OCEAN SPRINGS, MS – Alderman Rickey Authement was praised by many for exposing what appeared to be a cover-up inside City Hall. Then, just two days after losing his re-election bid, he made an inexplicable reversal — and became part of the very cover-up he once condemned.
But Authement isn’t the only one changing his story.
Confidential documents obtained by GC Wire reveal that several top city officials told one story to the public and a very different one behind closed doors. In letters submitted to a state oversight board, officials now appear to defend the very conduct once criticized, raising serious questions about coordination, credibility, and whether the public was intentionally misled.
At the center of it all is Ocean Springs City Attorney Robert Wilkinson, who served as the city’s legal advisor while allegedly personally benefiting from a deal he helped bring to the city — a deal with Securix, the private company contracted to issue automated citations to uninsured motorists.
City officials, led by Authement, publicly condemned Wilkinson’s alleged conduct. Official actions were taken — motions made, votes cast, and calls for accountability echoed through board meetings.
But once the election dust settled – in documents never meant for public eyes – the stories drastically changed.
Letters Never Meant to be Seen by the Public
GC Wire reviewed a series of new letters submitted to a state oversight board by several Ocean Springs officials — including Mayor Kenny Holloway, Alderman Rickey Authement, Alderman Mike Impey, former Police Chief Mark Dunston, and City Attorney Robert Wilkinson.
The letters, marked as confidential, were submitted in response to allegations that Wilkinson personally benefitted from the city’s contract with Securix. However, the contents of the letters raise more questions than they answer.
Authement: A 180 Degree Flip Flop
In December, Alderman Rickey Authement was clear: the city attorney never disclosed his financial ties to the company that issued automated tickets across Ocean Springs.
“To this day, it’s never been disclosed to the board,” Authement said in a recorded interview. “Nobody knew.”
He didn’t just say it — he acted on it.
Back in 2023, Authement made the motion to cancel the city’s contract with Securix, citing a series of problems, including the revelation that Wilkinson’s son was running the program locally, something he said was “not a good look” for the city.
Just three months ago, he went further — motioning to remove Wilkinson as city attorney entirely, citing the undisclosed conflict of interest.
Listen to Alderman Rickey Authement clearly saying nobody knew:
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But then, two days after losing re-election, Authement signed a letter completely nullifying his past statements and actions.
“At all times during the short duration of the Securix, LLC contract, I was aware, as well as all other members of the Board, that Mr. Wilkinson was representing/involved with Securix,” Authement wrote in a letter dated April 3rd.
A complete reversal — not just of his own prior statements, but of his votes, motions, and public accountability stance.
On Monday, Authement was asked by GC Wire to clarify why he reversed his position on Wilkinson’s actions just two days after losing re-election.
Specifically, Alderman Authement was asked if he stands behind what he said in a December interview where he accused the city attorney of not disclosing his personal ties to Securix. “I told you what I told you there and that’s the bottom line,” he said.
When pressed as to whether what he said in December was the truth or his more recent contradicting statement was the truth, Authement deflected. “I’m not getting into that,” he said. “Y’all are digging up old dirt and I’m not getting involved in that.”
But it’s not “old dirt.” The letter Authement submitted to a government oversight body is just a few weeks old. Authement will remain a sitting alderman until the new Board is seated in July and has an obligation to remain truthful.
With that, Authement stayed evasive. “Doesn’t matter. I’m out of it,” he said.
The alderman’s reversal begs a lot of questions: Why did he change his story? Who asked him to? Was he pressured, or was it voluntary?
And perhaps the most important question of all: Was he lying then — or is he lying now?
Listen to what Alderman Rickey Authement says about his reversal:
Mayor Holloway Also Changed His Story
Mayor Kenny Holloway’s letter to the oversight board presents a version of events that also stands in direct conflict with his own past statements.
In the letter, Holloway claims that at the beginning of his term, he was fully aware that Robert Wilkinson was involved with Securix and that Wilkinson was not advising the city on the matter. Yet in a recently recorded phone call with the editor of the Ocean Springs Weekly Record, Holloway admitted, “It probably took six months before I even realized there was Securix going on.”
During that same call, he acknowledged serious flaws with the program — including database issues that falsely flagged insured drivers as uninsured. These statements are also contradicted in his letter, where he insists there were no issues with the Securix system.
In January, Holloway told the public that the city was investigating legal concerns surrounding City Attorney Wilkinson and the Securix contract.
“The city is aware of the current issues surrounding the Securix situation and our legal counsel,” Holloway stated at the opening of a January 7th Board of Aldermen meeting. “This is something we take very seriously and are devoting our resources to come to a prompt resolution.”
Now, in his letter to a state oversight board, he claims there was never anything to investigate.
Cut-and-Paste Defense: Who Really Wrote the Letters?
The letters submitted to the state as part of Wilkinson’s defense came from a cast of city officials, past and present, and they are suspiciously similar.
Two of the letters — those from Aldermen Authement and Impey — are nearly identical. Entire paragraphs are repeated verbatim, including the exact same incorrect date claiming the Securix program began in 2022. In reality, the City of Ocean Springs contracted with Securix in 2021.
That same timeline error appears in all four letters — including Wilkinson’s own — which raises the possibility that the letters were not written independently, but drafted from a shared template or ghostwritten altogether.
When asked if he actually wrote the letter he signed, Authement got defensive. “What did you not understand about what I just said? I am out of it.”
Recusal in Name Only
While city officials now claim Wilkinson had properly recused himself, public records suggest otherwise — exposing a deal that blurred the lines between public duty and private gain.
The Mississippi Ethics Commission calls for a conflicted city attorney to leave the room any time a vendor he has a relationship with is mentioned, is topic of debate, or if any votes are being made in regards to the vendor. The commission says the city clerk is responsible for documenting the conflicted attorney’s temporary absence in the official meeting minutes.
But none of that happened.
Wilkinson — or one of his associates from his law firm — presided over multiple Board of Aldermen meetings where the Securix program was discussed and voted on. Not once, according to official minutes, did Wilkinson or his designee leave the room.
In fact, both Authement and Holloway wrote in their letters that Wilkinson responded to public complaints about the Securix program during board meetings. That alone contradicts Mississippi Ethics Commission guidance, which states that an attorney with a personal conflict must perform a “total and complete recusal” and must not participate in any discussions.
The Conflict He Didn’t Mention
In his letter to the oversight board, Wilkinson doesn’t cite his private representation of Securix — or his son’s operational role — as the reason he recused himself from advising the city. Instead, he frames the decision as a response to inquiries he says he received from other municipalities interested in the program.
But that wasn’t the conflict.
In a January email to GC Wire, Wilkinson confirmed he was representing Securix “throughout the state and southeast” — and doing so while still serving as Ocean Springs’ City Attorney. By any ethical standard, that private representation was the actual conflict — not the fact that other cities were asking questions.
By omitting this from his letter, Wilkinson avoids addressing the heart of the allegation: he was on both sides of the deal.
‘Absolutely’: The Police Chief’s Own Words
Former Ocean Springs Police Chief Mark Dunston made a flip flop of his own.
Dunston, who once enthusiastically confirmed he was on the Securix payroll while simultaneously serving as the Ocean Springs top cop, now denies receiving payment from the company while serving in his city role.
In January, when asked directly in a GC Wire email whether he was being paid by Securix while simultaneously overseeing the program as the Ocean Springs Police Chief, Dunston replied, “Absolutely.” He confirmed he had signed a contract with Securix after the Ocean Springs program launched to help market the program to other cities.
According to Securix’s chairman, Dunston was paid $5,000 a month, while his assistant, who was also a city employee, received $2,000 monthly.
Just a few months later, Dunston made a complete reversal, now claiming that the allegation he was on the Securix payroll while simultaneously overseeing the program as Ocean Springs Police Chief is “blatantly false.”
Legal Review or Legal Illusion?
Dunston’s letter defending Wilkinson wasn’t written out of mere friendship. Today, the two men are business partners in a new ticketing venture called Intellisafe, which, like Securix, uses cameras to automatically issue citations.
The first city to sign on to the new program was Moss Point, where Wilkinson’s former law partner, Amy St. Pe, served as city attorney.
St. Pe, who is now a sitting judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals, is cited in multiple defense letters as having provided legal advice on the Securix contract. At the time, she had only recently separated from Wilkinson’s firm.
Official minutes from the May 18, 2021 Board of Aldermen meeting show the Board authorized the mayor to sign the Securix contract pending a legal review “for validity by Amy St. Pe.” Yet according to City Clerk Patty Gaston, there is no documentation of any engagement between St. Pe and the city — no contract, no invoice, no record of payment.
When asked about St. Pe’s involvement, Gaston said “there is no record” of engagement or payment by the city, but said St. Pe was seen entering an executive session at Wilkinson’s direction. The meeting was never documented in detail, and the city could not say whether any review actually took place.
With no record of the city hiring St. Pe, it raises the question of whether this was truly independent legal review — or the appearance of it, constructed by two former law partners. Some might call it oversight; others might call it legal theater.
A Coordinated Rewrite of History
The timing, tone, and near-identical phrasing in the letters reviewed by GC Wire suggest more than just shared opinions — they suggest what appears to be a coordinated rewrite. The clearest example is Alderman Rickey Authement: once the most vocal critic of the Securix deal, now one of its most surprising defenders.
But he wasn’t alone. Other officials submitted statements that echoed each other word-for-word, even repeating the same factual errors — all in a sudden effort to justify conduct they had once helped condemn.
‘It Is What It Is’
When asked why he changed his story — why he signed a letter that contradicted his own recorded words and official actions — Authement didn’t explain. He didn’t walk anything back. He just shut the door.
“I’m not saying any more. It is what it is. Done.”
That response — blunt, dismissive, and void of accountability — may say more than any formal statement. It reflects a deeper attitude that has defined the city’s response to the Securix scandal from the beginning: Don’t answer. Don’t own it. Just move on.
But for the residents of Ocean Springs — the ones who were wrongly ticketed, the ones misled, and the ones kept in the dark — it’s not over. And it’s not “done.” As long as officials keep rewriting the story, GC Wire — and the public — will keep demanding truth and accountability.
I’ve been in law enforcement for 44 years. I have one major question, where are the state and federal investigators and prosecutors? The public and the parties involved deserve to have these issues investigated and the conclusions released to either clear them or hold the responsible parties accountable. I’ve heard nothing about investigations into public corruption, collusion, even possible RICO. How deep does this go?