I’m hoping a new format to the old open link posts will catch on here. Based on twitter stats this is what you guys are reading from the Slabbed Twitter Timeline:
Peter Thiel wants to destroy this? He's nuts: Nude Beach Gay Blow Job Jet Ski Fight Leads to Wife’s Death https://t.co/YWdonw8lOZ
— Slabbed New Media (@SlabbedNewMedia) July 24, 2016
Next is a tweet from this morning that garnered instant interactions:
— Slabbed New Media (@SlabbedNewMedia) July 26, 2016
Read the comments over at the following Gulflive story. Based on what I have been hearing out of Oceans Springs things are not well politically for long time Mayor Connie Moran: Continue reading “Tweet Traction: What y’all are reading”
Every aspect of Mississippi’s prison system was turned into a profit center by Former MDOC head Chris Epps and a bevy of corrupt politicians across the state.
I am hearing some of the indictments the Feds have promised Judge Wingate up in Jackson related to the Epps investigation that are due to be unsealed by next Monday includes some that will be unveiled in Gulfport. Indictment rumors, even those supported by a substantial amount of facts can still be unreliable so I’ll also add there could be some confusion between Epps related indictments and another, more coast centric investigation rollout such as the one involving the newly constructed Jackson County jail.
If the coming Epps indictments have coastal connections as rumored, I can easily think of a couple of former elected officials in both Hancock and Jackson Counties that may have received target letters. If the indictments are Jackson County jail related, speculation centers both on a certain contractor and certain former elected officials.
As Monday draws closer the chatter is certain to gain more specificity if the rumored coastal connection to the coming Epps related indictments are accurate.
Through sheer luck I’ve been able to develop a couple of lower level sources on the Epps Investigation, one of which spoke to me at length about certain jail contract vendors. The FBI has been all over this aspect of the investigation. Today in Court some of this was hinted at by the prosecutors. With 10-11 more names floating about inside the US Attorney’s office chances are one or two of them are bound to be major players on the Mississippi political scene, maybe more. In any event this will be unfolding very soon up in Jackson.
Simmons also admitted bribing the county supervisor with $2,000 monthly payments from a consulting fee provided by Health Assurance LLC of Jackson. The company had a contract to provide medical services at the Harrison County jail. Health Assurance paid Simmons a total consulting fee that climbed to $10,000 a month while he represented the company from 2005 through 2011.
We’ve heard the name Health Assurance LLC here on Slabbed before and that would be here among other places. The link in that old post leads to Jackson Jambalaya and this from the very end of Kingfish’s post:
Priesters? Now we are getting into Bennie Thompson territory.
Over the past 5 months I’ve collected a massive amount of information as it relates to the Chris Epps investigation including the construction of the new jail in Jackson County along with certain service contracts that cut across a wider geographic region. To catch everyone back up former MDOC Executive Director Chris Epps along with his self-admitted partner-in-crime Cecil McCrory had their own sentences delayed indefinitely by Judge Wingate while the Feds sort everything at MDOC out, ostensibly with Epps and McCrory’s full cooperation. I’m going to hate myself for disclosing this but I have reason to believe the FBI has visited every Sheriff in the State in regards to the Epps/MDOC investigation. This in turn sheds more color on the significant ramp up in Federal investigative resources in Jackson last summer that Slabbed previously disclosed. [link] [link].
The reason I’ll hate myself for disclosing the Sheriff visits is because it came from a source that I can’t use which means I’m asking you folks to make a small leap of faith. The bottom line here is that by now it stands to reason the federal investigation has greatly narrowed in scope.
Meantime here on the coast rumors of continued FBI interest surrounding the construction of the Jackson County Adult Detention Center persist. Those rumors center on Chris Epps, one of the primary jail contractors and a former Jackson County Supervisor. Continue reading “I forgot to mention”
Waggoner was charged by Criminal Information with one count of bribery related to his payments of bribes and kickbacks to Epps from sometime in 2012 until at least August 26, 2014. According to the Criminal Information, Waggoner was a consultant for Global Tel-Link (GTL), which provided telephone services at MDOC facilities. The Criminal Information cites two specific instances in 2014 where Waggoner paid Epps kickbacks from money Waggoner received from GTL as a consultant.
The use of local CONsultants (aka Buffers) by the business community as a conduit for bribery schemes to get government business is nothing new folks. And when you couple the doings in Jackson with Sean Anthony’s sentence being delayed twice in successive months (September delay link – October delay link) with Anthony’s sentencing essentially postponed indefinitely one is very safe in assuming there is much more to come as rumors continue to swirl surrounding Anthony’s former company and a former state wide public official.
I guess all this is long winded way of saying the Feds are not done poking around in local doings including the construction of the recently named Jackson County Jail which according to water cooler talk in the investigative community has the FBI looking closely at an elected official along with one of the jail’s contractors.
None of this will completely unfold by the end of the year but the my crystal ball tells me the odds are very good we will see additional news hit the cycle on at least one of the three items mentioned above before year end.
Before I get started with some links how about a nice picture from yesterday’s retiree protest at Ocean Springs Hospital:
Image courtesy of a reader | 2-26-15 SRHS Retiree Ocean Springs Hospital Protest
It appears the lawyers representing the pension plan, finding no joy on their manufactured recusal motion here on the coast expects the State Supreme Court to stop next weeks hearings on the retiree suits:
They are doing this to avoid having to produce documents that would help everyone get to the bottom of things. You wonder what kind of skeletons are buried in those docs as I am reminded of something I wrote last month:
By their actions SRHS has demonstrated a preference for keeping a law firm with major conflict questions involved in the pension litigation and using that firm’s support of Judge Harris’ opponent in last year’s election as a lever to force Harris off the case. The heart of the Harris recusal motion is predicated on that fact. Remove Dogan & Wilkerson from the equation and the Harris recusal motion they filed goes up in smoke. Simply put, the powers running SRHS must fear Judge Neil Harris more than they do their own legal conflicts. The implications of that fact are stunning and foretell a tale of major muck still being hidden.
Once those documents are produced, my prediction is the SRHS pension plan’s law firm, Dogan and Wilkinson will not be long remaining on the case.
So now we have Jackson County spending big money on the Laporte CPA firm while SRHS spends big money on their own actuary. The price of getting religion at SRHS sure is steep folks.
In other news the fallout from Supervisor William Martin’s indictment and suicide continues. I have been told by sources in Jackson that the Martin indictment is related to the MDOC corruption probe. The timing of former MDOC Commissioner Chris Epps guilty plea and the Martin indictment are not coincidental in my opinion.
Over the past 18 months we’ve had two major Mississippi state agencies go up in flames folks with the second crash and burn at MDOC looking like it will be spectacular. Here is a Clarion Ledger three pack on the widening scandal that now strongly appears to include murder conspiracy (H/T RFP in comments) :
And of course with these major state agency scandals breaking loose in Mississippi (on Phil Bryant’s watch) it is only natural Ignatius chimed in on Louisiana politicos being altar boys.
@SLABBEDblog Epps probe. You guys in Mississippi make the elected officials in LA look like alterboys 😉
