A Lafayette County circuit judge ended an attempt to prosecute Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., the son of a prominent north Mississippi church family who is accused of killing a fellow University of Mississippi student named Jimmie “Jay” Lee, for evidence tampering.

In a March 7 order, Kelly Luther wrote that Herrington cannot be charged with evidence tampering because of the crime’s two-year statute of limitations. A grand jury indicted the University of Mississippi graduate last month on the charge for allegedly hiding Lee’s remains in a well-known dumping ground about 20 minutes from Herrington’s parent’s house in Grenada.

“The Court finds that prosecution for the charge of Tampering with Physical Evidence commenced outside the two-year statute of limitations and is therefore time-barred,” Luther wrote.

In order to stick, Luther essentially ruled that the prosecution should have brought the charges against Herrington sooner. In court last week, the prosecution argued that it could not have brought those charges to a grand jury without Lee’s remains, which provided the evidence that evidence tampering occurred.

READ MORE: ‘The pressure … has gotten worse:’ Facing new charge, Tim Herrington will remain in jail until trial, judge rules

The dismissal came after Herrington’s new counsel, Jackson-area criminal defense attorney Aafram Sellers, filed a motion to throw out the count. Sellers did not respond to a request for commend by press time.

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

JXN Water is losing money at a rate it can’t sustain, according to a financial outlook it released last week, as the federal dollars it received to run day-to-day operations are set to run out next month.

Ted Henifin, who manages the third-party provider, told Mississippi Today on Thursday that the funding shortfall may extend repair times for line breaks, and that the utility will look to once again raise rates on customers’ water bills. Henifin explained that various factors — such as debt payments, higher-than-expected operating costs, and slower-than-expected collections gains — have left the water utility in a precarious position where it’s now losing $3 million a month.

“Gone from a water disaster to a bit of financial disaster or so,” Henifin described.

The federal government set aside a historic $800 million for Jackson to fix its water and sewer systems in 2022, with $600 million of that tied specifically to the water system. That included $150 million of “flexible” funding, which JXN Water has used mostly for line repairs as well as on a contract with Jacobs to run the day-to-day operations of the system. The rest of the $600 million was intended for bigger, capital projects.

But the $150 million, Henifin said, is on track to run out in April. He said JXN Water will look for grants and low-interest loans to hold its operations together, as well as work with Congress to free up some of the $450 million — the amount intended for larger projects — for operations spending.

The water provider is also set to impose an almost 12% rate increase on customers’ water bills this spring — just under $9 per month for the average resident — the second rate hike in as many years (the utility a year ago raised rates on average $10 per month). While the 2022 federal order requires it to put rate increases before the Jackson City Council, JXN Water only needs the approval of overseeing U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate.

In addition to higher-than-expected operating costs, such as fixing line breaks, Henifin said the utility was also unsuccessful in retiring some of the city’s debt due to federal constraints over how it spends the $450 million pot. As a result, JXN Water is paying $1.5 million a month, or half of its total losses, in debt services.

Meanwhile, the utility’s revenue collection rate of 70% is an improvement from a year ago, when it was under 60%, but it’s still far below the national average. Last year, Henifin told Mississippi Today in order to make the water system self-sustainable by the time federal funding runs out, the rate needs to reach 80% in 2025 and 90% in 2026. The financial report says there are 14,000 accounts that receive water but aren’t paying bills.

Henifin admitted on Thursday, though, that even if collection rates were at 100%, JXN Water would still be losing money.

“It’s really the running out of the federal funds and not having closed that gap on local revenues,” he said. “Error on our part maybe that we didn’t focus on this earlier, but we were really trying to get the water system working.”

Last week’s financial plan added that a decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over whether to release SNAP recipient data is expected within the next two months. JXN Water last year introduced a first-of-its-kind discount for SNAP recipients, but both federal and state officials appealed an order from Wingate to release the names of those recipients, preventing the utility from automatically applying those discounts.

To help free up funding for the utility, Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson, wrote a bill which would allow JXN Water to become a water authority for the purpose of accessing tax-exempt bonds or loans. The bill now just needs to pass a floor vote in the Senate.

Henifin added that, after some initial uncertainty, JXN Water’s current funding won’t be impacted by the Trump administration’s recent freezing of federal grant funds.

He also said the funds they do have access to are being used to make major improvements, such as fixing the membrane trains, filters and sediment basins at the O.B. Curtis treatment plant.

“I think it’s a pretty bright future,” Henifin said. “If we can just get over this little cashflow hump we’re in good shape.”

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

March 7, 1908

Black philanthropist Oseola McCarty was born in rural Mississippi and grew up in Hattiesburg, where she was raised on a farm by her grandmother, aunt and mother. 

She dropped out of school to help care for her ailing aunt and began washing and ironing for friends and neighbors. Each nickel and dime she made, she tucked underneath the pink lining of her doll buggy. 

In a profile, The New York Times wrote, “Oseola McCarty spent a lifetime making other people look nice. Day after day, for most of her 87 years, she took in bundles of dirty clothes and made them clean and neat for parties she never attended, weddings to which she was never invited, graduations she never saw. She had quit school in the sixth grade to go to work, never married, never had children and never learned to drive because there was never any place in particular she wanted to go. All she ever had was the work, which she saw as a blessing. … 

“She spent almost nothing, living in her old family home, cutting the toes out of shoes if they did not fit right and binding her ragged Bible with Scotch tape to keep Corinthians from falling out. Over the decades, her pay — mostly dollar bills and change — grew to more than $150,000.” 

In 1995, McCarty contributed her savings so that Black students at the University of Southern Mississippi could receive something she never did — an education. Her philanthropy received international accolades. The United Nations honored her with the Avicenna Medal for educational commitment, President Clinton awarded her the President Citizens’ Medal, the nation’s second highest civilian award, and Patti LaBelle sang a tribute to her at Madison Square Garden. 

McCarty died in 1999, and on the 25^th anniversary of her gift, Southern Mississippi unveiled a statue of the woman who embodied generosity.

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