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"Attorney General Jim Hood said on Monday that pardoned convicted killer Joseph Ozment has been found in Laramie, Wyo.Ozment, along with three other convicted killers and a convicted robber, all served as trusties at the Governor's Mansion. They were among those pardoned by Gov. Haley Barbour before he left office earlier this month.There was no warrant for Ozment's arrest, but he was served with a court order that requires him to check in every 24 hours with the Mississippi Department of Corrections.\"He was driving his girlfriend's Mercedes and attempted to flee. He bumped one of our officers and sped from the parking lot as they tried to hand him the (court order). Under our law, that's sufficient service -- when you drop it at someone's feet,\" Hood said. \"He left. He returned to the hotel on foot and the Laramie police officers were there. Our officers caught him before he tried to get into the hotel room.\"Ozment had traveled to Wyoming with his fiancee, LaChina Tillman, who was buying a house there, Hood said.Hood said tips led investigators to Ozment. On Thursday, Hood said his office was ready to pay a confidential informant to locate Ozment. Hood said on Monday that reward money will go to a Wyoming resident, but he would not say how much would be paid.Hood said Ozment, who had been serving a life sentence before he was pardoned, was planning a wedding. Hood also said Ozment's fiancee may have had too much access to him while he was working as a trusty.The attorney general released a wedding announcement Monday that shows Ozment in street clothes posing with Tillman, when according to Hood, he was supposed to be a state inmate working at the Governor's Mansion.Hood said Tillman, who works as an engineer for Northrop Grumman, had access to Ozment at least 15 times last year while he was living on the grounds of the Governor's Mansion.\"Some of this activity at the mansion is really disconcerting,\" Hood said. \"The freedoms these people had -- dressing in street clothes, having visits -- I don't know if they were conjugal visits, or what they actually had there at the mansion, but it's something that I intend to try to find out some answers to as to what was going on down there.\"Ozment and the four other pardoned trusties have been ordered to appear in a Hinds County courtroom on Friday, at which time Judge Tomie Green may decide if the convicts met the legal requirements to be granted the pardons.Right now, the case involves 10 defendants but could be increased to 170 by Attorney General Jim Hood, who argues they all should have their pardons or reduced sentences thrown out.The court battle centers on whether the pardons violated the constitution, as Hood argues. State law requires an inmate to publish an application for pardon 30 days before receiving it. Most, according to Hood, didn't publish 30 days in advance.Barbour spoke this past weekend to CNN about the pardons. He blamed the Attorney General's Office for the pardon notices that did not run in newspapers for 30 days.\"It's not a criminal case. It's a civil case saying the Department of Corrections shouldn't have released these people, or shouldn't be able to release future ones because the applications were not being published in advance,\" Barbour said. \"The Department of Corrections took responsibility for publications. You know who did it? The special assistant to the attorney general, who reports to Jim Hood, wrote my office saying it's been published in the paper.  'We'll take care of the publication.' So, Jim Hood's guy failed to do the publication on time.  Which, by the way, doesn't matter in our constitution, and now Jim Hood is suing to take theses people's liberty away because his guy didn't do what he said he was going to do.\"Hood said on Monday that an attorney from his office did advise the governor's office to look at the 30-day provision.\"It is unfortunate that former Gov. Barbour has made some misrepresentations about the role of our attorney assigned to the Mississippi Department of Corrections,\" Hood said in a statement. \"At no time did our assistant attorney general assigned to MDOC advise the governor or any of his assistants that there was no requirement for publication. The comments by former Gov. Barbour are a shameful attempt to deflect blame for his office\u0092s failure to confirm that the requirements of the Constitution had been met.\"Click here to read Hood's complete response.Barbour's office said in a statement released Monday evening that there were no conjugal visits at the Governor's Mansion.\"MDOC policy allows for minimum security prisoners, like these trustees, to have visits from family and friends,\" the statement read. \"On the weekends the trustees were allowed to wear street clothes.\"A Barbour spokesperson said mansion security was always on the grounds."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.wapt.com/article/pardoned-killer-found-in-wyoming/2077548>