Joey Langston’s guilty plea was to an information; he waived indictment (represented by Tony and Steve Farese) and here it is. More in a moment. No other new cases show up yet.
UPDATE:
Here’s what the information says: Langston along with Patterson and Scruggs and other unnamed folks conspired to influence Delaughter by providing him "consideration " for appointment to the federal district court bench in the Southern Judicial District of Mississippi: " in exchange for favorable rulings in Wilson v. Scruggs. They engaged a "close personal friend " of DeLaughter as a consultant, and Scruggs told Langston he could arrange to have DeLaughter considered for a judgeship. In December, 2005, Langston and Patterson delivered $50,000 in cash to Delaughter’s friend to influence Delaughter. Scruggs agreed that if he got a favorable result, Patterson and the friend could split the savings to Scruggs as a result of the ruling. Between July of 2006 and July of 2007, Patterson and the friend split $3,000,000, the result of the savings to Scruggs from Delaughter’s ruling that resulted in settlement of the case. The : "personal friend, " unnamed, is obviously Ed Peters.
UPDATE2:
As a part of the pleadings in Langston’s case, waivers of the conflict of interest by both Zach Scruggs and Langston. Here’s the one Zach Scruggs signed.
UPDATE3 (final update):
Langston’s plea agreement is to a crime with a five year penalty with an agreement to a cap of three years. No agreement to a downward departure.
Wonder why Ed Peters is not named but is referred to only as “a close personal friend” of DeLaughter.
my guesss would be – and this is conjecture – is that Ed Peters (as heard from other sources and articles) will be pleading as well and fill in that gap with his own testimony.
Msman, The criminal case N. 1:08cr003 dated 01-07-08 US V LANGSTON alluded to other sources of which I have heard were given ammunity..Could this be Ed Peters?
Maybe that will be resolved today.
Really helpful to have the information posted so quickly, thanks. I’ve got a post up now at Overlawyered making a couple of basic points, namely: it looks as if there are three principals on the DeLaughter/Wilson matter now cooperating with the feds, and the $3 million that is supposed to have changed hands can’t but have left some sort of trail, which would have to leave the Dickie camp feeling treed by the hounds if there’s truth to the allegations. And secondly, with the quid pro quo intended for DeLaughter being appointment to the federal bench rather than cash, it can be expected that the exact circumstances of his non-appointment (his brush with appointment, you might say), and the role played by Sen. Lott’s office in that, will be coming under intense scrutiny.
Wowzers, NMC, “thanks for this great service” doesn’t quite cover it!
Okay, let’s see here . . . wonder when we find out what deals Peters and DeLaughter have landed (pretty obviously, they have something afoot).
Most of all, it sure seems to me that all the remaining accuseds — I do mean all of them — have only one reasonable option: plead and start filling FBI’s notebooks and computers with every last letter of their whole stories.
Then we find out where else this is going . . .
So does Langston now have immunity from any other buried bones? And also a RICO case??
So Langston gets 5. Scruggs et all get 75 and they waived?
That’s why you don’t want to be the last guy coming in and telling the truth. Somebody else who is involved always will want to.
The stage appears to be set for more indictments and for the truth to come out on the DeLaughter ruling. It’s just a question of when.
The hard part is always just getting the first domino to fall over and they are way past that in this one.
They split $3,000,000? Earlier reports stated Peters was paid a million; so, either $500,000 is “missing” or I’m missing something.
Article on the Langston plea in the WSJ with some damage control by Scruggs’ attorney Keker. Sure looks like they are still going to trial. If he’s not, Keker needs to shut up.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120032900298188707.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
So many informed predictions posted here are coming to pass, the one that continues to stick with me was the grant of immunity. If I had that power, based on what we know right now, the logical choice is Judge Delaughter as the gentleman to receive the pass.
We also now have a much stronger tie in to Trent Lott and I agree with Mr. Olsen’s analysis on the level of scrutiny that will be directed his way.
sop
The $3,000,000 split is $1 Million to Patterson,$1Million to Langston and $1 Million to the close personal friend (i.e Peters)
Patterson pleas. Pacer has documents.
Thanks, Alyssa! Hope NMC is where he can see that.
I’d assume he’s sitting somewhere in the same courtroom as I am. *waves* I can’t email from here for some reason.
No PACER documents on Patterson as of 5 minutes ago. Someone posted Langston’s plea agreement–not Patterson. Of course that is not to say that there WON’T be a Patterson plea agreement coming down the pike.
It’s there. You may want to check the next thread.
Yep, it’s up now.
IF
“Between July of 2006 and July of 2007, Patterson and the friend split $3,000,000, the result of the savings to Scruggs from Delaughter’s ruling that resulted in settlement of the case. ”
isn’t that an admission that a result was acheived, at least in the bribers’ minds?
… at least in the bribers’ minds?
Or any other mind of room-temp IQ . . .
if the us attorney charges “J. C. L. did knowingly and willfully conspire with D. Scruggs, S. Patterson, not named as defendants herein…” – when will they become defendants?
Jerry Mitchell’s story in yesterday’s Clarion-Ledger — http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008801130376 — states that “Delaughter has said he was never approached in the case and if he had been, he would have notified the authorities.”
Paragraph 5 of the Information to which Joey Langston pleaded guilty on January 7 states, in paragraph 5: “It was further part of the conspiracy that between late February 2006 and March 30, 2006, that the consideration for United States District judgeship was communicated to Robert “Bobby” Delaughter during the pendency of the case of Wilson v. Scruggs in which Judge Robert “Bobby” Delaughter was the presiding judge.”
The statement attributed to Judge Delaughter by Jerry Mitchell seems inconsistent with the Information to which Langston pleaded guilty. I’m not sure whether this is significant, but it is something that jumped out when I read it.
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