New Hearing Held In Ted DiBiase Jr. Fraud Trial

A new hearing was held in Ted DiBiase Jr.’s fraud case. PWInsider reports that the hearing took place before the Mississippi Southern District Court earlier this week. The hearing confirmed that the current trial date of August 26th is still set, with jury selection to start on August 19th.

All experts to be called in the trial must be filed by June 20th for the prosecution and on June 27th for the defense, with all motions in the case needing to be filed by July 10th.

As previously reported, the trial in the WWE alumnus’ case was was set for August 26th after it had been previously delayed. DiBiase Jr. was charged in April with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to commit theft concerning programs receiving federal funds, six counts of wire fraud, two counts of theft concerning programs receiving federal funds, and four counts of money laundering in the Mississippi Welfare fraud scandal. He has pled not guilty and the trial was originally scheduled to start on June 20th before the government filed a motion asking for a delay due to the massive amount of discovery that both sides needed to review.

The charges are related to the scandal regarding misappropriation of funds from the Mississippi Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs. If convicted, DiBiase Jr. faces maximum penalty of five years for the charge of conspiracy, a maximum of 20 years for each wire fraud count, and a penalty of 10 years for each count of theft and each count of money laundering.