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Grand jury opts not to indict football star Jerrell Powe and partners after ‘tunnel vision’ investigation

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Ridgeland police arrived at a local bank on a mild, sunny day last January to intercept what they observed as an active abduction.

They took a look at the alleged kidnappers — a 330-pound retired NFL player and a longhaired pot grower from California — and “they just went haywire and thought they had something that they just didn’t have,” said Texas resident Angie McClelland, who would later be tied to the case.

A Madison County grand jury finally agreed with McClelland last November, choosing not to indict any of the five people arrested for the crime.

The assumed victim, a young businessman from Waynesboro named Bryce Mathis, had alerted a bank teller at the Chase Bank in Ridgeland to call the police. By this point, Mathis had made enemies all over the country for allegedly scamming investors and hopeful entrepreneurs. That includes the two men accompanying him at the bank that day: former Kansas City Chiefs nose tackle Jerrell Powe and the cannabis farmer Gavin Bates.

The group was planning to launch a medical marijuana business together and had pooled some $300,000 in investments in a bank account Mathis controlled. Concerned that he might be mishandling the funds, they’d gone to the bank that day to get the money out. The defendants said Mathis went willingly; Mathis told police he’d been forced against his will. Ultimately, the bank account was empty save for forty cents, investigators found.

Police arrested Powe and Bates, generating dramatic national headlines – primarily because of Powe’s celebrity – that ran while the two sat in jail for five days. Bates said he was held in an isolation cell for three days. The cell was so cold, he said, he had to sleep on the floor with his face by a window, a faint source of warm air.

“I still don’t understand why they did that,” Bates told Mississippi Today recently. “… It felt like those police could do what they wanted and they were all backing each other up.”

After going through the suspects’ phones in the following days and finding what they considered damning text messages, the local authorities directed U.S. Marshals to arrest three more people, including Wayne County Board of Supervisors attorney Cooper Leggett.

Leggett was only connected to the marijuana startup because Mathis had previously worked with the county to build a facility there — a project that was abandoned after Leggett said Mathis never paid contractors conducting the initial dirt work (an allegation Mathis denies). Powe and his business partners had reached out to Leggett for intel on Mathis, and they all texted the day of the alleged kidnapping about how best to approach the alleged con artist.

One night, about a week after the incident, Leggett woke up to what sounded like people beating on his front door.

“The front of my house looks like a 4th of July sky of police lights,” Leggett said.

Throughout the night and early morning, officers transported Leggett to the Madison County Detention Center, where he was booked, and then to Ridgeland to speak with investigators. “I’m like, ‘Guys, we could have saved a lot of pomp and circumstance from how y’all arrested me. I would have came if y’all would have called me,’” Leggett told Mississippi Today.

Despite never being indicted, Leggett was on unpaid leave from his county attorney position for nearly a year while he waited for officials to resolve the case. Agents similarly arrested Angie McClelland and her husband Colburn McClelland — partners on the marijuana startup — in their hometown of Katy, Texas.

“They were giddy, like a kid in a carnival, to make a big splash and get a big arrest,” Colburn McClelland said.

The alleged kidnapping began on Jan. 11, 2023, after Bates and Angie McClelland picked Mathis up at his home in Waynesboro. The investor group said Mathis had been evading them for weeks, prompting the in-person visit. Here, the story diverges: The defendants said everyone was on board to go to the bank to retrieve the investor funds, which an audio recording Angie McClelland took at the time appears to corroborate. But Mathis told investigators he thought they were going to lunch.

From 500 miles away in Texas, Colburn McClelland advised Powe not to arrive at the bank until they got inside, lest Mathis see the large athlete, get spooked and leave. “Ya’ll need to get him trapped inside the bank,” Colburn McClelland texted, according to a document he prepared.

Instead, they stopped in a pharmacy parking lot in Laurel, Mississippi, where Powe replaced McClelland in the back passenger seat.

Laurel Police Chief Tommy Cox told Mississippi Today that his department determined Mathis left Laurel with Powe and Bates willingly, and that if a kidnapping occurred, it must’ve been because Mathis changed his mind during the ride. “Everybody were buddies when they left here,” Cox said.

Mathis told Mississippi Today that while in the car, Powe terrorized him. “He said that I was going to start getting my mail from the groundhog,” Mathis said.

Powe denies making any threats. The investor group also points to a video recording, reviewed by Mississippi Today, in which Mathis stated to the camera that he had misspent his investors’ money while “stringing them along” and that he planned to “make it right.”

In an interview with Mississippi Today, Mathis stood by his story that he was forced to travel with Powe and Bates against his will and any recorded statements were coerced.

When they got to Ridgeland on Jan. 11, the bank had closed for the day, so they spent the night in a hotel, where Mathis claimed Powe slept on top of his legs to prevent him from escaping. “He took a pillow, laid it on my legs, and he laid up on top of it with his arms crossed,” Mathis said. “I mean, it wasn’t like it hurt. He was just there to make sure I didn’t move.”

“That sounds so damn stupid,” Powe said of Mathis’ claim.

The next morning, Colburn McClelland texted Powe, “If Bryce has asked to leave we gotta let him go…so long that he is staying by his own choice, there is no issue,” to which Powe responded, “He ain’t ain’t asked to leave at all.”

In an interview with Mississippi Today, Powe also questioned why, if Mathis had been kidnapped, he didn’t attempt to alert anyone during the several stops they made during their drive to central Mississippi.

“It’s a reason why he lured us to the bank, because that’s where he wanted to do that, to make a big scene and play with people’s lives,” Powe said.

After his arrest, Leggett requested a preliminary hearing, where the lead investigator, Ridgeland detective Austin Baney, testified that the kidnapping case was his first investigation.

“In my opinion, he (Baney) got tunnel vision and never could let go of that story that he saw in the tunnel,” Leggett said. “He just did not want to let go of the sensational story that he thought he had when everything was basically crumbling underneath him.”

Ridgeland Municipal Court prosecutor Boty McDonald said that the text messages taken from the suspects’ phones would prove the five defendants conspired to capture Mathis against his will.

“We’re not going to try the case out here in public, but you can rest assured that in Ridgeland, we would not have arrested them and charged them with kidnapping if it wasn’t kidnapping,” McDonald told TV news reporters after the arrests.

The grand jury wasn’t convinced. While the investigation originated with Ridgeland police, McDonald turned the felony kidnapping case over to the Madison County District Attorney’s Office. Nearly a year after the arrests, county prosecutors took the case to a grand jury and it returned a “no bill,” meaning the jurors did not find probable cause to believe the defendants had committed the crime.

“I stand behind the work that the police officers and detectives did here and I also stand behind any discretion exercised by the DA’s office,” McDonald told Mississippi Today.

Cox, the Laurel police chief, said he wasn’t surprised by the decision. “It just sounded hinky to me from the beginning,” the police chief said.

The three out-of-staters say the experience has tainted their opinion of the Hospitality State. Bates said the next time he’s traveling east, he plans to avoid flying over Mississippi. Angie McClelland said she knows it’s home to some fine people, “but I’ve unfortunately seen the crooked letter crooked letter.”

Powe, who still calls Mississippi home, praised the Madison County court system for reaching the correct result. He said when he got the news about the no bill, “it felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off me.”

“This has definitely been a nightmare for me and my family,” Powe said. “So just to be able to move on in my life and not toss and turn anymore with this on my mind, it’s just been a big relief.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

Mississippi River flooding Vicksburg, expected to crest on Monday

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Mississippi River flooding Vicksburg, expected to crest on Monday

mississippitoday.org – @alxrzr – 2025-04-25 16:04:00

Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer said Friday floodwaters from the Mississippi River, which have reached homes in and around Vicksburg, will likely persist until early May. Elfer estimated there areabout 15 to 20 roads underwater in the area.

A truck sits in high water after the owner parked, then boated to his residence on Chickasaw Road in Vicksburg as a rising Mississippi River causes backwater flooding, Friday, April 25, 2025.

“We’re about half a foot (on the river gauge) from a major flood,” he said. “But we don’t think it’s going to be like in 2011, so we can kind of manage this.”

The National Weather projects the river to crest at 49.5 feet on Monday, making it the highest peak at the Vicksburg gauge since 2020. Elfer said some residents in north Vicksburg — including at the Ford Subdivision as well as near Chickasaw Road and Hutson Street — are having to take boats to get home, adding that those who live on the unprotected side of the levee are generally prepared for flooding.

A rising Mississippi River causing backwater flooding near Chickasaw Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.
Old tires aligned a backyard as a deterrent to rising water north of Vicksburg along U.S. 61, Friday, April 25, 2025.
As the Mississippi River rises, backwater flooding creeps towards a home located on Falk Steel Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

“There are a few (inundated homes), but we’ve mitigated a lot of them,” he said. “Some of the structures have been torn down or raised. There are a few people that still live on the wet side of the levee, but they kind of know what to expect. So we’re not too concerned with that.”

The river first reached flood stage in the city — 43 feet — on April 14. State officials closed Highway 465, which connects the Eagle Lake community just north of Vicksburg to Highway 61, last Friday.

Flood waters along Kings Point Road in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

Elfer said the areas impacted are mostly residential and he didn’t believe any businesses have been affected, emphasizing that downtown Vicksburg is still safe for visitors. He said Warren County has worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to secure pumps and barriers.

“Everybody thus far has been very cooperative,” he said. “We continue to tell people stay out of the flood areas, don’t drive around barricades and don’t drive around road close signs. Not only is it illegal, it’s dangerous.”

NWS projects the river to stay at flood stage in Vicksburg until May 6. The river reached its record crest of 57.1 feet in 2011.

The boat launch area is closed and shored up on Levee Street in Vicksburg as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
The boat launch area (right) is closed and under water on Levee Street in Vicksburg as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
City of Vicksburg workers shore up the bank along Levee Street as the Mississippi River rises, Friday, April 25, 2025.
The old pedestrian bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, Friday, April 25, 2025.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Gov. vetoes bill providing hospitals ‘stability’

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Gov. vetoes bill providing hospitals 'stability'

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-25 11:08:00

Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed a bill Thursday that would help stabilize hospitals, calling it the “Grady Twin” of a bill he vetoed in March

Lawmakers made some changes to the previously vetoed legislation in a new bill, but kept much the same. Reeves cited many of his same concerns this time around, including alleged contradictions and the loom of a deficit. 

The bill, authored by Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, sought to make several changes to the Medicaid program – from mandating providers screen mothers for postpartum depression to requiring the agency to cover a new sleep apnea device. 

Blackwell did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication. 

Arguably the largest impact of Senate Bill 2386 would have been that it called for locking in place supplemental payment programs that have been a lifeline for hospitals – but which are unreliable as they vary from year to year, according to Richard Roberson, CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association.

That fluctuation makes it difficult for hospitals to plan what services they can offer. 

“The supplemental payment language was intended to offer better budget predictability as hospitals move through these uncertain times and instructed the Division (of Medicaid) to maximize federal funding,” Roberson said. “… Hospitals, like other businesses, need stability to continue to serve their communities effectively.”

Supplemental payment programs bring in around $1.5 billion federal dollars to Mississippi hospitals each year. 

Reeves said in his veto statements for both bills that locking the payment program in place is in contradiction with another of the bill’s mandates, which would change the program to allow out-of-state hospitals that border Mississippi to participate in the program. 

“It is logically nonsensical for Senate Bill 2386 to, on the one hand, freeze the MHAP, while on the other hand, mandate that the Division open the program to include an additional hospital.”

But Roberson said the language of the bill would not prohibit the programs from growing – it would merely clarify what hospitals need to do to get paid. 

Reeves again said the bill “seeks to expand Medicaid.” The bill brings forth code sections related to eligibility requirements, but it doesn’t call for expanding the Medicaid population by increasing the income threshold, which is what is typically referred to as Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.

Thursday’s vetoed bill was hospitals’ last recourse for stabilizing their budgets via legislation. 

Richardson says the Mississippi Hospital Association has now turned its sights toward the Division of Medicaid to secure hospitals’ payment programs without the help of the Legislature. 

“With or without Senate Bill 2386, we are hopeful the Division will work to stabilize the model,” Roberson said. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Parents, providers urge use of unspent TANF for child care

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Parents, providers urge use of unspent TANF for child care

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-24 17:21:00

Child care providers, parents, children, legislators and advocates gathered outside the state Capitol Thursday to call on Mississippi to use unspent welfare funds and resume accepting child care certificate applications.

Last month, the Mississippi Department of Human Services announced it will temporarily stop accepting new applications, redetermination applications and “add a child” applications for the child care certificate program for certain families as the result of the loss of COVID-19 relief funds. The hold, started March 31, will continue indefinitely. The program provides child care vouchers to eligible families, often with a co-payment fee.

MDHS explained that without the COVID-19 relief funding the number of families with child care certificates is more than it can support long term. When asked how long the hold would last, chief communications director Mark Jones explained the hold would end when the number of children with certificates dropped below 27,000 children and $12 million in monthly costs.

The week before the hold began, on March 28, 36,186 children had child care certificates. 25,300 of them fit into one of the MDHS’s priority categories. 10,800 did not.

The Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative, Child Care Directors Network Alliance, Mississippi Delta Licensed Child Care Providers, and Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable organized Thursday’s gathering and  press conference to implore MDHS to tap into unused TANF funds to book the child care payment program.

Carol Burnett, Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative executive director (right), stresses the need to protect access to child care during the Child Care Matters: Keep Mississippi Working press conference held at the State Capitol, Thursday, April 24, 2025.

“DHS has about $156 million in money from prior grant years that has gone unspent,” said Carol Burnett, MLICCI’s executive director, at the press conference.

The child care payment program gets funding from federal and state sources. It received $127 million from the Child Care Development Fund in fiscal year 2024, as well as $7 million in state appropriations, and $25.9 million transferred from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families grant. 

That $25.9 million is 30% of the state’s annual TANF grant money transferred into funds for child care certificates. It is the maximum amount they’re allowed to transfer under federal law. The state also spends 85% of its money from the child care development fund on certificates, when federal law requires them to use at least 70%. 

MLICCI and others want MDHS to add to that by spending current and carryover TANF funds on child care subsidies for families that qualify for child care certificates. According to a memo MLICCI prepared, this method does not require legislative action, has no  spending limit, and is already used by other states.

Under the current hold, families can apply and get their certificates renewed if they fall in one of the following six categories: on Temporary Assistance for Needy FamiliesTANF or transitioning off of TANF, homeless, with foster children, teen parents, deployed military, orand with special needs. The Division of Early Childhood Care & Development will continue paying for certificates for all families until their certificates expire. 

In a statement, MDHS’ chief communications officer Mark Jones said “MDHS understands these concerns and reaffirms its commitment to support child care, transportation, education, and other needs of families who need to return or remain in the workforce. Our aim is to ensure our approaches are sustainable.”

Burnett, parent KyAsia Johnson, state Rep. Zakiya Summers, D-Jackson, and multiple child care providers talked about the toll the hold has taken on child care centers and families. They also stated the importance of child care to sustain the state’s workforce, keep child care providers afloat, and educate young children. 

They also urged citizens to contact the state’s political leadership to get their attention.

“This decision is putting people like me in an impossible situation,” said Johnson, a child care provider and parent. “What am I supposed to do without child care?”

Each provider spoke about how they had to explain the hold to parents, many of whom have had to pull their children out of day care. Cantrell Keyes, director of Agape Christian Academy World in Jackson, had five families pull their children out of her center. “More than half of my school tuition comes from CCPP,” she said.

Signs list businesses where parents work and who utilize child care are shared during the Child Care Matters: Keep Mississippi Working press conference held at the state Capitol, Thursday, April 24, 2025.

Rep. Summers called on MDHS to lift the hold on child care applications, use the extra TANF funds, and communicate better with parents and providers. 

“Right now, thousands of Mississippi children might lose child care, not because the need has disappeared, but because the agency has made a choice,” she said.

The hold on child care certificates comes at a time when many child care providers and parents are struggling to stay afloat amid high costs, high turnover and high demand.

Deloris Suel, who owns Prep Company Tutorial Schools in Jackson, said, “Child care is in crisis. We’re not heading for crisis, we’re in crisis.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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