NIKETA BANKS PRESS RELEASE

February 19, 2025

District Attorney Daniella M. Shorter-Levy announced the conviction of Niketa Rochelle Banks on one (1) count of Furnishing Contraband to an Offender. Niketa Rochelle Banks appeared before the Honorable Judge Tomika H. Irving in Copiah County Circuit Court and pleaded guilty to the aforementioned charge. Judge Irving withheld acceptance of the plea of guilty and placed Banks in the District Attorney’s Pretrial Intervention Program for a period of three (3) years.

If she fails to complete the Pretrial Intervention Program, Banks faces up to fifteen (15) years incarceration in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and a fine in the amount of $25,000.00.

As a condition of the program, Banks was ordered to pay $3,600.00 to the District Attorney’s Office for administrative fees, $60.00 assessment to the Mississippi Crime Lab, court costs in the amount of $427.50.

Should this case have proceeded to trial, the prosecution would have shown that on January 22, 2024, Ms. Banks dropped off two (2) bars of dove soap to be delivered to an inmate. Upon inspection of the items, detention officers found three (3) rolls of tobacco in each of the bars of soap.