Knoxville News Sentinel
A Kentucky man convicted in a Tennessee-based fraud scheme that bilked $14 million from 164 investors in four states has been granted a presidential pardon.
Nashville attorney Ed Yarbrough said his former client, Johnny D. Phillips of Bowling Green, Kentucky, was among those granted a pardon.
Phillips was indicted by a federal grand jury sitting in Greeneville, Tennessee, in 2016 in a fraud conspiracy case involving former NASCAR driver Brian C. Rose.
Federal court records show Rose moved to Johnson City, Tennessee, in 2011. He met Phillips — a college-educated land surveyor in his early 30s — at a NASCAR race in 2011 and told Rose about a special type of coal known as Blue Gem, records show.