SALISBURY MAN JAILED FOR STEALING $81,000
FROM HIS FATHER

Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr. announced that John T. Coleman, Jr., 28, of the 700 block of Shiloh Lane in Salisbury, was sentenced after having pleaded guilty last March in the Circuit Court for Dorchester County to felony insurance fraud. The conviction followed a joint investigation conducted by the Office of the Attorney General, the Insurance Fraud Division of the Maryland Insurance Administration and the Maryland State Police. The Honorable Brett W. Wilson sentenced Coleman to five years’ incarceration suspending all but nine months of that sentence. Upon his release, he will be placed on five years probation. He was also ordered to pay $81,200.00 in restitution.

In a statement of facts presented by the prosecutor, the Court learned that Coleman, in June of 2003, submitted false documentation to an insurance company after the death of his mother and stole approximately $81,200.00 in life insurance proceeds to which his father, John T. Coleman, Sr., was entitled. Pending charges against Cambridge residents, George and Barbara Meekins, allege that they conspired with John T. Coleman, Jr. to carry out that scheme. An additional charge alleges that George Meekins also stole approximately $31,000 in death benefit beneficiary proceeds from the Maryland State Retirement System in January of 2004 to which John Coleman, Sr. was also entitled. A trial date has been set for July 26, 2006. A criminal indictment is merely an accusation of wrongdoing and every individual is presumed innocent until the charges are proven by the State