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Okay, today’s Wall Street Journal features Peter Lattman and Ashby Jones sounding pretty dang convinc(ed)(ing) that Tim Balducci flipped on Dickie an’ them.

“I would not be surprised at all if Balducci was cooperating,” said Daniel Gitner, a defense attorney in New York and former federal prosecutor who isn’t familiar with the case beyond the indictment and news reports. “There’s a tremendous amount of detail relating to what he did in relation to the other defendants. It would appear that a good portion of that probably came from his mouth” because it happened outside of the judge’s bugged office, said Mr. Gitner.

He added that while it is possible that there were several wiretaps outside the judge’s chambers, “the odds of the government monitoring more than one phone are lower than the government monitoring a single phone. It’s complicated for the government to use electronic surveilliance.”

["Complicated for the gummint"? Hit it, Mary!]

That Balducci wasn’t arraigned with the other four is another sign that he’s already cut a deal, New York defense attorney/former federal prosecutor David Pitofsky told the reporters. And “[w]hile there may be other explanations,” Gitner explained that prosecutors don’t like to put cooperating witnesses with other defendants in court: “looks” — carrying influence or intimidation, or prompting second thoughts — “can fly.”

Having interviewed Joey Langston, who (a) is a partner at the firm where Tim Balducci worked for about six years before going out on his own, and (b) says he’s still serving as one of Dickie’s counsel now, Lattman and Jones can now also explain how Balducci hooked up with the Scruggses. According to Langston, Balducci set up his own practice in New Albany about a year ago, but since Langston and Scruggs worked together on some civil stuff over the years, Tim got to know Dickie through him.

Dang, I wish they’d thought to get him talking about the Balducci-Patterson hook-up too. Steve Patterson, remember, is the only non-lawyer indictee. It could well be that he ends up in the picture simply as Balducci’s partner in the New Albany firm — over at emptywheel’s, EPU gave this explanation of the phenomenon (he’s responding to EW’s “why Zach?,” but it applies equally to Patterson and Sid Backstrom):

… it’s par for the course for the gov’t to indict anyone and everyone who it can tie in, even in what you might consider unsubstantial ways to the alleged conspiracy. Why? They might actually think he is part of the conspiracy and think they can convict, or they want leverage to get him to testify against family/friends – or perhaps both – either way, it “works” for the prosecution.

The guy who delivers papers allegedly not knowing what he was delivering, or one conversation he overhead or was part of, makes him a part of the alleged conspiracy – they’re the predicate acts in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy. Now, if he were simply an employee of the firm (a secretary say), then the gov’t most likely would look upon the predicate acts differently. But he wasn’t, so they don’t.

In white collar crime simply being there at the right “level” is more often than not enough to not only get you indicted as part of a conspiracy, but get you convicted.

Rather than being mytifying, his indictment is par for the course for a conspiracy prosecution.

Sho’ nuff, but what especially intrigues me about Patterson is that (as you know if you’ve followed some of the Mississippi links in previous Scruggs posts here) he’s already well known for scandal. As the Clarion-Ledger‘s Sid Salter (rather gleefully) put it, “a certain Range Rover … ran over his political career back in 1996.” That is to say, “the master politician who clearly had his sights on the Governor’s Mansion, resigned Oct. 18, 1996 after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing false documents to avoid paying county taxes for a car tag on a Range Rover — charges he denied throughout his 1995 re-election bid.” (That Salter link has more on both Balducci and Patterson, none of it at all admiring.)

Now what’s the auditor of one of the country’s very poorest states doing swanking about in a Range Rover any damn how? That’s one of my questions, and another (to which, if any of y’all readers are MS Bar members, I’d love to have your answer) is how is it that lawyers and non-lawyers can partner there? Here in Flordy, that’s a big ol’ professional-ethics nuh-uh (or was as of seven years ago, and I don’t suppose has stopped being since my retirement from the FLA Bar).

Anyhow, as we’ve maybe got Balducci’s role coming into better view, now I want to find out more about Patterson’s, Zach’s, and Backstrom’s. If you’ve got something, please chonk it on in here, chile.

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