Alternative New Media for the Gulf South
Welp folks, I got another Department of Marine Resources care package that contained some pictures, including a few Silver Dollar group photos. But what was most interesting was a tip I received on the Slabbed Action Line involving alleged family-blood and/or in-law relationships in the current DMR senior management team but the tip was not specific enough for me to pursue.
I’ll see what I can develop and present from the care package and tip.
Slabbed has learned that Tima Shumate, former head of the Mississippi DMR CIAP program, has been released from MDOC custody. Stay tuned to this developing story.
Update:
I’d like to take the opportunity to dispel two rumors as Eye Spy took the opportunity to help me out with some links and background plus I spoke with a couple of other folks that will remain nameless.
1. There is no truth to the speculation that Ms. Shumate’s release is in any way related to the Livingston Parish CIAP Investigation.
2. Ms. Shumate’s release was not politically motivated. Our state prisons are stuffed full of nonviolent offenders. In 2013 a law was passed that reduced the amount of time nonviolent offenders had to serve to 25% of the total sentence so that we could house more violent offenders. Shumate, based on when she took her plea, fell under the new law. If someone deserves the blame for this state of affairs it would be her lawyer Tim Holleman, who would be on the short list of people I’d go see if I got into serious criminal trouble. The bottom line is Ms. Shumate is being treated no differently than others similarly situated.
Since RFP did the work digging up the old links on Slabbed, a comment bump is in order as the FBI is now poking around a subject Slabbed first reported on a bit more than 2 years ago:
More Mississippi Mud? Louisiana Mud too? Flipping swamplands and CIAP funds? FBI has been asking questions? Say it ain’t so. Oh, and that name seems strangely familiar.
Land deal appraised by tax assessor Barber probed
“Federal authorities have been looking into Madison County Tax Assessor Gerald Barber and his role in a Louisiana land deal that scored almost $3 million in profits for private citizens and a conservation group.
The lynchpin for the deal may have been an apparent inflated appraisal done by Barber’s firm, Barber & Mann Inc., that the U.S. inspector general called “noncompliant” and unreasonably priced in an audit.
See also:
DMR Scandal day 53: The bucks are beginning to stop.
Rooked: Elizabeth Rooks Barber of Barber and Mann exports the DMR friends and family program…
(EOM)
Of using coastal political hacks to get campaign ca$h albeit this time up in Madison. No word yet on whether sister Tina will nab a furlough from MDOC to attend:
There are a couple of my peeps down here that contacted you to register their displeasure at how this DMR thing worked out. To the extent they took the time to engage your office I think it would be nice if those folks heard back from you or one of your staff. Mac, for example, hit the beach a little over a year ago protesting the systemic corruption and she is not getting any younger. It would be nice if she at least got some sort of communication from you guys acknowledging her letter.
As always I thank you guys up DC way for being in that number here on Slabbed.
This is hot off the press folks:
I’ll term these thoughts 1 and 1a in response to Eye Spy:
It is unusual for someone entering a guilty plea to immediately go into custody of MDOC let alone do it voluntarily yet that is exactly what Tina Shumate did last bad news Friday. With no activity on PACER and a looming late September trial date before Judge Keith Starrett this can only mean that when Ms. Shumate makes an appearance before the court she’ll be wearing prison orange and likely, shackles. Thought 1a from the old days and Dr. Demento: Continue reading “Exactly one thought on the Shumate state guilty plea”
First up from the land of Dizzy Dean:
Stone County attorney disbarred over misappropriated funds ~ Robin Fitzgerald
Let’s count some apples shall we. Dad gets off very light with house arrest after the family drug running enterprise blew up in the 1990s while son Eddie got 7 for his participation. Now Tadd nabs client funds outta the law firm trust account and is disbarred. How times have changed over the last 20 years In Stone County as Boss Hogg finally passed. Moving right along.
Sal Perricone was still Sal Perricone on the Internet ~ Jarvis DeBerry
You tell ’em Sal. 😉 Next up is someone that flew under the radar.
Ex-DMR exec Ziegler pleads guilty to helping conceal mail fraud ~ Paul Hampton
Given that misprision of felony is not a major felony (every felony is major, some more than others) it is very possible Ziegler gets house arrest. Here is the salient text of 18 U.S.C. §4:
Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
Do Bay St Louis and Ocean Springs need to swap City Councils?
How dark are the finances for Ocean Springs ~ Karen Nelson
This is the defense side of things per Anita Lee’s DMR employee’s South Mississippi home searched circa January 2013.
The DMR paid $245,000 for the lot on a bayou near the Pascagoula River.
Holleman said Shumate removed herself completely from the land transaction. He said her parents, Curt and Ann Hebert, saw the program advertised and approached the DMR about buying the property.
“When her parents got involved, she had nothing to do with it,” Holleman said. “There will be documents that support that.”
I have what I believe to be the documents to which Tim Holleman referred. Continue reading “DMR Memorandum lend color to insider purchase of parent’s land with Coastal Impact Funds”