A Mississippi lawyer, Cory Ferraez, turned himself in after nearly a month of evading authorities for allegedly failing to pay over $450,000 from a wrongful death settlement.
According to WCBI News in Columbus, Hattiesburg lawyer Cory Ferraez of Lowndes County was detained Monday on a civil contempt charge. The Tenth District Chancery Court issued an arrest warrant on June 19.
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The Perry County Sheriff’s Office arrested Ferraez after he voluntarily appeared in court in Forrest County. He came there to present a motion to overturn the court’s incarceration order against him, according to Court Administrator Gloria Moorer.
Ferraez faces allegations stemming from Stephen Ray “Fuzzy” Weatherford’s 2022 wrongful death settlement. Ferraez, the estate’s attorney, was tasked with keeping the $450,000 in a trust account until the debts and costs were cleared. He missed three court appearances between November 2024 and April 2025 to address the case’s status.
After missing a June 16 hearing and a June 18 deadline to transmit the monies to the chancery clerk’s office for the single beneficiary, Sylvia Weatherford, he was arrested. During Monday’s hearing, Ferraez claimed mental health concerns, drug and alcohol addiction, and a lack of personnel as reasons for his inability to comply, requesting to attend rehabilitation rather than incarceration.
