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So far today offers only a skinny bagful o’ tasties for us Scruggs junkies, as we await gossip news of the Tricounty Bar party last night. Some may possibly come from the Wall Street Journal‘s Peter Lattman, who apparently decamped to Oxford in time to make it (if they let him in).

Meanwhile, Paulo Prada and Lattman cover another holiday do in the subs.-req. main WSJ (soon’s I get to the full story, you’ll know):

OXFORD, Miss. — On Saturday night, a red-and-green bus built to look like a trolley car ferried guests from a parking lot near the University of Mississippi through a wrought-iron gate to a new white mansion on a wooded hilltop nearby.

Inside, one of the most-prominent trial lawyers in the country, Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, welcomed friends and acquaintances to a lavish Christmas party. As about 200 guests filed through the front door of the white-columned house, Mr. Scruggs and his wife, Diane, appeared unruffled by an event that had rocked their world days earlier …

Mmm, that oughta be distinctive — p’raps more so than what Prada came up with at the free blog (first link above), soliciting John Grisham’s views:

My initial reaction was one of surprise. I know Dickie Scruggs. This doesn’t sound like the Dickie Scruggs that I know. I was really shocked by the news. When you know Dickie and how successful he has been you could not believe he would be involved in such a boneheaded bribery scam that is not in the least bit sophisticated. I don’t believe it. I hope it’s all proven to be wrong. …

There’s a whole lot more to the story. One thing is that there are a lot of recorded statements in the indictment but none from Dickie. There are no allegations that he delivered cash or was part of it.

Grisham also went to law school with and early on practiced in the same town as Jim Greenlee, the U.S. Attorney who’s prosecuting Dickie (“a man of integrity … good prosecutor [who's] not going to reveal everything … good, steady prosecutor, but I also anticipate a very vigorous defense”). But probably his most interesting comment of this pretty-dull interview is:

The plaintiff bar around Oxford was tame. The action was on the Gulf Coast. That’s where Dickie (and others) became very successful. Because they were successful they were able to pursue big, mass litigation. …

Which comment reminds me of the guy who’s suing Dickie, John Jones, telling WTOK, “When the money hit the table, everybody’s sense of what the cause really was changed. The three principals were Scruggs, Don Barrett from Lexington and David Nutt, had pretty much already decided that they were going to take 90 percent plus of the money.”

And a commenter on the WSJ thread says something that chimes with our own n miss commenter‘s “everything that’s happened fits my experience of Balducci (not deep but enough ")”:

I have worked with Dick Scruggs, Zach, Sid Backstrom and Balducci on a past project. The Scruggs firm guys have impeccable character. Balducci, on the other hand, is one of the many legal groupies that want to associate with Scruggs et. al. I am betting that Balducci went too far trying to impress Scruggs with his ability to impress his friend, the judge. Scruggs Firm would never engage in this stupidity. By the way, why did a judge agree to meet ex parte with an attorney to discuss a case? Why didn’t this honorable judge bring this meeting to an end at the first mention of a case he was handling? Inquiring minds want to know "

Another commenter expands this rather-attractive defense theory:

… We also concur that the whole thing about the Judge is not kosher, including his "ex parte " of this case with the press commentary. It reads more like an effort to cover his posterior. Including the possibility that the Judge and Balducci "did " have a relationship and Balducci was pressing his friend the judge under the "pretense " that it was with Dickie’s approval. Chances are, Balducci will get crucified greatly, regardless.

The Lackey-and-Balducci question has been bothering me too. Despite Lackey’s apparent hesitancy to blow the whistle on this fine-young-man-with-a-lovely-family who tried to BRIBE him, few other locals heard-from sound surprised re Balducci. Maybe NMC — or other readers familiar with the lawyer, and the judge, and their reputations, but who have stayed silent so far — would like to weigh in further? The white heat of this whole thing flared up between Balducci and Judge Lackey, and anyone who wants to help us sift for fragments in those ashes is most welcome to try.

Anyhow, the last little papershell pecan I picked up in the Scruggs grove this morning is David Rossmiller’s introduction of Brian Ford, an engineer with Forensic Analysis and Engineering Corp. who investigated Katrina damage for reports for State Farm — and who also took notes of his several conversations with Dickie, Trent Lott, and suchlike.

Actually, Rossmiller has blogged about Brian Ford before, telling the story of how, when he submitted a report concluding that a certain house had been wrecked by wind, State Farm protested and Forensic pulled him off its State Farm team (his replacement natcherly rewrote the report to conclude, “naw, it was flood”). After Ford quit Forensic rather than try to remake his engineer self into a marketer, Scruggs Katrina Group rushed him to become a consultant and/or fact witness for them. At least they did for a while —

Ford was asking for a salary of $10,000 a month, and … also asked for a percentage of the settlement amounts of SKG cases. The excerpts of Ford’s deposition … show the Scruggs Katrina Group never did hire him, and page 13 of the notes contains this question: “Why did the full court press for my services suddenly stop?” Just a guess on my part, but maybe it had something to do with Ford inviting himself into Scruggs’ attorney fees — as alleged in the Jones v. Scruggs lawsuit that was the backdrop for the alleged Scruggs’ judicial bribery conspiracy, there are some who say Scruggs is pretty grabby when it comes to fees — kind of like what his is his and what is yours is his too.

In State Farm’s reply brief in the mandamus proceedings before the Fifth Circuit, State Farm cited the information in these notes and Ford’s deposition as another example of what it calls Scruggs’ unethical conduct in Katrina cases — Ford was a material witness to the damage in one of the pre-eminent Katrina cases, McIntosh v. State Farm, yet Scruggs worked closely with him for many months, although he apparently never did hire him or pay him for the work, judging by these materials.

Notice how the theme of “Greedy Dickie” is getting more prominent by the day? It’s hard to counter . . . and since lord knows it ain’t gonna help John Keker defend the poorest state’s richest man, you know he’s looking hard for Balducci/Lackey dirt.

Anyhow, Rossmiller cracks me up with “I felt sorry for Ford that he appears to have gotten stuck on the phone with Trent Lott … ,” leading to this intriguing sentence: “Interestingly, the notes say that Lott was in communication with Kerri Rigsby, who as you remember is one of the sisters who copied numerous State Farm claims files from their employer, E.A. Renfroe, and gave them to Scruggs.” (And because he wouldn’t give them back when federal judge William Acker demanded, instead passing them to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, he’s got a criminal contempt case to fight in Alabama.) So do we have a United States Senator implicated in possibly-criminal contempt?

No telling what’s next, but if nothing else crunchy turns up, my subsequent posts today may not involve Mississippi. Dickie-and-Tim’s had me neglecting the world news I also love to folo . . .

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