Greenville MS- On August 21, 2018, Washington County Circuit Judge Carol White Richard accepted the guilty pleas of Ladarrian Coleman, 19 yoa, for two separate violent felonies. Coleman was charged and pled guilty to a 2014 armed robbery and pled guilty to the 2015 killing of Jimmy Dawson. These crimes both occurred in Greenville, Mississippi.
The 2014 armed robbery stemmed from officers with the Greenville Police Department responding to a 911 call from the victim and his father. Coleman and several other individuals had approached the victim as he returned home and they were armed with several deadly weapons. They demanded that the victim give up his wallet and any money that he had on his person. The other defendants with Coleman on that night previously pled guilty to their involvement with this crime. Judge White-Richard sentenced Coleman to the recommendation of the District Attorney’s Office to fifteen years with the Mississippi Department of Corrections with the first ten years of that sentence to be served in custody. Under the laws of the State, Coleman must serve that ten year sentence day-for-day without the possibility of parole.
In the 2015 murder of Dawson, Judge White-Richard accepted Coleman’s guilty plea to Second Degree murder. Coleman was charged with the killing of Jimmy Dawson who after answering a knock at his door was shot one time in the chest. According to the statement that Coleman gave to law enforcement but later tried to recant, Coleman had seen Dawson at a local store earlier that evening and had decided to rob him at his home. Coleman pled open to the charge, without accepting a plea offer from the State, and after a lengthy sentencing hearing was sentenced by Judge White-Richard to twenty-five years with the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Coleman will have to serve the first twenty years of his sentence in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. The sentence in this charge will run at the same time as the armed robbery charge and must be served day for day.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys John Herzog Jr., Takiyah Perkins and M. Austin Frye. Herzog said that “Without the efforts of the Greenville Police Department and their hard work to hold Coleman to account for his crimes, the victims in these matters would have been denied the justice that they deserved.”
Contact: W. Dewayne Richardson District Attorney, Fourth Circuit Court District | 662-378-2105