Former Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens has surrendered his license to practice law in Mississippi as he awaits sentencing in a federal bribery scandal.
Owens executed a notice of irrevocable resignation with the Mississippi Bar on Thursday, meaning he is willfully giving up his law practice.
The move by Owens follows the Mississippi Bar’s request to the state’s Supreme Court on July 6 to suspend the former prosecutor from practicing law. Owens was indicted in 2024 alongside former Jackson mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and city councilman Aaron Banks for taking bribes from undercover FBI informants posing as real estate developers from Nashville.
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The three men initially pleaded not guilty to the charges against them but ultimately reached plea agreements ahead of a scheduled trial on July 13. Owens, Lumumba, and Banks, along with former Jackson city councilwoman Angelique Lee and businessman Sherik Marve Smith, are alleged to have given favorable consideration to the informants’ downtown convention center hotel project in exchange for bribes.
Instead of Jackson getting a new hotel, however, federal authorities exposed a broader string of public corruption through bribes, private planes, strip clubs, and yachts, court records assert.
As for Owens, his guilty plea was the catalyst behind the push to have him disbarred. He is now set to appear in court on Oct. 15, where he faces up to five years in prison, $250,000 in fines, and time on probation on a federal conspiracy charge. In the meantime, the Mississippi Bar has also reached out to the Supreme Court to disbar Lumumba.