JACKSON, Miss., — Angelique Lee hesitated and appeared to hold back tears on Wednesday afternoon as a federal judge asked her if she understood that a felony conviction meant she would no longer be able to vote or run for public office.
Hours earlier, she had abruptly resigned from her position as Jackson’s Ward 2 city councilwoman, telling her colleagues on the Jackson City Council only that the decision was due to “circumstances that I am not at liberty to discuss at the moment” in an email at 9:30 a.m.
At the Thad Cochran Courthouse in front of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi Judge Daniel P. Jordan III, she pleaded guilty to a felony charge for conspiracy to commit federal program bribery. Lee said little beyond giving yes and no responses to the judges’ questions.
Lee could serve up to five years in prison and have to pay a $250,000 fine for the bribery charge, the judge told her on Wednesday. She will appear in court again on Nov. 13 at 10 a.m. for sentencing.
The U.S. Department of Justice sought Lee’s indictment for conspiring to take thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for using her power as a city councilmember to vote in favor of a fictitious real-estate development project in Jackson, the federal indictment alleges.
FBI Agents Posed As Real-Estate Developers
The indictment says that in February and March of this year, Lee received several payments that two purported real-estate developers paid for with their own credit cards, including $10,000 in an electronic transfer through an unnamed co-conspirator identified only as “Co-conspirator A,” $3,000 in cash and approximately $6,000 of goods from a luxury retail store.
Unknown to Lee, both of the individuals posing as developers were working undercover with the FBI.
“Lee accepted cash, deposits and other gifts” from two unnamed individuals posing as real estate developers from Nashville, Tenn., “seeking to invest in and develop a property in downtown Jackson, Mississippi,” the indictment states.
The FBI raided Lee’s home on March 28, searching for several