for these offenses.

John Dowdy, chief of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's office, confirmed that Simmons and Brown were investigated in that case, but would not confirm nor deny whether the two had a link to further investigations regarding the Wood Street Players, as Melton reported.

At the same press conference, Melton told the media that he would not release crime statistics directly to the media—and would only release them filtered through a television station and other publications he plans for the city of Jackson to start.

After the press conference, Melton made further headlines by threatening Clarion-Ledger reporter Kathleen Baydala, who was investigating a trip he and two bodyguards had taken the weekend before to the Bahamas—with tickets charged to the city. The paper reported the next day that Melton told Baydala "I will cream you personally," if she proceeded with the story.

The Clarion-Ledger ran the Bahamas story the next day, despite the threat.

Previous Commentsshow

Is there any comment from Ms Baydala or the CL about the threat made by the mayor? This is sooooo unreal. We are here talking about the mayor of the capitol city making threats to reporters and simply walking away. Who is going to police Frank? He called it journalism when he got in trouble at MBM so why is he so upset with a fellow journalist?

lance

Mar 15 2006

Frank can't seem to stop lying or to shut up. How can you tell if Frank's lying? - his mouth is moving.

Ray Carter

Mar 15 2006

BTW, all, Brian is breaking a very important point in this story in the court services story. So take a read.

DonnaLadd

Mar 15 2006

Also, if you haven't read our thread on Mr. Melton's press conference about the Wood Street guys being responsible for the court clerk problems, here is the full transcript. There are some sections from old news reports about Mr. Melton making the same accusations while at MBN, but never providing enough evidence to make it stick. As we understand it, he took a very small portion of an ongoing investigative file, and of unsubstantied accusations, and tried to build a case, but then just didn't provide enough evidence to make it stick. Maybe he has more real evidence now linking the Wood Street Players, or maybe he's trying to take credit for work being done by the feds -- which looks like it resulting more from the lawsuit Brian talks about above, which does not seem linked to Wood Street in any way. And until Mr. Melton provides some actual evidence that what he is saying is true -- remember the other MBN memo filled with accusations that turned out to be false and now has him in a heap of trouble with a Meridian judge -- this could turn out to be just as weak as the last time he made the accusation. If the link to Wood Street is there, I hope he provides some real evidence soon. Regardless, as we understand it, this has always been a federal investigation and was before Mr. Melton was at MBN. At the very least, we are getting a very small portion of this picture, that's for sure.

DonnaLadd

Mar 15 2006

Melton has mastered the art of jumping on top of the pile and getting credit for the tackle. With all of his knowledge about the criminal element one must wonder why he has not contributed more than he has to get things on the right track. He uses bits and pieces of information to look knowledgeable and concerned. On the other hand, the real authorities seem to be more low keyed and concerned with solving the issues before them. Grandstanding in the media will only make the criminals do things a little slicker the next time so that they do not get all of the media attention. Everytime you look around, Frank is calling someone by name and giving specific incidents. Does he not know that this will only make the criminals go even deeper under cover. If he is as close with these people as he says that he is, why dosen't he just round them all up in that command bus that he used to deliver the papers to the Maple Street Apts and ride the crooks right into a jail cell.

lance

Mar 15 2006

Amen Lance. JFP keep putting the pressure on someone is going to finally come clean. We sure could use a dose of real truth and some facts. Go get um Ladd and Adam.

jada

Mar 15 2006

Lance, I love the first line of your 3-15-06, 7:11 pm post. it's a good description of him.

Ray Carter

Mar 16 2006