Defense attorneys for Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr. asked a federal judge to let the jury hear a radio spot the former pro wrestler recorded with another celebrity enmeshed in Mississippi’s sprawling welfare scandal – Brett Favre.
“One thing I’m excited about is now meeting all these Mississippians who have had success and now are using their platforms to help,” DiBiase said in the undated clip after introducing the NFL legend and Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback. “It’s being responsible and a good steward of what we’ve been given.”
Around the time of the recording, DiBiase was receiving millions of Mississippi welfare dollars meant to alleviate or prevent poverty in the poorest state in the nation. The defense argued Tuesday that the spot is one piece of evidence of the work DiBiase conducted in a good-faith effort to fulfill his role as an independent contractor for nonprofit organizations working with the dysfunctional welfare agency.
The prosecution, meanwhile, has described such efforts as falling outside the scope of services for “sham” contracts the wrestler received to provide temporary food assistance in north Mississippi and leadership training services.
DiBiase is the only defendant to face a criminal trial in Mississippi’s welfare scandal, though seven people have pleaded guilty. He is being tried on federal charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, theft and money laundering.
Nancy New walks to the Thad Cochran United States Courthouse on Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King, Mississippi TodayU.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves asked attorneys questions about how the recording could be authenticated. He ultimately ruled that the jury would not hear it, and DiBiase’s mother responded by thwacking a notebook on the courtroom bench where she was sitting. The defense continued to reference the recording as it completed its cross-examination of Nancy New.
New was the founder of Mississippi Community Education Center, which was one of two nonprofits deputized by the head of MDHS from 2016 to 2019, John Davis, to take over some of the agency’s functions. They called their partnership Families First for Mississippi.
Davis and New both pleaded guilty to their roles in the welfare fraud scheme in 2022. Prosecutors alleged that Davis contracted with New’s organization with the understanding she would fund his desires.
One such wish, New testified, was the contracts with DiBiase. She also described various examples of work she saw DiBiase complete: A SuperTalk radio spot, a commercial filmed at Nissan and trucking company KLLM, an hour-long talk at a Families First conference in northeast Mississippi on “significance versus success.”
New said she reviewed DiBiase’s unfinished Law of 16 curriculum, a self-help program he was designing with Davis. She talked about a teen rally in the Mississippi Delta where DiBiase spoke.
“He always showed up and did all of that work for me,” she said.
But when the prosecution asked New if that work fell within the “scope of services” of the contract DiBiase signed, she paused before finally concluding it did not.
The defense repeatedly asked New to talk about how DiBiase contributed to the “sustainability” of New’s nonprofit by connecting her with donors and attending meetings across the country. This was part of DiBiase’s nebulous role as “director of sustainable change.”
The organization New rapidly built at Davis’s direction was anything but sustainable, she testified. New, a former teacher, said Davis picked her nonprofit without a competitive application process and directed her to “immediately” begin expanding services into dozens of counties in the southern half of Mississippi.
In a matter of years, the nonprofit’s revenue grew from about a couple million dollars to over $20 million due to its welfare agreements.
Despite Davis’s pushing, New said she received no template or plan from MDHS. As she tried to scale, she said she lost sight of her nonprofit’s original goal – to provide educational services.
“If we could’ve slowed down, it could’ve been a better foundation,” New said. “It was a great program. It would’ve changed Mississippi in a positive way.”
Davis – whom the prosecution and defense both asserted was the true “villain” of the DiBiase case – always wanted to get his way, New said. Early on in the formation of Families First, New said she dared to disagree with him, though she did not say about what.
“I was labeled as a troublemaker and I was kind of alienated from the group of leaders at the time,” she said.
Davis told her to leave meetings, New said. He would threaten to cut their funding.
“One time he gave us money and then he took it back, but then he gave it back,” she said.
New’s testimony was more succinct than that of her counterpart, Christi Webb, the former director of the now-defunct Family Resource Center of North Mississippi who described Davis as a bully who would cry or yell at people until they did what he wanted.
“I would say he’s truly an enigma,” New said of Davis. “I don’t want to be wishy-washy. He came across as very demanding and as a tyrant. It was going to be his way or no way. There were good sides of him, as well.”
The defense asked New if she trusted Davis’ leadership.
“He had great, he had grandiose ideas,” she answered. “Trust? I don’t know if I’d use the word trust.”
One of those ideas, New said, included directing Mississippi Community Education Center, or MCEC, to provide $10,000 to a movie theater to premier a film about DiBiase’s father, Ted DiBiase, the famed retired heel of the WWE known as the “Million Dollar Man.”
U.S. Department of Justice trial attorney Adrienne Rosen asked if there was anything about the movie that “meets MCEC’s goals”
“I think – I’m trying to be very honest and clear here,” New said. “I think for people who saw the movie who may have thought they could not accomplish certain things in life, it was an encouragement there. As far as our day-to-day goals, I don’t recall those, no.”
But would she have funded the movie without Davis’ orders?
“We would not have known to do that,” New said.
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