In 1990 Coleman was a resident of Mobile, Alabama. During that year a Chicago, Illinois grand jury indicted Coleman on passport fraud charges. The government accused Coleman of gaining a passport under the name of a newborn baby who died years prior to the application. According to Redding Pitt, a federal government attorney from Montgomery, Alabama, Coleman missed the bail hearing and appeared in Europe. While away from the United States, Coleman sought asylum in Sweden, though Sweden denied his residency application. Coleman accused the federal government of prosecuting him to try to silence Coleman's knowledge of the crash of Pan Am Flight 103.