Mayor supports teen amid plea in carjacking
Jackson Mayor Frank Melton said he isn’t going to give up on a Jackson teen he’d taken into his home who was sentenced Friday to serve three years in prison for armed carjacking and extortion.
On the recommendation of special prosecutors in the case, Circuit Judge Swan Yerger sentenced Taylor to 10 years in prison with seven years suspended and three to serve.
With credit for time served, Taylor could be out in less than two years.
Taylor is required to get his high school equivalency diploma and attend anger management and alcoholism treatment classes.
“He is too good of a kid to give up on,” Melton said Friday. “I will be there for him when he gets out.”
Taylor had lived with Melton on and off prior to being incarcerated in July of last year.
Although Taylor pleaded guilty to carjacking, Melton reiterated Friday prior statements that the 18-year-old never carjacked the woman’s vehicle but did attempt to extort her. Melton previously alleged the woman had swapped her car for drugs, but neither he nor the Jackson Police Department had evidence of that.
“He has always told the truth from day one about what happened,” Melton said of Taylor.
Taylor was one of the young males with the mayor and his police bodyguards in August 2006 when they took a sledge hammer to a Ridgeway Street duplex the mayor said was a drug house. Melton and his bodyguards were acquitted in April 2007 of criminal charges resulting from the incident.
Clarion Ledger
6/7/8
Magnolia Tribune
