U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Sumner of the Southern District of Mississippi sentenced Haynes to a term of three years probation and six months home confinement with electronic monitoring (employment and employment training permitted). Haynes was ordered to pay a $1,500 fine and $100 restitution for this offense. The judge also ordered Haynes to pay $100 in restitution to the victim. As part of his plea agreement, Haynes, who was fired from the Jackson Police Department, has agreed not to work as a law enforcement officer for any federal, state or local law enforcement agency for three years.

Haynes previously pleaded guilty and admitted during his April 2, 2009, plea hearing that he abused his authority as a law enforcement officer on June 21, 2008, when, while off-duty, but in uniform, he stopped and searched two men without cause or legal justification and stole $100 from one of the men. Haynes agreed that his conduct violated federal law and the constitutional rights of the two men.

The case was investigated by the FBI. The case was prosecuted by Trial Attorney Erin Aslan of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Glenda Haynes of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi. The defendant is not related to and has no known relationship to AUSA Haynes.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi charges that Edward and Barbara Hamilton, the former managers of the mobile home park, unjustly sought to evict a black couple and their five minor children who had moved there after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina. According to the complaint, the Hamiltons attempted to evict the family and other black residents for allegedly violating the rules of the park, but did not attempt to evict white residents for as many or more violations. The complaint also alleges the Hamiltons harassed and intimidated black tenants. The suit names as a defendant Indigo Investments LLC, the owner of Homestead Mobile Home Park at the time the Hamiltons managed the park.

“No one should have to suffer harassing, unequal treatment from a landlord based on one’s race or color,” said Loretta King, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Justice Department will vigorously prosecute any landlord who engages in racial discrimination in violation of the Fair Housing Act.”

The lawsuit arose from a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by two black residents of Homestead. The complainants also sought assistance from the Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center, a private, non-profit fair housing organization which provided additional information to HUD. After investigating the complaint, HUD issued a charge of discrimination and after one of the respondents named in HUD’s charge elected to have the case heard in federal court, the case was referred to the Justice Department. The suit also alleges that the defendants’ conduct constitutes a pattern or practice of discrimination or a denial of rights to a group of persons.

“It’s hard enough for families recovering from catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina to put their lives back together, without also having to face housing discrimination,” said John Trasvina, HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “HUD in partnership with the Department of Justice works to ensure there is no room for racial discrimination in a Mississippi mobile home park or anywhere else in the nation.”

The lawsuit seeks monetary damages for those harmed by the defendants’ actions, civil penalties and a court order barring future discrimination.

Individuals who may have information related to this lawsuit should contact the Justice Department at 601-965-4480 or toll free at 1-800-896-7743. Fighting illegal housing discrimination is a top priority of the Justice Department. Visit the Civil Rights Division’s Web site at http://www.usdoj.gov/crt for more information about the laws it enforces.

The complaint is an allegation of unlawful conduct and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. The allegations must still be proven in federal court.

Seale was convicted by a federal jury in Mississippi in 2007 and sentenced to three life terms in prison. The jury determined that Seale and other Klansmen conspired to abduct, interrogate, beat and eventually murder Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charlie Eddie Moore, both 19 years old at the time of their murders.

Seale appealed his convictions, arguing that a 1972 amendment to the federal kidnapping statute changed the statute of limitations to five years. In September 2008, a three-judge panel agreed with Seale, overturning his convictions. The United States successfully urged the full court to rehear the case and, in the meantime, to keep Seale in jail. Today, a divided court upheld the trial court’s decision to deny Seale’s motion to dismiss the indictment based on the statute of limitations. The appeal will return to the original three-judge panel to resolve the remaining issues.

“We are pleased with today’s decision rejecting the argument that it was too late to bring Seale to justice,” said Loretta King, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.

Based on evidence presented at trial, the jury determined that on May 2, 1964, Seale and his accomplices abducted Dee and Moore and drove the two young men into the Homochitto National Forest in Franklin County, Miss., where the Klansmen beat the victims, interrogated them at gunpoint and bound the two men with duct tape. The Klansmen then drove the victims to Parker’s Landing in Warren County, Miss., passing through the state of Louisiana, where the Klansmen secured Dee and Moore to heavy objects and threw them into the Old Mississippi River, drowning them.

Seale is the first and only individual to be convicted for participating in the kidnapping and murders.

The conviction of James Ford Seale is the result of the investigative work of the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, the Adam’s County Sheriff’s Office and the Mississippi Department of Public Safety also assisted in the investigation. This case was prosecuted by Dunn Lampton, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, and Special Litigation counsel Paige Fitzgerald and trial attorney Eric Gibson, both of the Civil Rights Division. The appeal was handled by attorney Tovah R. Calderon, also of the Civil Rights Division.

Under the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department is authorized to ask the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to send federal observers to areas that are specially covered in the act or by a federal court order. Federal observers will be assigned to monitor polling place activities for the election in the town of Cleveland based on the special coverage provisions. The observers will watch and record activities during voting hours at polling locations in this jurisdiction, and Civil Rights Division attorneys will coordinate the federal activities and maintain contact with local election officials. In addition, Justice Department personnel will monitor the municipal elections in the towns of Como, Meridian and Sardis for compliance with the Voting Rights Act.

Each year, the Justice Department deploys hundreds of federal observers from the Office of Personnel Management, as well as departmental staff, to monitor elections across the country. In calendar year 2008, for example, 1,060 federal observers and 344 Department personnel were sent to monitor 114 elections in 76 jurisdictions in 24 states. To file complaints about discriminatory voting practices, including acts of harassment or intimidation, voters may call the Voting Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division at 1-800-253-3931.

More information about the Voting Rights Act and other federal voting laws is available on the Department of Justice Web site at www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/.

At his guilty plea hearing on Jan. 30, 2009, Sullivan admitted that he used excessive force on July 22, 2005, after joining other law enforcement officials in the apprehension of a man who led police on a car chase. At the end of the chase, Sullivan pulled the man from his car and repeatedly stomped on his head as the man lay face-down in the street. A local hospital treated the man for injuries sustained during the assault.

This case was investigated by the Jackson office of the FBI, and was prosecuted by Trial Attorney Patti Sumner of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Glenda Haynes of the Southern District of Mississippi.