Former Mississippi Mayor Arrested For Second Time, Faces Drug Charges

Maurice Howard was kicked out of office after embezzling funds from City Hall.

Former Aberdeen Mayor Maurice Howard has been arrested once again. The Mississippi mayor has been sentenced to four years in prison for violating the terms of his suspended sentence for his past crimes.

The former mayor pled guilty to embezzlement while he was still mayor and had an unreleased list of suspended sentence guidelines to follow. He was kicked out from office after he was investigated and found to have used city-designated money for personal use while traveling. He used the money he received from the city for conferences and other political events. Howard was removed from his position but wasn’t sentenced to any jail time for the embezzlement.

Howard has been arrested in the past. In 2023 he was taken into police custody during a Monroe County drug bust. Officers raided two separate CBD stores on Dec. 21, 2023. Several arrests were made in relation to the incident.

According to the police reports, the suspects picked up in the raids included “Daniel Sanders who was charged with the sale of narcotics. Kenyatta Howard who was charged with possession of narcotics with intent to distribute. Maurice Howard who was charged with the sale of narcotics and possession of narcotics with intent to distribute, and Vernon Harrison who was charged with sale of narcotics.”

For his crimes, Howard will serve four years under the Department of Corrections, and at that point he’ll be on probation for five years.

Mississippi Sheriff Kevin Crook said the arrested individuals were picked up when The Gas Station on Commerce Street in Aberdeen was raided. The Gas Station is located right across the street from City Hall, where Maurice Howard used to serve as the mayor of Aberdeen.

The stores were raided in tangent to one another on Main Street because the stores reportedly illegally sold marijuana.