“False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough,
What else can you show me?”
Bob Dylan, “It’s alright Ma (I’m only Bleeding)”
This series of posts outlines what is public about the conversations that led to the indictment of Dickie Scruggs and others for judicial bribery. Part 1 outlined Tim Balducci’s initial off-the-record approach to Judge Lackey and Part 2 described conversations between the two from late May until early September. Part 4 deals with the first cash payment of half the bribe, $20,000, and conversations about P.L. Blake’s role. In Part 5, the second cash payment was made.
I’ve indicated information from the indictment (I), the application for a search warrant for the Scruggs Office (SA), from the discovery inventory (D), the Scruggs Motion to Continue reply (MC), Scruggs motion for Discovery (MD), 2nd defense Motion to Continue (MC2), and from the Balducci Plea Colloquy (BP).
November 1st, Balducci goes to Judge Lackey’s office to deliver the last $10,000 and to get the order they were seeking from Judge Lackey. As he is leaving with the signed order, he is arrested and confronted. (SA) He confesses to conspiring with Dickie Scruggs, Zach Scruggs, Sidney Backstrom, and Steve Patterson to bribe Judge Lackey. (BP) He immediately agrees to cooperate with the federal authorities and goes to the Scruggs Law Office wearing a wire. (SA)
At the Scruggs Law Office, Balducci tells Zach Scruggs and Sidney Backstrom, “We paid for this ruling, let’s make sure it says what we wanted it to say.” (I, SA) Balducci talks to Dickie Scruggs, who agrees to take care of an extra $10,000 payment to the judge and says he will “hire” Balducci to prepare jury instructions in an unrelated case to cover the $10,000. (SA, I). While Balducci is there, he, Backstrom, Dickie Scruggs, and Zach Scruggs have a ninety-minute conversation. (MC2)
On November 2, Scruggs has his secretary send an email to Balducci with the documentation of the extra $10,000 paid to the judge. Balducci goes to Oxford and gets the $10,000 and the cover letter and attachments about the jury instructions. (I, SA, D)
On November 5th, Balducci goes to the Scruggs Law Firm and gets a check for $10,000 with a cover letter and attachments relating to the jury instructions that are the cover for the $10,000 payment. (SA).
On November 13, Backstrom and Balducci talk about the bribery scheme on the telephone. (I)
On November 19th, Balducci goes to the Scruggs Law Firm, apparently at the direction of the FBI. (MC).
On November 27, the FBI searches the Scruggs office; according to the application for the search warrant, they are seeking emails and rough drafts of the order they sought from Lackey. Joey Langston is at the Scruggs law offices that day, standing in front talking to the press about the search and saying that the FBI was seeking something but had not found it.
That same day, Patterson is arrested. He talks to Balducci by telephone from the jail and makes statements to the FBI. Backstrom makes statements on November 27th and 28th. (MD). Dickie and Zach Scruggs and Sidney Backstrom are arrested on November 28th.
Note:
The indictment and the application for a search warrant have the email Scruggs had sent on different dates, the indictment on Nov. 5, and the application on Nov. 2. The discovery inventory says Nov. 2, and I’ve gone with that.
The defense did not include any transcripts from November in their motion (Gee, I wonder why).
DONE! Hope you folks enjoy this stuff. As I was going through the documents to try to piece together an account of November (for which there are no transcripts) I came across additional information about the prior 5 parts and have updated them accordingly, with detailed notes about what was added. You might want to check back to see what’s new.
Great work again–many thanks!!
thank you for being such a great teacher NMC; love the Dylan quotes. i’m one of those souls who think everything should be accompanied by music and, if at all possible, dance. you’ve given us both, showing us all the fancy footwork in play here.
i feel like this is going to trial. where’s the best place to stay in oxford? and are all the rooms booked up?
Excellent writing NMC. Revisiting the older posts and coming back to six of the “bribery buffet” loaded my plate.
btw, I take the noted absence of references in the defense documents at various points – particularly in parts 5 and 6 – as an example of "Achilles and the tortoise ".
Thanks for all the good writing and teaching.
not sure what you mean nowdoucit, but unless I cite a source, it’s directly from transcripts pretty much, and all the transcripts came out of the defense dump. There may be a place or two where I grabbed something out of the wire warrant applications and didn’t say so, although I don’t think that is the case.
Glad I checked back, NMC, and can clarify – there were no missing citations. You did an outstanding job.
If you look at my comment posted after you introduced "Achilles and the tortoise " and “graded my paper”, I suggested there could be another “end” for the “race” – IMHO the “defense dump” is an example of a different “end”. In the race to that end, whatever wasn’t in the “dump” was “yak” from that perspective.
I’ll check back and clarify further if needed.
Great work NMC —truly outstanding.
As a side note, I wonder if the $10,000 Scruggs was to pay Balducci for ficticious work in another unrelated file would come out of Scruggs’ share of the legal fees to that client in the unrelated matter? Or would it be charged as an expense to the “client”, or reduce the fees to be paid to other lawyers helping on the case? In 2 of these 3 scenarios, someone was going to get screwed by Scruggs. And in those 2 scenarios involving the screwing, to the extent the US Mail or internet was used to communicate the billing document, it would amount to wire fraud (obviously of no real concern to those doing the types of things they are accused of doing, but interesting at least as to the cavalier approach taken to such law breaking). And depending on the likely prospect that this money in all 3 scenarios would not be reported by anyone as “income” due to its illicit nature, such would amount to tax fraud (if carried out to its conclusion) (again, apparently no real concern to those engaged in such schemes).
There are so many laws being broken by the acts in these schemes, and laws to be broken by planned acts, that it is hard to keep up with all the criminal and unethical behavior.
i had a conversation with an auditor from the State Tax Commission a few weeks ago and he said they are joining with the IRS in this particular investigation…his words “we’re all over it”.
NMC, I’ve finally had a chance to read all 6 parts, plus the comments. Thank you so very much for putting this together. How on earth do you have time to do anything else? I’m so impressed!
Thank you so very much for all the time and effort you have spent in making this available to us. Without Paul Gallo and the internet, Mississippians would know next to nothing about any of this.
NMC, your Dylan quotes are awesome! Here is one I thought about the other day.
Broken lines, broken strings,
Broken threads, broken springs,
Broken idols, broken heads,
People sleeping in broken beds.
Ain’t no use jiving
Ain’t no use joking
Everything is broken.
Broken bottles, broken plates,
Broken switches, broken gates,
Broken dishes, broken parts,
Streets are filled with broken hearts.
Broken words never meant to be spoken,
Everything is broken.
Bridge: Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground
Broken cutters, broken saws,
Broken buckles, broken laws,
Broken bodies, broken bones,
Broken voices on broken phones.
Take a deep breath, feel like you’re chokin’,
Everything is broken.
Bridge: Every time you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face
Broken hands on broken ploughs,
Broken treaties, broken vows,
Broken pipes, broken tools,
People bending broken rules.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
Everything is broken.
NMC your work is truely incredible. I look forward to the book and have high hopes for a happy ending!
AFOTL – Unless I’m mistaken, Derek Wyatt has previously commented that Scruggs submitted the $10K expense item to Nutt-McAlister to be handled, just as he had submitted a host of other expense items to Nutt-McAlister. That would mean that it would probably be billed out to their clients – the way that they normally did business! The bigger question is whether Nutt-McAlister possessed knowledge of the bogus expense, or whether they should have known that it was facially bogus at the outset, and aided in secreting it?
Justus, I remember reading something – but not exactly like that. Nutt-McAllister actually processed three categories of expenses for SKG – all clearly identified in the SKG agreement – only 2 of the three were recoverable from clients. If I remember where to find the information, I’ll post a comment.
Here is an interesting thought. Can you file a “whistleblower suit” against the “whistleblower”? What if the whistleblower’s attorneys, ostensibly stepping into the shoes of the govt. to pursue claims to recover govt. moneys, are engaged in fraud themselves? —by such actions as billing or charging fees or costs in that suit that were actually part of another suit in order to hide the true character and purpose of the money expense?
We seem to at least have evidence of a pattern of conduct here that would justify some investigation. All we need is a “whistleblower” witness, and we are ready to go. And I think I know where to look for such a witness —starting with Ms Brown. And if we could get the AG’s office on board to investigate and threaten prosecution, we could probably strong arm a nice settlement. Isn’t that how this thing works? And on top of all that, all we need to do to increase our odds are to spread the corn and have plenty of bags of sweet potatoes on hand. LOL.