Jackson Free Press

Seven months after the Jackson Free Press revealed details about Mayor Frank Melton's young lawn crew, WLBT broke the news last week that the state auditor's office has requested materials on the enterprise.

Councilman Marshand Crisler has raised concerns, and withheld votes to pay for the "Wood Street Lawn Service," learning early on that many of Melton's young friends from Wood Street were running it. "If there was ever a reason to pause before making a decision on the claims docket, that company is the most glaring example," he said. He emphasized that the council "is responsible for what its contractors do."

In March, the JFP revealed that the head of the lawn service had been arrested for armed robbery. Fredrica Brunson told us then that he had taken over the service about eight months before after its original owner, Michael Mayes, had reneged on paying the workers.

Brunson's friend Michael Taylor was accused of committing the Dec. 4, 2005, armed robbery of the Headliners Barbershop with him. Melton hid him from the sheriff in June 2006 after TV cameras showed them at a Father's Day barbecue at 2 Carter's Grove.

But when Sheriff Malcolm McMillin sent deputies to arrest them, Melton showed up with bodyguards and Taylor in the back seat. The mayor told deputies that he would "take care of it," McMillin told the JFP in March, and then instructed the bodyguards to drive away with Taylor still in the SUV.

"(Melton) said he already knew about (the warrants) and drove off, leaving my deputies in the street," McMillin said then. He called Melton personally and told him the law required him to give up the young men.

However, Taylor would soon bond out, and was later seen with Melton and his bodyguards the night of Aug. 26, 2006, at a Ridgeway duplex, allegedly with a sledgehammer in his hand. Then on Dec. 4, 2006, the JFP broke the news that Taylor had been arrested Nov. 18, 2006, for armed carjacking, three months after the duplex visit.

Four days after the JFP's story and nearly three weeks after Taylor's arrest, Judge Swan Yerger revoked his bond for the 2005 armed robbery. When he was arrested in November, Taylor gave his address as 2 Carter's Grove, Melton's home.

D.A.-elect Robert Smith represented Taylor at that time.

Making the Melton circle even more complicated, Christopher Walker—whom Melton had promised would testify against Albert Donelson last year for the murder of Aaron Crockett—has since told the JFP that he was, in fact, the original owner of the lawn service.

All of these young men have been close to Melton in the past. On the eve of the Donelson trial for the Crockett murder on April 2, 2006, the mayor invited the JFP into his home prior to a ride-along on the Mobile Command Center. Walker (whom Melton was financially supporting and "protecting" at the time in anticipation of his testifying against Donelson) was there, as was Robert Smith and others.

Melton introduced Smith to the JFP that night as "one of mine." Smith said over dinner that Melton introduced him that way because his aunt had long worked for Melton at WLBT, and he had gotten to know Melton through her. He said he was there to interview Walker, whom Melton wanted to testify against Donelson that week.

District Attorney Faye Peterson, though, withdrew Walker as a witness because she learned that Melton had given him an apartment, a car, cash and had let him handle weapons at his home, according to court documents. She also said he had lied to the grand jury about his knowledge of the murder.

Personalities aside, the lawn service has had a rough ride, business-wise, even as it netted the young men running it thousands of dollars. But Brunson said in March that he has had trouble with both slow payments from the city and with keeping his equipment intact.

Just days before Melton had hidden Taylor from the sheriff, he had announced that he was helping seed the Wood Street Lawn Service with $5,000 of his own money and asked the city to give them equipment, as well as selling them confiscated trucks for $1 apiece. Brunson said in March, though, that the city had never provided any equipment and complained that the city can take a month to pay his invoices. Melton had bought them lawn mowers, he said, but they were gone.

"Michael (Mayes) did what he did with it," he said of the equipment. Instead, Brunson said, he had to use one lawn mower and two weed-eaters that belonged to Melton.

Brunson had submitted a certificate of insurance to the city dated Dec. 8, 2006, issued by Statewide General Insurance at 3073 J. R. Lynch Street, where Melton took him to get bonded, and which sources tell the JFP is, incidentally, owned by the new district attorney's uncle.

When asked if the insurance company was concerned about his record, Brunson said, "I don't think they even know about the criminal record."

Since then, in April 2007, Brunson was re-arrested for driving a carjacked vehicle while working for the city. Police found a lawn mower and weed trimmer in the 2001 Chevy Malibu. The city then made another payment to the lawn service a month after his arrest, which WLBT reported has prompted the auditor's investigation.

Today, both Taylor and Brunson are in the Hinds County Detention Center.

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Previous Comments

ID

68156

Comment

Kinda hard to cut grass behind bars!

Author

pikersam

Date

2007-10-31T15:51:33-06:00

ID

68157

Comment

This situation was doomed from the door. melton thinks that all Mississippians are stupid: He has used this as his shield of protection.

Author

justjess

Date

2007-11-01T12:37:01-06:00

ID

68158

Comment

Does one have to pass a drug screen to work for the city of Jackson?

Author

**Previously Banned Member**

Date

2007-11-01T14:12:53-06:00

ID

68159

Comment

king frank is a great mentor! he should be running big brothers big sisters, too! lmao

Author

eyerah

Date

2007-11-01T14:16:25-06:00

ID

68160

Comment

Interesting Tidbit - The CL is reporting... Businessmen say Jackson is faltering under Melton Jackson Mayor Frank Melton, who is being investigated by federal and state officials, is losing some of his support base in the business community.

Author

Simpleton

Date

2007-11-06T08:44:00-06:00

ID

68161

Comment

I saw that Simpleton. Businessmen likely thought Frank would lock up the thugs but found out later he's trying to save or rehab the so-called thugs, although he doesn't have a clue how to do it. Businessmen went out of their way to get Frank hired so I say let them suffer until we get another mayor.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2007-11-06T09:29:15-06:00

ID

68162

Comment

So, where are the businesswomen? Oh, right, this is The Clarion-Ledger. Women aren't allowed to have opinions on serious issues over there, or at least not to express them editorially.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2007-11-06T09:38:55-06:00

ID

68163

Comment

Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles SAW that from the door. I guess the trunk had to fall on each head individually. All frank had to do was follow Johnson's road map. He laid the plan for the Downtown Development and it included Farish Street. melton was busy trying to tear down the King Edwards and to convience Duce McAllister and other investors that these were bad investments; yet, he continued to say that he had friends in Texas who would totally finance the entire project. This man, melton, is a pathalogical liar. He has no vision or talent to function in the job he was elected to do. He thrives on CHAOS!

Author

justjess

Date

2007-11-06T10:26:34-06:00

ID

68164

Comment

**So, where are the businesswomen?** They didn't bother to interview any; that's why they said 'businessMEN'. Oh, er, that's the same problem, ain't it? :-)

Author

Kacy

Date

2007-11-06T10:27:42-06:00

ID

68165

Comment

Precisely. Journalists have to be deliberate to include people beyond white males. And the Ledger makes no effort to have a serious female political commentator. So the institutional sexism isn't hard to miss. They just don't seem to care.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2007-11-06T10:42:01-06:00

ID

68166

Comment

They DON'T seem to care...except when it benefit$ them. Case in point: that stupid, crass and exploitive "Baby of the Year" contest they're sponsoring right now. Frankly, I'm amazed that people are so gullible.

Author

Kacy

Date

2007-11-06T13:13:39-06:00

ID

68167

Comment

In the article: "The only thing I ask the people to do is just look at the results. Until they spend a half a day in my shoes, they have no right to criticize me." Since I never had dozens of young men of questionable character to stay at my house or used a sledgehammer to tear down an innocent house, whom am I to judge? Maybe I need to get the plank out of my eye first.

Author

golden eagle

Date

2007-11-06T13:58:14-06:00