This article is reprinted with the permission of the Taxpayer's Channel.
Early this morning, armed agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the offices of Express Grain at the oil mill in Greenwood, as well as EG President John Coleman's home on Robert E Lee Drive.
The FBI executed search warrants at the oil mill and at the house.
Mr. Coleman was present at his home when the agents, said to number "close to a dozen," appeared to conduct the search. It was still in progress at 11:30 this morning. Mr. Coleman left soon after the FBI arrived.
The agents were taking photographs and hauling away boxes of items. Most of the agents appeared to come from Northeastern Mississippi.
The involvement of the FBI indicates that some violations of federal law are under investigation.
UMB Bank has leveled allegations of fraud against EG and Mr. Coleman. They have accused Mr. Coleman of filing numerous falsified reports to UMB Bank indicating repeatedly that EG owned more beans than it actually did, counting beans sold to others as EG's property, for purposes of obtained credit from UMB Bank that it was not entitled to under their loan agreement.
See our reporting here: UMB Bank levels new fraud accusations against John Coleman and Express Grain
Furthermore, UMB Bank claims that the audit report provided to UMB Bank by John Coleman and Express Grain differed substantially from what Horne LLP, the company's auditors, had prepared and provided to Express Grain. This was first discovered, UMB says, when the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce unsealed copies of Horne LLP's actual audit which it provided to EG originally.
On February 10, 2022, MDAC revoked EG's warehouse licenses based upon this same fraud. See our reporting here: Mississippi Department of Agriculture VOIDS Express Grain warehouse licenses due to fraud
28 comments:
The Colemans don't need to buy any new clothes.
Shit it's about time. I'm sure everything was well documented and there for them to just pick it up(sarcasm). They have had enough time to shred or dispose of everything incriminating. I am actually surprised to see he was at his home instead of some non-extraditable country with two middle fingers in the air.
If there is still a Robert E. Lee drive, I would expect it to be in Greenwood, Ms.
Coleman should run for President and then he’d be immune
Lol, Robert E Lee Drive. So much material so little time....
Mr. Coleman sure has a nice house in a nice neighborhood for someone who can't pay his bills. F**king crook.
Every report I read seems to revolve around the 'number of beans' held or claimed or missing or that never existed. This activity took place a stone's throw from Mississippi Valley State University. Don't they graduate any bean-counters over there who could be of assistance?
Meanwhile: These FBI boys ain't no bunch of Blue Ribbon Beer drinkers in white socks from Itta Bena. They've been watching this house and the perps for months. Whatever they find or don't find in this raid is not critical to the prosecution...Just icing.
Have they found even one penny of the missing money yet?
Coleman’s Bermuda turf is in excellent condition and free of weeds which indicates his lawn man has still been on the payroll conducting pre/post-emergent herbicide treatments since this scandal broke this past fall. Just a simple observation from a fellow lawn man.
His yard may be free of weeds, but it is not free of ruts.
Ruh roh, no blessings.
@7:32 PM
“His yard may be free of weeds, but it is not free of ruts.”
Hm. No sane person begins a sentence with “His.” Who is his? His is who? Not to mention the run-on sentences you’ve attempted to squeeze into one stinky, convulsive, bloody mess. Are you from Little Rock, Arkansas? “It is not free of ruts” is a complete sentence. Then you had the audacity to conjoin the two sentences via using a comma. Sigh. Free education people, use it.
Anyway, here’s the correct usage: Coleman’s yard is free of weeds but not ruts.
The hissing sound you hear from Lexington is famous plantiff lawyer Don Barrett's balloon with the latest hole poked in it. His idea to sue the bank blaming them for this entire fracas has fallen apart in his face. Granted, it was a stretch, but being raised in the King of Torts school of lawyering, he was going to sue the folks who had deep pockets; in this case, the only people that had pockets at all
It has been coming clearer and clearer that Barrett's theory of this fraud was one concocted in his stately law library. One that even sucked KF into the web of deception last fall; that the bank knew of the failings of EG but delayed action until the beans were in the silos. Now we know that the accounting statements submitted to the bank were bogus like the ones submitted to MDAC, and that Coleman's had been lying to the bank just as they had to everyone else.
Hate it for the farmers. Hate it for the banks that loaned money to the farmers. But, they were all competent business people with experience and knowledge of how grain elevators operate. They had options on how to proceed, and evidently many made a poor selection.
I don't give a damn about the Missouri bank, but I do think that the concept of suing them for the fraud of the Coleman's was bogus from the beginning. But coming from Barrett, wasn't surprised.
10:51 - Thank you. Mr. Know-it-all. In the words of the old Sarge "Lighten up, Francis."
@8:01AM
Definitely unknown.
I bet All Hat Andy is pissed he wasn’t at the raid. He hasn’t been on TV all week.Maybe its time to buy some TV ads promoting all his trade shows.
11:40. I agree with your analysis of the situation. I do not know anything about anyone's mental state, so I am not commenting on that.
I do think that the case against UMB Bank appears to be falling apart. I still don't understand the theory of the duty of the bank to do anything other than take all legal means to protect its collateral and shareholders. No one has sufficiently explain to me what duties the bank owed to the farmers and how those were violated.
Banks are not eleemosynary institutions. I think that was Justice Cardozo.
@901 you're welcome. No problem, glad you are happy to express your opinion, just as others do here daily.
@901 you're welcome. No problem, glad you are happy to express your opinion, just as others do here daily.
You mean these guys still had files and shit on scene?
Macy,
If you still don't understand that the bank had a duty to conduct itself as a reasonable bank under like circumstances, and whether the bank's extensions of the loans throughout 2021 were reasonable under the circumstances is a fact-driven inquiry, then your lack of understanding can only be the result of tunnel vision and willful ignorance. In short, the plaintiffs need to conduct discovery.
WHich Mississippi banks will take a loss on this and how much money will they lose? Will any be shut down by FDIC and sold to other banks?
@12:35. If you can show me that you UMB bank knew that there was fraud going on, and they extended or renewed loans with the intentional purpose inducing farmers to deliver their harvests to the elevator, then you might have something. I will admit that.
I'm not sure the facts will bear that out, but that is a reasonable legal Theory to me, at least.
However, I am much less convinced of the negligence. The bank is a competing creditor with the farmers. It seems like the duties that you are saying that the bank owed to the farmers are pretty favorable to a competing creditor. I'm not even sure constructive notice of the fraud is enough to support a negligence claim. I think the farmers need to show actual knowledge of the fraud on the part of the bank in order to have any shot at this.
Macy,
Not long ago I worked opposite a young lawyer who got hung up on "no duty." Even after we survived summary judgment, that attorney continued to insist that their client owed no duty to our client, as a matter of law. That defendant's payment has cleared our trust account, and I suspect the young lawyer is still arguing no duty.
-12:35
UMB bank purchased all of EG yesterday for 25 million. If UMB decides to sale EG they can't do so for more than 25 millon.
12:35, why won't you do me the favor and actually walk me through the theory, then? What duty did UMB Bank owe the farmers and, with some detail, how did the bank violate that duty?
Obviously you won on summary judgment in the case from your war story for a reason. I'm sure you explained your theory in order to obtain that victory.
Macy,
I explained my thinking on negligence and duty to you in more detail on other Express Grain posts, which I won’t repeat here.
Whether EG breached its duty and how will either be revealed in discovery, or it won’t. It’s a fact-driven inquiry, with mixed questions of fact and law. I just don’t think EG avoids discovery, i.e., is dismissed on a Rule 12 motion dismiss, on an argument of no duty. They might get out on a Rule 56 Motion for Summary Judgment, but I don’t think “no duty,” as a matter law and without discovery, is the silver bullet you seem to think it is.
In my world, there is no discovery unless I can plead a claim that states a basis for legal relief. Especially in federal court.
I don't think that discovery is necessary for the discussion of what duty, if any, the bank owed to the farmers. I'm not just screaming "no duty!" We have a situation of clear competing creditors. That raises this question.
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