JACKSON, MS (Mississippi News Now) -
The year 2012 has not been the best for Mississippi's largest police department when it comes to corruption.
The year started with news of three officers snared in an undercover FBI investigation. One of them, Monyette Jefferson, not only accused of accepting thousands of dollars to protect agents posing as drug dealers, but also charged with conspiracy for planning an armed robbery of the undercover agents.
Two other former JPD officers, Terence Jenkins and Anthony Payne, Junior, also charged with accepting bribes.
Now, a veteran officer and SWAT team member with almost 20-years on the department is busted for bribery. Sgt. Richard McGahey charged with taking a bribe for granting a field release.
Assistant Chief Lee Vance said, "This was not an investigation that was done between our two departments. Our notification came late last week and that's about the extent of my knowledge about it."
The State Attorney General's Office is conducting the investigation with the FBI.
"It's disheartening, you know, being a prosecutor my entire career to see one of our law enforcement officers taking a bribe to get rid of a case and so I wanna make sure that we aggressively prosecute this case and as I said, law enforcement officers should be held to a higher standard and we wanna make sure the public know when this case is resolved that there's been justice done," said Attorney General Jim Hood.
More than a decade ago, nearly a dozen Jackson police officers were caught up in an FBI sting operation that ended a bribery charges against the officers. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for a department the size of Jackson's to have such problems, but as Jackson police Chief Rebecca Coleman said in a February interview, "We're not going to back off our position that there will not be any corruption in the Jackson Police Department. When we find it, we'll cut it out."
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