Bribery suspects offer teen $20,000 in cash to drop stalking charge against Alan Moran
New details are emerging in the bribery case against two men accused of offering cash to a 19 year old to get him to drop a stalking charge against former Mississippi Coast councilman Alan Joseph Moran.
Waveland police arrested Ian Schexnayder, of Pearlington, and Jeremy Cole Billings, 23, of Diamondhead, on Monday, each on a felony charge of bribery after they allegedly approached the teen at Lowe’s to offer him cash to drop the misdemeanor charge. They have since been released from the Hancock County jail, each on a $25,000 bond.
According to a police incident report obtained by the Sun Herald, the two men approached the teen outside the store and offered him $20,000 in cash, showing the estimated $5,000 in cash they had on them.
The two men told the teen he’d get the $5,000 up front and the remaining $15,000 in cash once the teen followed through with dropping the charge, the report said.
The teen at Lowe’s told the two suspects he wasn’t interested in the money and that he was going to the Waveland Police Department to report what they had done.
The alleged bribery offense occurred the afternoon of Dec. 13, the report said, and the two suspects allegedly had motorcycle helmets on when they approached the teen.
Afterward, the teen showed up at the Police Department with his mother to report the bribery allegations, and police described the teen’s mood as “visibly upset.”
The bribery allegation came just over a week after Waveland police arrested Moran on the new stalking charge from this year. He previously had been charged with similar offenses.
Both were scheduled for preliminary hearings Thursday in Waveland Municipal Court, but court action was postponed, tentatively, until February.
Moran is accused of repeatedly stalking the 19-year-old Lowe’s employee in November and offering him $20 for sex after following him around the store and then waiting for the teen outside after he got off of work to allegedly solicit him for sex.
“He was basically stalking a kid at Lowe’s and wouldn’t leave him alone,” Prendergast said. “The kid wound up coming to us and pursuing charges. It’s another boy. He was like trying to pick him up.”
According to the affidavit filed in that case, the teen said he felt so uncomfortable around Moran that he left the area he was working in at Lowe’s and went to work next to the head cashier in the front of the store.
During the encounter with Moran, the teen said Moran made sexually suggestive comments about how he thought the teen could make a quick $20 off women he worked with before offering the teen money for sex.
As a result of the new charge, the state Department of Corrections is asking Circuit Judge Christopher Schmidt to revoke the five years of post-release supervision Moran was ordered to serve as part of his sentence last year for felony child exploitation.
Moran, who remains jailed, goes before Schmidt on Thursday for a probation revocation hearing.
Moran’s new arrest comes less than a year after he became a convicted sex offender after pleading guilty to felony child exploitation and misdemeanor contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
In that case, Moran admitted to buying a teen beer and luring a teen to meet him for sex at a business owned by Moran’s father, ex-state Sen. Philip Moran. The elder Moran is now serving on the state parole board, a position he has held since his appointment to the job by Gov. Tate Reeves after the elder Moran lost his senate seat.
Judge Schmidt sentenced Moran to a 15-year suspended prison sentence for child exploitation plus five years of supervised release, meaning he didn’t have to serve the time in prison unless he violated the condition of his probation. He also was sentenced to six months in jail, suspended with 30 days to serve for a misdemeanor contributing to the delinquency of a minor conviction.
In the exploitation case, Moran admitted luring a minor teen to him by sending a message to him over the Snapchat app to ask if he wanted to work at his father’s business on Valentine’s Day 2022.
The teen met Moran at Philip’s Pest Control, the then-name of the company owned by Moran’s father but one where Alan Moran also performed work.
An investigator later testified that he saw the message sent to the teen.
After the two met up, the teen told authorities Moran took him to a pasture to look at some cattle, and then they drove around doing work in the pest control truck before Moran later stopped at his home in Diamondhead and pulled out a sex toy.
According to prosecutors, Moran offered the teen cash and a cellphone to play with the sex toy, but the teen declined.
Moran got the teen to meet up with him that Valentine’s Day to make money working for his father’s pest control company. During the drive, Moran rubbed the victim’s legs and genitals.
When the teen resisted Moran’s actions, authorities said he started saying, “’What, are you mad at me? You don’t want me to touch you there?’”
Sheriff’s investigators said the teen texted his parents, asking for help and telling them to meet him when they pulled up at Dolly’s Quick Stop.
When the teen and Moran drove up, the teen took the keys out of the truck so Moran couldn’t leave before Hancock sheriff’s deputies arrived.
The same day Moran committed the crimes against that teen, investigators said Moran spent time talking on a dating app about his sexual fantasies and how he preferred young heterosexual men for group sex. He also shared a sex tape of him and his wife.
Moran discussed those fantasies and more with 16 different men on Grindr, an Internet dating app that caters to gay men and others in the LGBTQ community.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the bribery case is continuing.
This story was originally published December 19, 2024 at 11:23 AM.
