A former Ole Miss student from Alpharetta is expected to plead guilty today to charges stemming from a noose strung around a campus statue of James Meredith, the first black student to integrate the university.

Graeme Phillip Harris faces up to one year in jail and a $100,000 fine for using a threat of force to intimidate African-American students and staff at the University of Mississippi.  The guilty plea likely means he will not be prosecuted on a second count of conspiracy to violate civil rights.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mills is scheduled to take the plea in Oxford this afternoon.

After Harris' indictment in March, he initially entered a plea of not guilty. His attorney denied Harris himself put the noose around the statue in February, 2014.  The national office of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity suspended its Ole Miss chapter after the incident.

No state charges were filed.  In announcing the federal indictment, then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder labeled the act "shameful and ignorant."  He called it an insult to all Americans.

Harris is no longer enrolled at the university.