Search Results

From ClarionLedger:

Famed anti-tobacco lawyer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs has been ordered to report to a federal prison in Ashland, Ky., next month to start serving his five-year sentence for attempting to bribe a Mississippi judge.

Documents filed Wednesday in federal court in Oxford also showed Scruggs’ son, Zach, will go to a federal prison in Pensacola, Fla., to serve his 14-month sentence for failing to report the crime.

Sidney Backstrom, also convicted of attempted bribery and sentenced to 28 months, previously was ordered to report to the prison in Forrest City, Ark.

Dickie Scruggs and Backstrom are each to report to prison by Aug. 4. Zach Scruggs was told to report by Aug. 15.

In documents filed with the court Tuesday, Zach Scruggs asked that he and his father both be sent to the prison in Forrest City, Ark.

Zach Scruggs said that sending them to the same prison would “ease the travel burden” on his family, especially his “health-embattled mother,” Diane, who has Crohn’s disease, a gastrointestinal disorder.

Dickie Scruggs was indicted in November along with his son and Backstrom after another attorney wore a wire for the FBI and secretly recorded conversations about the plan to bribe Lafayette County Circuit Judge Henry Lackey.

Read the Rest…

Mississippi’s embarrassment…and the end of Jim Hood’s career.  Our sources on the ground tell us that this episode is not quite over for Jim Hood.  From Legal News Line:

With a major campaign donor preparing to go off to federal prison for five years, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said Friday justice had been served.

Famed plaintiffs attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs has long been a supporter of Hood, and the two were accused of a very close working relationship in Hurricane Katrina cases by federal prosecutors.

Scruggs accepted a five-year prison sentence Friday, more than three months after pleading guilty to a judicial bribery scheme in a dispute over attorneys fees. Fellow conspirator Sidney Backstrom received a 28-month sentence.

“It’s a sad day for the judicial system of our state,” Hood said. “No one wins in such situations, but by these sentences and the earlier convictions, justice has been served.

“Hopefully, our system has been strengthened, not weakened, and we can move forward to better serve the citizens of Mississippi.”

Hood received his share of criticism for not pursuing state charges against Scruggs and another campaign contributor who pleaded guilty to a judicial bribery scheme in January, Joey Langston. Hood has said that prosecuting them would be like charging a member of his family with a crime and deferred to local district attorneys.

Read the Rest…

What Mississippi’s Democrat A.G. continues to miss on all of this is the point. Mr. Scruggs played politics throughout this entire process – he gave money to political organizations so he could further his own business interests – so the “ruinous” decline began long before Mr. Scruggs got caught trying to bribe a judge.

Attorney General Jim Hood questioned the head of the state Republican Party’s motives in calling Monday for an independent counsel to investigate the relationship between him and trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs and his associates.Hood said in a statement, “The federal government is handling these cases. The district attorneys of the state of Mississippi are, in essence, independent prosecutors, and my office has made available to them every resource we possess should they decide to pursue state charges.” But given the Republican Party’s sudden pronouncement in this matter, the question must be asked: Has this entire sad and disappointing chapter in Mississippi history dissolved into ruinous partisan politics? For the sake of our citizens, I hope not.”

Read the Rest…

If it hasn’t happened already, some savvy producers at the television networks are already working on this story to take it national. This whole mess has been a real headline factory for Mr. Hood – sadly for him a negative headline factory.

Mr. Hood recently admitted under oath that he had met with Balducci and Patterson. But he’s denied he was influenced and last week insisted that “The decision on whether to indict State Farm Insurance Company was based solely on the advice of senior prosecutors in our office . . . I am too hardheaded to be influenced by outside forces — I do what I think is right for the working people of Mississippi.” Mr. Scruggs’s attorney did not return our phone call.

Mr. Hood’s close ties to these characters nonetheless raise questions about his prosecutorial judgment on issues that go well beyond State Farm. The AG was asked recently why his office wasn’t prosecuting the alleged bribers (including lawyer Joey Langston, who has pleaded guilty in a separate bribery case). He admitted that his connections to the accused meant that going after them would be “like prosecuting a relative.” Those ties include lucrative contracts that he’s awarded to those lawyers, who in turn have lavished him with campaign donations.

Read the Rest…

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said in an e-mail that Richard “Dickie” Scruggs did not influence the state’s decision not to indict State Farm for breaching contracts with coastal customers after Hurricane Katrina.

Courts records released early this week revealed a “confidential human source” (Timothy Balducci), told FBI agent William Delaney that Scruggs promised to pay him and law firm partner Stephen Patterson $500,000 to convince Hood to drop the criminal investigation into State Farm.

State Farm would not pay a $26.5 million settlement while the criminal investigation was ongoing.

Patterson and Balducci, acquaintances of Hood, went to dinner with him in December 2006 and discussed the investigation.

Read the Rest… 

If he wasn’t so hot on being A.G. then why on earth did the man run for AG in 2003? What’s more, why run again in 2007? It’s not like there was this great big “Draft Jim Hood” movement out there in Mississippi. And does this guy really believe that every corporation is a wrongdoer on Americans? When did Hood stop being a John Kerry Democrat and start being a Ralph Nader Democrat? It’s almost as if his legal and philosophical idol isn’t the former Democrat A.G. Mike Moore – widely respected through out Mississippi, but rather Flint, Michigan native Michael Moore.  Of course Michael Moore probably wouldn’t be such a fan of campaign contributors getting first come first serve state contracts that pay millions of dollars either.

A State Farm attorney suggested during a court hearing earlier this month that Scruggs dispatched Balducci and Patterson with a message for Hood: Scruggs, a political force with deep pockets, would support another candidate for attorney general if Hood charged State Farm with a crime.Hood scoffed at the notion on Wednesday.

‘‘I didn’t care who (Scruggs) supported. I wasn’t crazy about being attorney general anyway,’’ Hood said, adding that he preferred being a district attorney.

Hood pointed out that the FBI document, based on an interview with Balducci, did not say Hood took any money or indicate any wrongdoing on his part. Hood said the reason he didn’t file criminal charges against State Farm at the time was because he didn’t have enough evidence to prove the insurer violated state law.

Read the Rest…

Mississippi super trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs, a man who knows his way around the law, is going to plead the 5th if asked to provide testimony in a lawsuit involving himself, and Democrat A.G. Jim Hood. All those trial lawyer donors to Jim Hood, all those cases for Dickie Scruggs…the wheels are starting to come off this thing for these boys.

Plaintiffs attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, facing corruption and contempt charges in unrelated cases, will invoke the Fifth Amendment if forced to testify in a federal lawsuit involving Mississippi’s attorney general, according to court records.Scruggs is scheduled for a deposition Friday in a lawsuit filed by State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. The insurer accuses Attorney General Jim Hood of using the threat of a criminal investigation to force settlements in civil litigation over Hurricane Katrina damages.

In court documents filed Wednesday, State Farm said Scruggs and Hood were conspirators in an “extortion conspiracy.”

Read the Rest…

First, in case you missed this last week from the Jackson, MS Clarion Ledger:

Booneville lawyer Joey Langston’s guilty plea and former State Auditor Steve Patterson agreeing to plead guilty to corruption charges is hammering home a theme begun last year with a judicial bribery scandal that Mississippi’s legal system is in serious need of reform.

In federal court documents, Langston admitted he tried to influence a state judge; Patterson, in a document unsealed Monday, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery of an elected official.

For those of you who watch state and local contests, in particular attorneys general races, this is huge news. Some major donors to the Democratic Attorneys General Association, DAGA, have been permanently removed from the playing field. There is some real money that just dried up for the forseeable future for the Dem AGs group.

You know, if you’re the folks over at the DAGA, with all of those Democrat Attorneys General, with names like Andrew Cuomo, Jerry Brown, Catherine Cortez Masto, Terry Goddard, and Lisa Madigan – just to name a few – maybe you give some good hard thought to returning any and all money you’ve received from the likes of Joey Langston and Company – because you’d hate to have that come up later.  As an aside, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog has done a great job tracking this story.

Perhaps no other lawyer in Mississippi seemed to try harder – and with more apparent success – to emulate Scrugg’s lifestyle and public demeanor than did Booneville attorney Joey Langston. Langston, whose firm was founded by his father, Joe Ray Langston, had some advantages as a young man that the hardscrabble Scruggs did not.Langston gradated from the Ole Miss School of Law in 1983 and went into practice with his father that same year. In 1986, Langston became the lead lawyer in the firm when Joe Ray Langston died.

Read the Rest…