Mississippi Today
Deputy who procured sexual favors from a jailed woman gets one day in prison
A former Noxubee County deputy will spend one day in prison after a federal judge said Tuesday that the jailed woman he had sex with behind bars for years โwasn’t really a victim.โ
District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III also gave Vance Phillips a $2,500 fine and eight months’ home detention that will enable him to continue his job with the ambulance service, go to church and see a doctor if he needs to.
The judge described the inmate โ who accused Phillips and others of sexual abuse in a lawsuit โ as a willing participant who exchanged sexual favors for contraband.
In both Mississippi and federal prisons, it is a crime for an officer to bring in contraband. It is also a felony to have sex with any inmate, even if that sex is consensual. Under state law, a convicted officer faces up to five years in prison; under federal law, that maximum is 15 years.
District Attorney Scott Colom, whose office handles criminal cases in Noxubee County, chose to pass his 2020 investigation on to federal prosecutors because of worries about getting a fair jury in such a small county.
It would take two years for a grand jury to indict Phillips and former Sheriff Terry Grassaree.
Instead of being charged with a sex crime, he faced federal bribery charges. In this case, the bribes were exchanging sexual favors and photographs for bringing contraband, including tobacco and cellphones, into the Noxubee County Jail.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Purdie said the jailed woman spent four years behind bars, from 2015 to 2019, for a homicide she didn’t commit and did what she had to do in order to survive. No officer was charged with bringing contraband into the jail, but she was.
In her victim impact statement read to the court, Elizabeth Layne Reed said she felt she had to give people what they wanted to avoid further punishment.
She said she was โheavily impactedโ by what Phillips and his then-boss, Grassaree, did to her.
โI feel guilty for his family members who didn’t know what was going on, but I don’t feel guilty about Vance Phillips who knowingly did what he did,โ she wrote. โWomen and men are supposed to be protected while they are incarcerated.โ
She said the abuse has created โtrust issuesโ in her relationship with her husband.
She also said she prays that people who sexually abuse those behind bars are held accountable and that she hopes other victims โwill use their voice and come forwardโ to help โstop the abuse that happens every dayโ behind bars.
Public Defender Princess Abby said Phillips was an officer who dreamed of becoming a state trooper. โNow that dream is out the window,โ she said.
She argued for four months’ house detention, saying Phillips was an otherwise respected member of his community who played the drums for his church band and had no previous criminal history.
She said what happened was โoutside his normal behaviorโ and that he is now married with three sons.
But Jordan noted that what happened was far from a one-time indiscretion. Instead, he said, Phillips had sex with the inmate for years.
He called what the then-deputy did โa considerable breach of public trust.โ
But in sentencing Phillips, the judge also blamed the jailed woman and said, โIt would be different if she was raped.โ
In her 2020 lawsuit, Reed said that multiple deputies and Grassaree touched her sexually as well as demanded nude photographs from her contraband cellphone. Noxubee County settled that lawsuit for an undisclosed amount.
The judge noted that Phillips is currently working a 60-hour-week job and that he didn’t want to disturb that.
He said a stack of character letters said โglowingโ things about Phillips, but he noted that many barely knew about the crime. One writer called the former deputy a โfall guy,โ but Jordan said that wasn’t true because Phillips wasn’t the last deputy to have sex with the jailed woman.
Grassaree faces sentencing on Wednesday. He has already pleaded guilty to lying to an FBI agent on July 13, 2020, about making Reed take and share nude photos and videos in exchange for favorable treatment, which included making her a trusted inmate, also known as a trusty.
Jordan said the federal sentencing guidelines put Phillips’ prison time at between 8 and 14 months. The judge said the guidelines on Grassaree’s sentence are even less.
As Phillips walked out of the courtroom wearing a jeweled silver cross necklace, he told reporters, โI just want to thank God I’m not going to jail.โ
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
AT&T, union reach deal ending strike
AT&T workers are back on the job today after the company reached a tentative agreement with the Communications Workers of America to end a month-long strike in the Southeast.
The new deal includes a 19.33% pay increase for all workers, and more affordable healthcare premiums.
Wire technicians and utility operations employes get an extra 3% pay increase.
In a statement, CWA president Claude Cummings Jr. praised the solidarity of the striking workers.
โI believe in the power of unity, and the unity our members and retirees have shown during these contract negotiations has been outstanding and gave our bargaining teams the backing they needed to deliver strong contracts,โ he said.
CWA district president Jermaine Travis told Mississippi Today that he and his coworkers are happy to be back at work.ย
โIt’s been a long month, so everybody is excited to get back to work and get back to taking care of business,โ he said.
Travis also noted the significance of the strike, the longest telecommunications strike in the Southeast.
โI think we’re gonna look back at this strike, at this moment in history, and see it was really important for workers to stand up for the rights and force companies to do right by them, so I think we did a good thing,โ he said.
AT&T has also reached a tentative agreement with the CWA in the West.
“As we’ve said since day 1, our goal has been to reach fair agreements that recognize the hard work our employees do to serve our customers with competitive market-based pay and benefits that are among the best in the nation — and that’s exactly what was accomplished,โ AT&T said in a released statement. โThese agreements also support our competitive position in the broadband industry where we can grow and win against our mostly non-union competitors.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1925
Sept. 16, 1925
โThe King of the Bluesโ was born Riley B. King on a plantation near Itta Bena, Mississippi, the son of sharecroppers.
While singing in the church choir, he watched the pastor playing a Sears Roebuck guitar and told the preacher he wanted to learn how to play. By age 12, he had his own guitar and began listening to the blues on the radio. After playing in churches, he went to Memphis to pursue a music career in 1948, playing on the radio and working as a deejay who was known as โBlues Boyโ and eventually โB.B.โ
Within a year, B.B. King was recording songs, many of them produced by Sam Phillips, who later founded Sun Records. In 1952, โ3 O’Clock Bluesโ became a hit, and dozens followed.
While others sought to bring change through the courts, King did it through music. The songs that he and other blues artists created drew many listeners across racial lines. One of the biggest fans walked into the studio one day and called him โsir.โ His name? Elvis Presley, whose first big hit was the blues song, โThat’s All Right, Mama.โ
King explained that music was like water โ something โfor every living person and every living thing.โ His smash hit, โThe Thrill Is Gone,โ made him an international star and led to collaborations with some of the world’s greatest artists.
He survived a fire that almost burned up his beloved guitar, โLucille,โ and won 18 Grammys as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1987, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Both Time and Rolling Stone magazines ranked him as one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
In 2006, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the greatest civilian honor. Two years later, his hometown of Indianola honored him by opening the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center. After he died in 2015, thousands flocked to the Mississippi Delta for the wake and funeral.
โHands that once picked cotton,โ the preacher told the crowd, โwould someday pick guitar strings on a national and international stage.โ He performed till the end, telling Rolling Stone in 2013 that he had only missed 18 days of performing in 65 years. He died two years later at 89 after battling diabetes for decades.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: Sen. David Blount discusses tax cuts, retirement system, mobile sports betting
State Sen. David Blount sits down with Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison and Adam Ganucheau to discuss the push for income tax elimination and how that would affect the state’s budget. He also talks about needed funding for the state’s troubledย retirement system and whether Mississippi will soon adopt mobile sports betting.
READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs
The post Podcast: Sen. David Blount discusses tax cuts, retirement system, mobile sports betting appeared first on Mississippi Today.
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