The former CEO of Greenwood, Mississippi-based Express Grain has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to immediately pay $69.8 million in restitution after pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud while working for the company.
John R. Coleman was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the District of Northern Mississippi on Jan. 30, 2025. As part of the judgement, the court released a list of 152 farmers and institutions to whom Coleman is ordered to pay restitution. Coleman was arrested on six-count indictment on wire fraud charges that came in connection with Express Grain’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.
In a plea agreement signed by Coleman, he admitted that he “did devise and intend to devise a scheme to defraud” farmers, UMB Bank and the Mississippi State Board of Agriculture and to obtain money by means of false and fraudulent pretenses.
