Consultant pleads guilty in Mississippi prison bribery case
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) – A business and government consultant has pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge, admitting he paid thousands of dollars in kickbacks to the former head of Mississippi’s prison system and a county supervisor on the Gulf Coast.
The Sun Herald reports the attorney for Robert Simmons says Simmons considered the payments “the cost of doing business in Mississippi.” Evidence shows Simmons’ clients received contracts worth millions of dollars.
The 60-year-old Simmons pleaded to the bribery charge Thursday in U.S. District Court in Gulfport. Sentencing is set for May 26.
Simmons admitted that between 2005 and August 2014, he bribed then-Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps and a Harrison County supervisor whose name was not mentioned during the plea hearing. Epps has pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing in a bribery case.
