As sheriff, Terry Grassaree stoked fear into the citizens of Noxubee County by imitating his idol, wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin.

On Tuesday, the 61-year-old former law enforcement officer spoke in a soft voice to District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III as he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI when he denied that he made a jailed woman take and share sexually explicit photos and videos of herself.

He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced on Aug. 7.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Purdie told District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III that Grassaree lied to an FBI agent on July 13, 2020, about making a woman behind bars take and share nude photos and videos in exchange for favorable treatment, which included making her a jail trusty.

After she texted the photos from a contraband cell phone, he responded, “Butt is great” and “Body looks perfect.”

Standing next to his attorney, Abram Sellers of Jackson, Grassaree admitted all of what Purdie had said was true.

Grassaree was also charged with destroying evidence and wire fraud. If he had pleaded guilty to all of his charges, he could have faced up to 90 years in prison.

But his story goes far beyond what the former sheriff pleaded guilty to on Tuesday.

The Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today and The New York Times highlighted Grassaree in its series, “Unfettered Power: Mississippi Sheriffs,” which showed how sheriffs can rule like kings in rural counties. They answer to no one and typically face little press or prosecutorial scrutiny.

The investigation published April 11, 2023, revealed that the allegations of wrongdoing against Grassaree have been far more wide-ranging and serious than his federal charges suggest. The investigation included a review of nearly two decades of lawsuit depositions and a previously undisclosed report by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

At a minimum, the documents detail gross mismanagement at the Noxubee County jail in Macon that repeatedly put female inmates in harm's way. At worst, they tell the story of a sheriff who operated with impunity, even as he was accused of abusing the people in his custody, turning a blind eye to women who were raped and trying to cover it up when caught.

Over nearly two decades, as allegations mounted and Noxubee County's insurance company paid to settle lawsuits against Grassaree, state prosecutors brought no charges against him or others accused of abuses in the jail. A federal investigation dragged on for years and finally led to charges in fall 2022.

In a 2020 lawsuit, Elizabeth Layne Reed accused two deputies, Vance Phillips and Damon Clark, of coercing her into having sex. She said the men gave her a cellphone and other perks in exchange for sexual encounters inside and outside the jail. Deputies even put a sofa in her cell.

According to her lawsuit, Grassaree knew all about his deputies' “sexual contacts and shenanigans,” but the sheriff did nothing to “stop the coerced sexual relationships.” 

Grassaree has previously denied any knowledge of what his deputies were doing. “Are you a boss?” he asked. “Do your employees tell you everything they do?”

Instead of intervening, the lawsuit alleged, the sheriff “sexted” her and demanded that she use the phone the deputies had given her to send him “a continuous stream of explicit videos, photographs and texts” while she was in jail. She also alleged in the lawsuit that Grassaree touched her in a “sexual manner.”

The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.

No date has been set for the sentencing of one of those deputies, Phillips, who pleaded guilty last year to bribery, which experts say could have been the perks the woman says she received. Prosecutors asked for his sentencing to be postponed “pending a resolution of another criminal matter,” an obvious reference to Grassaree's case.

The other deputy, Vance, wasn't charged. “I never coerced Reed into sex,” he wrote in his response to the lawsuit, but he never answered whether he had sex with her.

Under Mississippi law, it is a crime for officers to have sex with those behind bars, and the felony carries up to five years in prison.

Nearly two decades ago, Grassaree faced allegations of rape inside the jail that he supervised and lawsuits claiming that he covered up the episodes. At least five people, including one of his fellow deputies, accused him of beating others or choking them with a police baton.

In 2006, after Grassaree and his staff left jail cell keys hanging on a wall, male inmates opened the doors to the cell of two women inmates and raped them, according to statements the women gave to state investigators. One of the women said Grassaree pressured her to sign a false statement to cover up the crimes, according to the state police report.

About a year later, in a lawsuit, four people who had been arrested gave sworn statements accusing Grassaree of violence. Two of the people said he choked or beat them while they were in his custody. A third said he pinned her against a wall and threatened to let a male inmate rape her.

All told, at least eight men — including four deputies and Grassaree himself — have been accused of sex abuse by women inmates who were being held in the Noxubee County jail while Grassaree was in charge.

Now, 18 years after a woman first said that he pressured her to lie about being raped, the former sheriff faces possible prison time.

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

May 7, 1955

The Rev. George Lee was shot to death in Belzoni, Mississippi, after using his pulpit and his printing press to urge other Black Mississippians to vote. 

He became one of the first African Americans to register to vote in the mostly Black Humphreys County. And when he helped register more than 90 other Black voters, White leaders spoke with concern over growing African-American power in the Mississippi Delta. 

Lee continued his work in the face of threats and electrified crowds of thousands with his speeches, according to Jet magazine. 

“Pray not for your mom and pop,” he told the crowd. “They've gone to heaven. Pray you can make it through this hell.” 

Weeks later, shotgun blasts hit Lee in the face as he was driving home one night, and his Buick smashed into a house. The sheriff claimed the lead pellets found in his shattered jaw were fillings from his teeth. 

Mississippi NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers investigated the killing, and FBI tests concluded the pellets were buckshot. No one was ever prosecuted. 

More than 1,000 attended Lee's funeral, and his widow, Rosebud, decided to open the casket to show how her husband had suffered. Photographs of his body ran in Jet magazine. A few months later, Emmett Till's mother would do the same for her teenage son when he was killed. 

Lee is among 40 martyrs listed on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. A museum in Belzoni now bears his name and that of civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer.

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

As the Mississippi Legislature adjourned its 2024 regular session on Saturday, only a fraction of the thousands of bills introduced by legislators survived to become law. 

The most notable item that died during the session was Medicaid expansion, a policy that would have allowed thousands of Mississippians to receive health coverage and potentially give struggling hospitals a needed financial boost. 

But several other pieces of legislation such as early voting and overhauling the way the state restores voting rights to people convicted of certain felony offenses also died during the session. 

Unless Republican Gov. Tate Reeves calls legislators into a special legislative session, lawmakers will now have to wait until their 2025 session next year to introduce any more legislation this year. 

Here are some other bills that died after the 2024 legislative session adjourned on Saturday:

Judicial redistricting 

House Bill 722 and Senate Bill 2771 would have redrawn the state's circuit and chancery court districts, but negotiations stalled between the House and the Senate on adopting a final map.  

The current court districts have largely remained unchanged for 30 years. Senate Judiciary A Committee Chairman Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula who was the Senate's lead negotiator, believed the Legislature should use population data and the number of active court cases in each district to substantively redraw them. 

Wiggins sent the House a plan that passed the Senate 32-13. But the House didn't agree to the Senate plan, and it did not reveal its own redistricting proposal. 

House Judiciary B Chairman Kevin Horan, a Republican from Grenada and the main House negotiator, said he wanted to agree on a plan this year, but he thought there were too many stakeholders, such as judges, whom he believed did not have their opinions considered in how the new districts should look. 

“This issue is too important for them to not have their voices heard,” Horan said. 

Both committee leaders told Mississippi Today they intend to conduct hearings in the summer or the fall to hear from judges, district attorneys and officials from the Administrative Office of Courts on what metrics should be considered for new districts. 

Lawmakers have until 2025 to agree on a set of new maps. If the two chambers cannot reach a compromise by early next year, Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Randolph will be tasked with redrawing the new chancery and circuit court districts. 

Mobile sports betting 

House Bill 774, the Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act, would have legalized mobile sports betting and allowed Mississippi to join more than two dozen other states where the practice is legal. 

Sports wagering has been legal in Mississippi for years, but online betting has remained illegal in part from fears the move could erode profits of the state's brick and mortar casinos located along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast.

The initial proposal would have required betting companies to contract with casinos, but some lawmakers raised concerns that the legislation did not offer any incentives for major betting companies to partner with smaller casinos. 

The two chambers passed different versions of the same bill, and they couldn't reach an accord during the conference committee process. 

Senate Gaming Chairman David Blount, a Democrat from Jackson, told Mississippi Today that there was division among casino owners on how the legislation would impact physical casinos and their employees and offered little protection for people who struggle with gambling addiction. 

Blount said he hopes casino owners and lawmakers will continue to discuss the issue during the off season and debate the issue more next year.  

Replacing Mississippi's white supremacist statues in Washington

Senate Bill 2231 and House Concurrent Resolution 12 would have replaced Mississippi's statutes of J.Z. George and Jefferson Davis, two white supremacists, in the U.S. Capitol in Washington. 

Other Southern states such as Alabama, Florida and Arkansas, have replaced their statues of white supremacists, but Mississippi remains the only state in the nation with two Confederate leaders in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington. 

Federal law allows for states to replace their statues, but a majority of lawmakers in both legislative chambers must vote to approve the replacement, and the state is required to pay for the costs of replacing the statues.

House Rules Chairman Fred Shanks, a Republican from Brandon, previously said he did not know much about the National Statuary Hall Collection, but that he would study the issue. 

Early voting 

Senate Bill 2580 would have established in-person early voting and let Mississippi join 47 other states that authorize the practice in some form.

The bill would have allowed 15 days of no-excuse early voting before election day and required voters to submit a valid photo ID to cast a ballot. It would have replaced in-person absentee voting. 

The bill passed the Senate overwhelmingly, but House Elections Chairman Noah Sanford, a Republican from Collins, said he received concerns about the proposal from some county circuit clerks, the local officials who administer elections. 

Instead, Sanford said he would like to conduct some hearings in the summer or fall to examine the issue further and allow circuit clerks and others to present information. He said that after the hearings he would be more open to passing early voting legislation. 

Restoring a ballot initiative 

For the third straight year, lawmakers could not agree on a way to restore Mississippi's ballot initiative process. 

House Concurrent Resolution 11 and Senate Bill 2770 would have created a process for voters to bypass lawmakers and place issues directly on a statewide ballot for consideration. The process would only allow voters to amend laws and not the constitution. 

The House passed a proposal that would have created an initiative process that  organizers to gather signatures from 8% of the number of registered voters during the last governor's race, which the Secretary of State's office estimated to be around 166,000.

Senate leaders proposed a plan that would have required petitions to gather signatures from  10% of the registered voters from the last presidential election – more than 200,000 signatures of registered voters – to place an issue on the ballot. The Senate chamber rejected that proposal. 

Both the House and Senate plans would have restricted voters from considering any initiative related to abortion. 

Mississippians have not had an initiative process since 2021, when the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled it invalid because of a technicality over the state's congressional districts. 

Felony suffrage overhaul 

House Bill 1609 would have automatically restored voting rights to people convicted of nonviolent felony offenses, as long as they had not committed another felony within five years of completing the terms of their sentence. 

The legislation passed the House by a bipartisan majority, but Senate Constitution Chairwoman Angela Hill killed the measure by not bringing it up for a vote. 

Under the Mississippi Constitution, people convicted of any of 10 felonies — including perjury, arson and bigamy — lose their voting rights for life. A 2009 opinion from the Mississippi Attorney General's Office expanded the list of disenfranchising felonies to 22.

The constitutional provision stems from Jim Crow-era policy where the framers of the 1890 constitution chose disenfranchising crimes thought to be more likely committed by Black people.  

Mississippi is one of only a handful of states that does not automatically restore voting rights to people who complete their sentences. Instead, two-thirds of lawmakers in both chambers must agree to restore the suffrage to individuals in a piecemeal fashion.  

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