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The Jackson FBI sting is not the first time the feds used a yacht, strip club to lure alleged bribery

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-08 08:54:00

This sting that brought bribery charges against Jackson officials this week is far from the first time the FBI has used a yacht and a strip club in Miami in an undercover operation.

Don’t count on it being the last.

What started in 1978 as an FBI investigation into mobsters stealing art in New York City soon led to the shores of Jersey, the halls of Congress and, yes, the beaches of Miami.

After customs agents seized a drug dealer’s boat, the FBI used the 65-foot Cheoy Lee yacht, named “The Left Hand,” to hold parties with politicians.

“It gleamed with the predictable varnished parquet decks, teak paneling — and a wide variety of eavesdropping and recording devices,” Time magazine reported.

A phony Arab sheik handed out bribes for sponsoring legislation. Six congressmen took the bait, including U.S. Rep. John J. Jenrette Jr, who declared, “I’ve got larceny in my blood.”

By the end, 19 had been convicted, including those congressmen, a U.S. senator, a New Jersey mayor and other corrupt officials in Abscam, the FBI codename for the operation.

READ MORE: Yacht, strip club, bags of cash: The traveling FBI sting that set the stage for bribery charges against Jackson officials

FBI agents used the yacht again in a 1980 operation involving agent Joseph Pistone, who pretended to be an expert jewel thief named Donnie Brasco.

Pistone’s cover was almost blown when a mob leader spotted an article in Time magazine on the Abscam tale that showed the picture of the yacht the FBI used to entertain congressmen.

Pistone’s story was depicted in the 1997 film, “Donnie Brasco,” featuring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino.

The Abscam operation had long faded from the headlines when the 2013 film, “American Hustle,” portrayed the real-life investigation.

The movie starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper brought new attention to the FBI operation, which resulted in convictions and prison terms for 19 people.

Miami yachts and strip clubs have continued to arise in FBI undercover investigations, including one that bears a striking resemblance to the case in Jackson.

Testimony revealed that the FBI’s Cincinnati office spent more than $100,000 in 2018 to fly Cincinnati City Council member Jeff Pastor to Miami and treat him to expensive liquor, a yacht cruise and Tootsie’s Cabaret, a high-end, fully nude strip club memorialized in a 2015 song by Drake.

Pastor was accused of collecting $55,000 in bribes, much of it in cash. He was quoted as telling undercover agents that he should be paid $200,000 for his help and that he wanted a “monthly retainer” for his assistance.

FBI agents posed as developers, aided by developer Chinedum Ndukwe, a former safety for the Cincinnati Bengals who served as an undercover informant.

A federal grand jury indicted Pastor and two other Cincinnati City Council members in a pay-to-play scheme in exchange for votes or support for development projects. The main one was the city’s dilapidated Convention Place Mall, which, like downtown Jackson, had fallen on hard times.

“Where do you guys find these LLCs?” then-council member P.G. Sittenfeld asked an undercover FBI agent. “Do I not want to know?”

“Yeah, you probably don’t,” the agent replied.

“As long as it’s like…,” Sittenfeld said.

“Yeah, it’ll pass, it’ll pass the muster test,” the agent said.

“As long as it passes muster and like a person with a name,” Sittenfeld said. “My political enemies, like, not to freak you guys, but they like to poke around this s—.”

Sittenfeld, who was considered the favorite to serve as Cincinnati’s next mayor, was quoted as saying he could “deliver the votes.”

He, Pastor and another city council member were each sentenced to between one and two years in prison. Sittenfeld is appealing his jury conviction.

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

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1865

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-24 07:00:00

Dec. 24, 1865

The Ku Klux Klan began on Christmas Eve in 1865. Credit: Zinn Education Project

Months after the fall of the Confederacy and the end of slavery, a half dozen veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, called the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK soon became a terrorist organization, brutalizing and killing Black Americans, immigrants, sympathetic whites and others. 

While the first wave of the KKK operated in the South through the 1870s, the second wave spread throughout the U.S., adding Catholics, Jews and others to their enemies’ list. Membership rose to 4 million or so. 

The KKK returned again in the 1950s and 1960s, this time in opposition to the civil rights movement. Despite the history of violence by this organization, the federal government has yet to declare the KKK a terrorist organization.

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

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An old drug charge sent her to prison despite a life transformation. Now Georgia Sloan is home

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mississippitoday.org – Mina Corpuz – 2024-12-24 04:00:00

CANTON –  Georgia Sloan is home, back from a potentially life-derailing stint in prison that she was determined to instead make meaningful. 

She hadn’t used drugs in three years and she had a life waiting for her outside the Mississippi Correctional Institute for Women in Pearl: a daughter she was trying to reunite with, a sick mother and a career where she found purpose. 

During 10 months of incarceration, Sloan, who spent over half of her life using drugs, took classes, read her Bible and helped other women. Her drug possession charge was parole eligible, and the Parole Board approved her for early release. 

At the end of October, she left the prison and returned to Madison County. The next day she was back at work at Musee, a Canton-based bath products company that employs formerly incarcerated women like Sloan and others in the community facing difficulties. She first started working at the company in 2021. 

“This side of life is so beautiful. I would literally hold on to my promise every single minute of the day while I was in (prison),” Sloan told Mississippi Today in December. 

Next year, she is moving into a home in central Mississippi, closer to work and her new support system. Sloan plans to bring her daughter and mother to live with her. Sloan is hopeful of regaining custody of her child, who has been cared for by her aunt on a temporary basis. 

“This is my area now,” she said. “This has become my family, my life. This is where I want my child to grow up. This is where I want to make my life because this is my life.” 

Additionally, Sloan is taking other steps to readjust to life after prison: getting her driver’s license for the first time in over a decade, checking in monthly with her parole officer and paying court-ordered fines and restitution. 

In December 2023, Sloan went to court in Columbus for an old drug possession charge from when she was still using drugs. 

Sloan thought the judge would see how much she had turned her life around through Crossroads Ministries, a nonprofit women’s reentry center she entered in 2021, and Musee. Her boss Leisha Pickering who drove her to court and spoke as a witness on Sloan’s behalf, thought the judge would order house arrest or time served. 

Circuit Judge James “Jim” Kitchens of the 16th District.

Instead, Circuit Judge James Kitchens sentenced her to eight years with four years suspended and probation. 

He seemed doubtful about her transformation, saying she didn’t have a “contrite heart.” By choosing to sell drugs, Kitchens said she was “(making) other people addicts,” according to a transcript of the Dec. 4, 2023, hearing. 

“I felt like my life literally crumbled before my eyes,” Sloan said about her return to prison. “Everything I had worked so hard for, it felt like it had been snatched from me.”

She was taken from the courtroom to the Lowndes County Detention Center, where she spent two months before her transfer to the women’s prison in Rankin County. 

Sloan found the county jail more difficult because there was no separation between everyone there. But the prison had its own challenges, such as violence between inmates and access to drugs, which would have threatened her sobriety. 

She kept busy by taking classes, which helped her set a goal to take college courses one day with a focus on business. Visits, phone calls and letters from family members and staff from Musee and Crossroads were her lifeline. 

“I did not let prison break me, I rose above it, and I got to help restore other ladies,” Sloan said. 

She also helped several women in the prison get to Crossroads – the same program that helped her and others at Musee. 

Sloan credits a long-term commitment to Crossroads and Musee for turning her life around – the places where she said someone believed in her and took a chance on her. 

Georgia Sloan, left, and Leisha Pickering, founder and CEO of Musee Bath, sit for a portrait at the Musee Bath facility in Canton, Miss., on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. Pickering has supported Sloan through her journey of recovery and reentry, providing employment and advocacy as Sloan rebuilds her life after incarceration. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

Pickering, Musee’s CEO, said in the three years she’s known Sloan, she’s watched her grow and become a light for others. 

The bath and lifestyle company has employed over 300 formerly incarcerated women in the past dozen years, but Pickering said not everyone has had the same support, advocacy and transformation as Sloan. Regardless, Pickering believes each person is worth fighting for. 

When Sloan isn’t traveling for work to craft markets with Pickering, she shares an office with her Musee colleague Julie Crutcher, who is also formerly incarcerated and a graduate of Crossroads’ programs. She also considers Crutcher a close friend and mentor.

Sloan has traveled to Columbus to see her mother and daughter whom she spent Thanksgiving with. She will see them again for Christmas and celebrate her daughter’s 12th birthday the day after.

Her involvement with the criminal justice system has made Sloan want to advocate for prison reform to help others and be an inspiration to others.

“I never knew what I was capable of,” Sloan said.  “I never knew how much people truly, genuinely love me and love being around me. I never knew how much I could have and how much I could offer the world.”

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

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1946

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-23 07:00:00

Dec. 23, 1946

Chuck Cooper Credit: Wikipedia

University of Tennessee refused to play a basketball game with Duquesne University, because they had a Black player, Chuck Cooper. Despite their refusal, the all-American player and U.S. Navy veteran went on to become the first Black player to participate in a college basketball game south of the Mason-Dixon line. Cooper became the first Black player ever drafted in the NBA — drafted by the Boston Celtics. He went on to be admitted to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

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

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