Jackson Free Press

U.S. District Court sentenced three former Jackson Police officers to prison Thursday for accepting bribes from an undercover FBI agent.

Here is the verbatim press release from U.S. Attorney Gregory K. Davis' office:

FORMER JACKSON POLICE OFFICERS SENTENCED FOR ACCEPTING BRIBES

Jackson, Miss. - Former Jackson Police Officers Monyette Quintel Jefferson, 27, Terence Dale Jenkins, 25, and Anthony Ricardo Payne, Jr., 26, were sentenced in U.S. District Court today for accepting bribes from an undercover FBI agent, U.S. Attorney Gregory K. Davis and FBI Special Agent in Charge Daniel McMullen announced.

Monyette Quintel Jefferson was sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution to the FBI in the amount of $20,500.00.

Terence Dale Jenkins was sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution to the FBI in the amount of $10,000.00.

Anthony Ricardo Payne, Jr. was sentenced to 9 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution to the FBI in the amount of $10,000.00

On June 10, 2010, Monyette Quintel Jefferson made an agreement with an undercover FBI agent, who he believed was a drug trafficker, to protect a shipment of 100 kilograms of cocaine that would be coming into Hawkins Field Airport in Jackson, Mississippi.

On June 25, 2010, the undercover FBI agent, posing as a drug trafficker, met with Jefferson and Anthony Ricardo Payne, Jr. at the Metro Center Mall in Jackson. Jefferson and Payne agreed to protect a shipment of cocaine that was coming into Jackson that day. They also agreed that Jefferson, Payne and another police officer would receive payment for protecting the shipment of cocaine coming into Jackson.

Jefferson arrived at Hawkins Field in his JPD patrol vehicle and met with the undercover FBI agent. At approximately 3:50 pm that same day, JPD Officer Terrence Dale Jenkins, driving a JPD patrol vehicle, met with the undercover FBI agent in the parking lot of Hawkins Field for the purpose of providing police protection for a drug transaction. The undercover FBI agent informed Jenkins that the total drug shipment involved approximately 100 kilograms of cocaine.

At approximately 3:55 p.m., another FBI agent, working in an undercover capacity, arrived and simulated the purchase of approximately 20 kilograms of cocaine from the first undercover FBI agent in the presence of Jenkins. After the exchange took place, the first undercover FBI agent paid Jenkins $5,000 for his assistance in protecting this drug transaction. Jenkins then provided further protection by following the second undercover FBI agent from Hawkins Field to Interstate 20 in Jackson.

At approximately 4:10 p.m., JPD Officer Anthony Ricardo Payne, Jr., driving a JPD patrol vehicle, met the first undercover FBI agent in the main parking lot of Hawkins Field for the purpose of providing police protection for another purported drug transaction. The undercover FBI agent informed Payne that the total drug shipment involved approximately 100 kilograms of …

It takes a big man to admit he was wrong.

Last night, that big man was five-foot funnyman and Daily Show host Jon Stewart, who had a little fun at Mississippi's expense last week when the news broke the state never officially ratified the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

In the bit, Stewart does what people who've never stepped a toe in Mississippi tend to do when talking about Mississippi, and lampooned the entire lot of state officials who were in charge when the Legislature ratified the amendment in 1995 -- I know, I know; we probably deserve that one -- as slavery-loving racists.

Among those officials was then-Secretary of State Dick Molpus, whose office was to oversee the handling of the official ratification paperwork. For reasons that remain unknown, the paperwork never made it to the federal archivist in Washington, D.C.

Stewart (or, more precisely, his comedy writers) implied that Molpus likely destroyed the documents -- you know, being the scheming white xenophobe that too many folks ignorantly presume every Mississippi politician to be.

But after getting a flurry of pushback from people who know Molpus, Stewart admitted last night that the show erred in using "Dick Molpus...as an avatar for racial bigotry, forgetting, perhaps that Dick Molpus is a real person with a real record on civil rights."

That record, as Stewart notes, includes apologizing in 1989 to the families of the murdered civil-rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Despite the threats he received against his life, Molpus counts the apology as among his proudest moments.

In doing so, Stewart proved himself to be a class act (it was, after all, a bad week for satirists. See: The Onion debacle). And if any good came out of the whole thing, it's that the rest of America learned a little bit about the classy Dick Molpus and about Mississippi.