not issued final findings yet. At the time of the audit, MTC had a total of 288 staff at the prison, with 165 involved in providing security. Mississippi prison corruption cases On November 6, 2014 the Federal Government of the United States announced that it had indicted Chris Epps, former Commissioner of Mississippi Department of Corrections (he resigned the day before), on corruption charges; these charges were based on his dealings with the private prison industry and were the result of a 5-year investigation. The federal indictment stated that Cecil B. McCrory, a businessperson who served as the chairperson of the Rankin County School District's board of education and who was a former state legislator, provided Epps with kickbacks and bribes totaling more than $1 million. He paid part of the mortgage of Epps' primary residence in the Jackson area, and additional bribe payments that Epps used to buy his first and second condominiums. In exchange, Epps directed contracts to McCory-owned companies for prison-services contracts, as well as to companies that hired McCrory as a paid consultant. According to the indictment, the activity started in 2007 and ended on March 12, 2014. Epps entered an initial plea of not guilty, and he received a bond of $25,000. The federal investigation had been underway for some time. In November 2014 Governor Phil Bryant ordered rebids of the contracts that had been awarded by Epps. MTC was still operating EMCF on May 19–20, 2015, when the Department of Justice conducted an audit review of prison operations. Management and Training Corporation (MTC) is a for-profit prison management company holding a $60 million contract to operate four prisons in the state, including EMCF and two county prisons. MTC said that Epps recommended McCrory as a consultant on their prison contracts but did not insist on his hire; McCrory charged them a rate of $12,000 per month. They said they had not known of any wrongdoing in his activities. MTC fired McCrory the week following the announcement of the indictments. McCrory had also served as a consultant to GEO Group, MTC's predecessor, which lost its contract as part of a settlement of a class action suit for its failures at Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility. The indictment says McCrory also consulted for Cornell Companies, GEO's predecessor at WGYCF which was merged with GEO Group in August 2010.Scott Simmons, "MTC Fires McCrory", WAPT, 10 November 2014,