Jackson, Miss., City Leader Charged in Firebombing

The city council president was accused in federal papers Friday of ordering the 1998 firebombing of a local weekly newspaper.

The allegations against council President Louis Armstrong were included in information read during a court appearance for Clinton Moses as he pleaded guilty to bombing the weekly Jackson Advocate.

The newspaper office was gutted Jan. 26, 1998, when two Molotov cocktails were thrown through a plate glass window before dawn. No one was injured.

According to the information, Armstrong, who is black, moved against the black-owned newspaper because he was upset with articles and editorials publisher Charles Tisdale had written about him.

Armstrong allegedly paid Moses, a former campaign worker, $500 to carry out the firebombing.

Just this Tuesday, Armstrong, 48, pleaded guilty to unrelated charges that he conspired to extort $28,500 from a topless-bar owner in exchange for a favorable zoning vote.

He has not been charged in connection with the bombing. U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott said there was “likely to be an announcement later about any other charges in this matter.”

The document read in court was based on statements by Moses and a lengthy investigation by federal authorities. Moses told U.S. District Court Judge Henry T. Wingate under oath the information was true.

Tisdale said following the Moses hearing that it added “another enigma to the whole puzzle” about the firebombing, and people should withhold judgment until the investigation is concluded.

In the wake of the firebombing, Tisdale and others accused law enforcement agencies of dragging their feet in tracking down those responsible.

Moses, an aide during Armstrong’s 1997 campaign, also entered guilty pleas today to two counts of bank robbery.

Robert R. McNeil, attorney for Moses, said he would not have advised his client to make the statements about the firebombing unless he believed Moses was telling the truth. He declined to comment further.