Defense attorneys for former pro wrestler Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr. tried to discredit the former director of a nonprofit agency who pleaded guilty to sending federal welfare money to DiBiase’s companies and testified she received virtually no services in return.
Over the course of three days, Christi Webb, former director of the now-defunct Family Resource Center of North Mississippi, told a federal jury that she funneled money to DiBiase under pressure from John Davis, the director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services from 2016 to 2019.
Webb testified that she received one item from DiBiase as he drew millions in federal funds: A list of food pantries in north Mississippi.
“Truthfully, I threw it in the garbage can,” she said.
Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr. appears in internal Mississippi Department of Human Services video message to agency workers called “Tuesday Turnaround.” Credit: Mississippi Department of Human ServicesProsecutors allege Davis was instrumental in pushing welfare and food assistance grants to DiBiase, and Webb testified to a variety of tactics Davis used to keep the money flowing.
Webb said Davis called her crying and said, “The only way I can have friends is to give them money.” He ordered her to direct funds to the wrestler, Webb said. Davis even went over her head, she testified, showing up at her Tupelo office while she was not there and demanding Webb’s staff stamp her name on checks to DiBiase for hundreds of thousands of dollars – including on the day her mother died.
Webb testified that when she refused to fund the wrestler’s companies in the fall of 2018, Davis shouted, “I’ll just pull all the money back and fund who I want to fund.”
In 2019, Webb said she got a letter from MDHS that her budget had been cut by half. She finally met with Davis a few months later in his office, and he told her why: “He took his finger on the table, and he said, ‘You drew the line in the sand when you refused to fund Teddy.’’’
Davis rejected this telling when he took the stand before Webb, saying her funding was threatened by budgetary constraints alone.
DiBiase is the only defendant to face a criminal trial in Mississippi’s sprawling welfare scandal, though seven have pleaded guilty. He is being tried on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, theft and money laundering.
The federal government described Webb – who pleaded guilty in 2023 to theft concerning federal funds – as a co-conspirator in the scheme, and U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves called her a “major witness.”
Webb led one of two nonprofits – the other being Mississippi Community Education Center founded by Nancy New – that Davis contracted with to privatize many welfare services across the state. New took the stand after Webb’s testimony concluded Monday.
The defense, which argues DiBiase was a lawful independent contractor of the nonprofits, sought to discredit Webb by reminding her of moments she said she couldn’t recall or claimed didn’t happen.
On Friday, DiBiase’s attorneys introduced a text thread of a group chat including Davis and Webb on June 26, 2018, the day Webb’s mother died. Webb had testified that her phone was off and she only found out Davis and DiBiase had visited her offices to obtain a $350,000 check when her financial officer called later that day.
But the texts showed Webb responding to Davis’s message that the pair planned to drop by the office. She wrote she had told her financial officer to prepare a check.
“This is not what you said this morning,” defense attorney Sidney Lampton said.
“I had forgotten all of that,” Webb responded.
In a particularly tense moment, Lampton sought to play a recording she claimed Webb had made of a phone call with Davis, in which Davis was explaining her funding had to be cut because of a federal government shutdown in early 2019. Webb had said she did not record such a call.
The prosecution objected several times. Reeves asked the defense how the recording undermined the government’s theory of the case.
“Your honor, it’s impeachment,” Lampton said. “She says, ‘I don’t remember ever turning this over to the government.’ It was filmed in her home.”
The recording was also important, Lampton continued to argue, because it proved Davis stopped funding Webb not because of DiBiase, but “because of a federal government shutdown, and there was no money.”
“There’s a whole lot of reasons in this record as to why people did get money and didn’t get money,” Reeves said, rejecting the argument. “So I guess we’re going to impeach on top of impeach on top of impeach.”
Former Mississippi Department of Human Services director John Davis heads to the Thad Cochran United States Courthouse, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026 in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayWith the aid of several checks she cut to DiBiase, the prosecution walked Webb through a series of events that culminated in Davis cutting her funding in retaliation, she testified.
In early 2018, the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services experienced a budget shortfall that MDHS helped plug by shuffling funds from nonprofits run by Webb and New. The agency pulled $6.5 million from FRC’s budget, Webb testified, leading to across-the-board cuts — for seemingly everyone but DiBiase.
A few days after Webb sent DiBiase a letter that his grant would be cut, she testified she got a call. It was Davis, who said she couldn’t stop funding DiBiase.
“We’re all taking a salary cut and he’s not doing anything, so we see this as $20,000 a month that we could use to provide our services with,” Webb said she responded.
Then, Davis started crying — a move the director had pulled before, she said, when he was depressed in the middle of the night.
“He said the only way I can have friends is to give them money and I’ve got to keep Teddy and he’s got to keep this grant,” Webb said. “He said that’s the only way I ever get friends and I said, John, remember you have friends, everybody thinks the world of you. The governor, his wife, they love you. Why do you think that? He said, the only way I can have friends is to give them money, and I’ve just got to give Teddy money. You cannot cut his grant. And he cried some more and I listened.”
The next contract that Webb inked with DiBiase came with $500,000 upfront, again for the services of leadership outreach coordinator. Webb said by this point, she knew she wouldn’t receive any work in return.
“The contract was real, but it was like a scam,” she said.
Not long after, Webb testified that MDHS assigned her a nearly $500,000 grant from a federal program for emergency food assistance. She wrote a budget itemizing her plans to hire four employees and buy food supplies.
When MDHS sent her the budget back, it came with a significant change. All the funds would be assigned to a category labeled “subsidies, loans and grants.” Two days later, Webb said Davis called and said DiBiase was going to be the grant administrator. All the funds would go to him.
She said she resolved not to send any more money to DiBiase. But in August 2018, the wrestler and Davis came to visit Tupelo as Webb was away from the office, preparing for a fundraiser.
The prosecution introduced a note that Webb said she wrote to herself that day: “John Davis + Teddy D came to Tupelo for the Gerald Crabb concert. He went to Debbie Underwood’s office + demanded a check for Teddy. He would (underlined twice) not (underlined once) let her call me.”
When Webb joined FRC in 2006, she said the nonprofit had three full-time employees and couldn’t afford to pay their health insurance.
After Davis took the helm at MDHS, FRC’s budget grew by millions, Webb testified. By 2017, she said the nonprofit had over 300 employees and 23 centers, from Madison County in the Jackson metro area to Tishomingo County on the Tennessee state line, providing programs free beds for needy children, English classes for Spanish speakers, and parenting classes.
FRC also started monitoring grant compliance by creating a 14-person review board. But the panel never looked at DiBiase’s contracts, she testified.
The year after Davis took over the agency, Webb testified that he told her to enter into a contract with DiBiase’s company, Priceless Ventures, for “services as a leadership training coordinator.” At the time, Webb – not a wrestling fan – said she didn’t know who DiBiase was, and she didn’t think the nonprofit needed this service, having a former community college president, a former superintendent and a former principal in its employ.
The contract came with a cash advance of $250,000, as well as an option to extend the contract for another four years, for more than $1 million.
“I see you kind of closing your eyes,” said Dave Fulcher, an assistant U.S. attorney, after he asked Webb to recall the contract specifics.
“It just makes me sick to even look at it,” she said. “It’s just bad. I just did the wrong thing.”
Webb said DiBiase did not do any of the work under the contract. After he exercised the option to extend it, she testified that she delayed his $20,833.33 payment by one month in a failed attempt to find a way out of paying him.
The prosecution alleged that Davis shared this view – at least for a moment. Fulcher introduced an October 2017 text from Davis to Webb and New.
“I get like this when I get away from the office. I have clarity of thought and you guys are problem saying what the hell is talking about,” the director wrote, with some words missing. “It just bothers me that I allowed these guys to gain access and it feels like they are using. It you dont mind tell Ted Jr. to report to my office Friday morning. We are going to engage his ass.”
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