A judge left a Hinds County courtroom nearly four years ago dissatisfied after accepting a guilty plea from Mississippi’s disgraced former welfare director John Davis for his part in a sprawling scheme to misspend money intended to help some of the state’s poorest residents.
“Even with the questions that have been asked, this court is still not understanding what actually took place and more importantly, what would’ve caused you to perform these particular acts,” Hinds County Circuit Judge Adrienne Wooten said to Davis by the end of his plea hearing in September 2022.
Davis finished his seventh day of testimony Wednesday in a federal criminal trial of his alleged co-conspirator, former pro wrestler, Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr.
Davis agreed to aid the government in its prosecution of other alleged members of the sprawling welfare fraud scheme. He had been described as a star witness for the prosecution against DiBiase, to whom Davis had pushed $3 million in welfare contracts.
Jurors rubbed their faces, closed their eyes and rocked back and forth in their chairs Wednesday as the former welfare director’s tale unraveled. One yawned.
On Tuesday, Davis testified he and DiBiase took their legitimate work – a leadership development training program called Law of 16 – all the way up to Congress. By Wednesday, Davis admitted he ordered nonprofit organizations to pay DiBiase $250,000 up front and, after seeing no work product, ordered them to award the ex-WWE wrestler an additional $1 million.
When asked if it was inappropriate to make cash advance payments, Davis responded, “If it’s not legal, it’s inappropriate.”
To elicit this testimony from Davis, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Meynardie had to ask Davis specific yes or no questions – a process Meynardie noted was done “rather tediously.”
Davis was repeatedly interrupted by objections from DiBiase’s defense, and those objections were often followed by long discussions at the judge’s bench muffled by blaring white noise.
DiBiase’s case is the only to reach a criminal trial in a scandal in which officials frittered away tens of millions of dollars from a federal welfare grant. Seven other people, including Davis, have pleaded guilty.
DiBiase is facing 13 criminal counts including conspiracy, wire fraud, theft of federal funds and money laundering.
On Tuesday, the defense introduced a large whiteboard, asking Davis – who was chosen to lead the welfare agency by then-Gov. Phil Bryant in 2016 – to help create an organizational chart of the state’s welfare delivery system during his tenure, with the governor on top, followed by MDHS and its various officers, nonprofit organizations and other agency contractors.
From black string tied underneath the whiteboard, the defense hung a card labeled “independent contractors” – a category intended to represent DiBiase. His lawyers meant for it to show the jury how far removed DiBiase was from the people accountable for welfare spending.
Over several days of testimony, prosecutors made Davis answer why he used affectionate language in text messages with DiBiase (the defense noted he talked like that with other employees) and whether he planned to retire to a compound with DiBiase’s family. During defense questioning, the former director told of how he conducted his work with DiBiase in plain view of state and federal officials and repeatedly agreed he’d always “tried to do the right thing.”
Citing contradictions, DiBiase’s lawyer Eric Herschmann tried to argue that the prosecution had elicited false testimony from Davis. The attorney took issue with a previous line of questioning by the prosecution that asserted Davis had “hidden” DiBiase’s contracts from MDHS’s lawyers and alleged that the prosecution had withheld evidence from the jury.
U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves considered the argument, but he ultimately brushed it aside.
“It’s literally all over the place with this particular witness,” the judge said, referencing Davis, without jurors present Wednesday.
Former Mississippi Department of Human Services director John Davis heads to the Thad Cochran United States Courthouse on Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayDavis’ apparent waffling could be summed up by testimony from the next witness to take the stand Wednesday.
“This guy had two separate personalities,” said Weylan Shannon Lott, who goes by his middle name and was hired by Davis under the title of director of leadership and employee development.
Lott, a retired National Guard member, met Davis before he took the helm of DHS, when Lott was a graduate student and Davis was an adjunct professor at Belhaven University. Lott testified he observed an unsettling shift in Davis’ demeanor after he became director of the agency.
Some jurors laughed at Lott’s quippy testimony. He recalled when DiBiase was hired – not as an employee of DHS, but a high-paid contractor for a separate nonprofit grantee of the department – under a nebulous title along the lines of “director of sustainable change.”
After Davis left the agency in 2019, Lott said he never saw DiBiase in the office again.
“The only sustainable change I ever saw was the day those two walked out of the building,” Lott said.
Lott, who told prosecutors he had over 25 years of experience “leading soldiers,” was critical of DiBiase’s Law of 16 program.
“This was very, very elementary-at-best, training level stuff,” he said. “Stuff that with a good Google search in about 30 minutes you could put together. It was not deep. It was not emotionally stimulating that would cause change to action within any organization.”
But Davis was the “chief cheerleader” of the Law of 16, Lott said, to the point that if someone didn’t take it as seriously as the director wanted, he’d order them out of the room. Davis even fired one employee for checking his phone during one of the sessions, WLBT reported.
“He knew better than to pull that with me,” Lott said.
That is, until Lott said he questioned Davis’ desire to remodel the executive floor of MDHS’s offices in the City Centre building in downtown Jackson. He said Davis sent him to meet with a construction company that wanted $250,000 up front.
When Lott attempted to tell Davis he did not think this was legal, he said Davis shouted at him: “‘Why are you and all your military buddies always accusing me of doing something illegal?’”
MORE TRIAL COVERAGE:DAY 8: In trial of ex-wrestler, Mississippi’s former welfare director testifies about appeasing politicians, trying ‘my very best’Defense for ex-wrestler seeks mistrial in welfare fraud caseDAY 7: Trump faith initiative drove decision to hire wrestler, ex-welfare chief testifies in fraud trialDAY 6: Wrestler carried out welfare-funded workshops in broad daylight, defense testimony assertsDAY 5: Welfare director texted wrestler who was his high-paid aide about ‘money bags,’ testimony showsDAY 4: Feds ask disgraced former welfare director ‘million-dollar question’: Why? Loneliness and loveDAY 3: Wrestler’s multimillion dollar ‘self-help curriculum’ helped crack open a wider welfare scandalDAY 2: Opening statements in welfare scandal trial paint former director as villain who doled out millions over infatuationDAY 1: 83 witnesses could enter the ring in Mississippi welfare scandal trialTRIAL PREVIEW: Ex-WWE wrestler faces feds in first – and potentially only – criminal trial in Mississippi welfare scandal
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