Scruggs

I haven’t written much about the Scruggses recently, but I would be remiss if I didn’t pass along this blurb from the Sun Herald:

Dickie Scruggs received the maximum 5 years in prison in $250,000 in fines for a crime Judge Neal D. Biggers Jr. called "reprehensible." […]

Biggers ordered Scruggs to report to prison at noon Aug. 4, saying he should be housed in a facility that offers mental health and drug treatment.

I’ll defer to Folo and David Rosmiller for continuing commentary on the subject.

You’ve already probably heard this news, but in case you haven’t and were wondering about all the raucous partying occurring in Bloomington, Illinois. From an AP article at the Wall Street Journal:

Citing ethical breaches, a federal judge Friday barred a group of Mississippi attorneys once affiliated with a well-known tort lawyer from representing any policyholders in lawsuits against State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. over Hurricane Katrina damage.

U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter Jr. in Gulfport, Miss., also disqualified two key witnesses in the lawyers’ cases from testifying against State Farm or their former employer, a firm that helped the Bloomington, Ill.-based insurer adjust Katrina claims.

Senter’s rulings cited improper payments that Richard “Dickie” Scruggs [...] made to Cori and Kerri Rigsby.

The Rigsbys, of course, are the two sisters who allegedly “liberated” some apparently damning paperwork from adjusting firm they formerly worked for, and which assisted State Farm in dealing with claims in the wake of Katrina.

Seen in the Sun Herald:

Attorneys for Dickie Scruggs are asking the state Supreme Court to dismiss a Mississippi Bar complaint that calls for his disbarment as the result of his guilty plea on one charge of conspiring to bribe a north Mississippi judge.

Scruggs’ attorneys argue that the formal complaint is premature because U.S. District Judge Neal B. Biggers Jr. has not yet accepted his plea. Scruggs is represented before the Supreme Court by Michael Martz, the Mississippi Bar’s former general counsel.

Dude, you’ve admitted to bribing a judge? Regardless of where you are in the process after an admission like that, you shouldn’t get to practice law!

Folo is passing along news as it comes in about Zach pleading guilty, and likely getting probation.

If I’m not mistaken, we might soon be done with this circus.

Well, this is the second most surprising thing I’ve encountered today. (It’s been a interesting day, in an Irish curse kind of way.) From the New York Times:

One of the best-known plaintiffs’ lawyers in the country, Richard Scruggs, unexpectedly agreed to plead guilty on Friday to a criminal charge of conspiracy in the attempted bribery of a judge.[...]

The single charge — five others were dismissed under the agreement — carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the agreement.

Dickie’s son, Zach, is still reported to be heading to trial.

I’ll defer to David Rossmiller, who (among others) has been providing a good running commentary of the circus.

However, I can’t resist once again sharing some artwork I posted earlier:

Yes, I’m tardy in sharing this, but in case you haven’t seen it elsewhere, from Insurance Journal:

A federal judge dismissed a criminal contempt charge against Mississippi attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs last week, giving the prominent lawyer one less case to worry about as he fights a more serious bribery indictment.[...]

In his decision, Vinson said he was troubled by Scruggs’ actions. He said there was a “cloud of suspicion” surrounding Scruggs’ decision to give the papers to Hood instead of the Renfroe and Co.

But Scruggs can’t be cited for criminal contempt since he wasn’t formally involved in the Alabama case, Vinson said. Also, he said, Acker’s order did allow for the documents to be turned over to law enforcement, and Hood qualifies as the Mississippi attorney general.

Well, it’s probably good for Scruggs’ sake that the ruling seems to focus on jurisdiction, rather than contemptuousness in general.

So, does anyone else remember the vehement assertions that Trent’s resignation in November had absolutely nothing to do with Scruggs then-imminent indictment?

Seen in the Wall Street Journal (subscriber link):

Federal agents are investigating whether former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott knowingly played a role in an alleged conspiracy in 2006 to influence a Mississippi judge presiding over a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against famed plaintiff attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, according to people familiar with the situation.[...]

Mr. Langston admitted at the January plea hearing that he and Mr. Patterson paid $50,000 in cash in December 2005 to Ed Peters, a lawyer and close friend of Mr. Delaughter’s. In return, Mr. Peters was to act as a conduit for out-of-court communications between the Scruggs legal team and Judge Delaughter, according to testimony by Thomas Dawson, a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Oxford.

Shortly thereafter, according to court testimony, Messrs. Scruggs and Langston learned that Mr. Delaughter was interested in becoming a federal judge. “Based on this knowledge,” the prosecutor said, “Scruggs told Langston to let the judge know that if he ruled in his favor he would pass his name along for consideration regarding the federal judgeship.”

With reality being this entertaining, perhaps we didn’t need the writer’s guild to end its strike.

Seen in the Clarion-Ledger:

In court papers filed late Monday, defense lawyers argue that widespread media coverage of the case has unfairly made Scruggs a “poster-child for greed, attorney malfeasance and tort reform” and will prevent him from getting a fair trial in his hometown, Oxford, Miss.

Strangely, I don’t recall Scruggs being as concerned about insurers’ ability to get a fair trial in the post-Katrina lawsuits due to just how many judges and juries in that part of Mississippi were impacted by the storm.

Folo passed along an entertaining snippet of the motion to change venue:

The print media blitz has been supplemented by Mississippi-based web logs (blogs) that report, in excruciating detail, every event in the prosecution and defense of the Scruggs criminal case, the criminal contempt case against Scruggs in Alabama, the recently-dismissed State Farm case against Attorney General Hood and the various cases in which State Farm has sought Scrugg’s testimony. See www.yallpolitics.com; www.folo.us.

The stories at times border on the ridiculous. Articles and blog postings have detailed the Scruggs family’s annual Christmas party; the flight of the Scrugg’s private plan to Dallas for a maintenance visit; and the efforts of Joey Langston to sell his ski house at Telluride.

May I suggest that the venue be changed to, say, Hartford? I’m sure that the insurers in town would love to entertain Dickie. And I won’t bite much, I promise.
(I missed the excruciating detail of the Christmas party? Dang!)

OK, maybe a better subject line would have been “can we make this go away so I can fight the bribery charge?” Quoting Insurance Journal:

Attorneys for Mississippi attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs asked a federal judge to dismiss criminal contempt charges that he ignored a court order to turn over documents about insurance claims after Hurricane Katrina.[...]

A defense lawyer told U.S. District Judge C. Roger Vinson that Scruggs hopes to put the Katrina case to rest and concentrate on unrelated federal charges filed in Oxford, Miss., where Scruggs is accused of conspiring to bribe a judge in a dispute over $26.5 million in legal fees.

“We just want to get out of here and go deal with the problems in Mississippi,” Scruggs attorney John W. Keker said during a hearing.

In case you wanted more information or were looking for the gory details on the Scruggs alleged bribery saga and related circus, it appears that someone’s trying to accumulate the relevant information in wiki form.

Meet WikiScruggs.