As you might expect, that $500,000 that Tim Balducci claims Dickie Scruggs (eventually, grudgingly) paid him and Steve Patterson to get Attorney General Jim Hood’s indictment of State Farm called off has made a splash in Mississippi’s largest newspapers this morning. Anita Lee of the Sun Herald has been especially busy, with her colleague Michael Newsom, the Clarion-Ledger‘s Jerry Mitchell, and the AP’s Holbrook Mohr adding a story apiece. Here’s the rundown:
Sun Herald
Hood denies Scruggs’ influence (Anita Lee)
“To protect a potential insurance settlement worth $26 million in legal fees, attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs agreed to pay $500,000 to colleagues who interceded on his behalf with Attorney General Jim Hood, a government informant says,” this one begins, before going on to report:
Hood declined an interview with the Sun Herald on Tuesday, instead issuing a written statement:
“The decision on whether to indict State Farm Insurance Company was based solely on the advice of senior prosecutors in our office. Several days before the January 23, 2007, settlement with State Farm, after our prosecutors heard three days of testimony before a Jackson County grand jury, the majority of the prosecutors working on this case determined with a high level of certainty that no fact pattern existed that fell squarely within the insurance fraud statute.”
“I made my decision that there was insufficient evidence to uphold a conviction of State Farm on evidence we had at the time, based upon the advice of a career prosecutor who started in this office in the early 1970s. I am too hardheaded to be influenced by outside forces – I do what I think is right for the working people of Mississippi.”
Hood did meet with Patterson and Balducci, he confirmed during a recent hearing before U.S. District Judge David C. Bramlette III. State Farm attorney James Robie implied the meeting was about a threat from Scruggs to support another candidate for attorney general in 2007 if Hood refused to sign on to a State Farm settlement.
Hood denied the discussion took place.
In 2007, Scruggs and legal colleagues contributed, either directly or indirectly, at least $500,000 to Hood’s re-election campaign.
Hood said “it’s news to me,” when Robie told him $470,000 came through the Democratic Attorney General’s Association.
Maybe I just need more caffeine, but I’m not really following Anita’s implication that “Balducci’s statement may be called into question because it refers to $26 million in fees” (that Dickie an’ them gained by settling with State Farm in November 2006), and that Hood convened a grand jury investigation two months later, “when a separate global policyholder settlement negotiated by Scruggs and State Farm hung in the balance. State Farm signed on only after Hood agreed in writing to end his criminal investigation.” (Said global settlement, having failed to impress the Southern District’s Judge Senter as fair to policyholders, of course soon went away.) But what in this backdrop might especially call Balducci’s statement into question, I’m afraid I don’t get.
Oh well, onward . . .
Biggers rules against Scruggs defense (Anita Lee)
Recording the “clean sweep for federal prosecutors” in yesterday’s rulings, Anita also quotes Judge Biggers, “In this court’s opinion, to send an attorney to a judge to get him to rule a certain way – when that attorney is not of record in the case and professes to be a friend of the judge and when opposing counsel has no knowledge of the visit – amounts to an effort to corrupt a judge.”
WITNESS: SCRUGGS PAYING ‘BAGMAN’ $50 MILLION GOING TO MYSTERY MAN (Anita Lee)
The longest of Anita’s three stories today, this one amuses our jim by reporting:
A mystery man receiving $50 million from prominent Mississippi attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs earned the money by paying off allies during Scruggs’ epic battle with the tobacco industry in the late 1990s, said a former colleague turned government witness.
As state attorney general during that time, Mike Moore mustered the legal troops Scruggs helped lead into battle, wresting unprecedented settlements from the tobacco industry that earned Scruggs’ firm almost $1 billion in legal fees. The war involved lobbying at the state and federal levels and years of negotiations with tobacco company representatives.
Scruggs has said a $50 million cut from his fees will go over 20 years to P.L. Blake, a politically connected son of the Mississippi Delta who now lives in Birmingham. Scruggs and Moore have said Blake worked political cloakrooms, bringing his keen political knowledge and connections to their settlement efforts. Blake has said he simply clipped newspaper articles, watched C-SPAN and kept Scruggs updated on political maneuverings.
Scruggs’ former cohort, Timothy R. Balducci, offered an FBI agent a different explanation. Balducci was in deep trouble for attempting to bribe a state court judge when FBI agent William P. Delaney interviewed him on Nov. 2.
In his notes, Delaney said that Balducci described Blake “as the ‘bagman’ for DS during the national Tobacco case.” …
[Delaney's notes] also say: “[Balducci] met Blake when [Balducci] was employed at the Langston Law Firm and Joey Langston represented DS on some tobacco settlement cases regarding attorney’s fees. Blake is paid approximately $1 million per year out of attorney’s fees which are controlled by DS. Blake receives the money directly from DS, [Balducci] does not know why Blake receives money from the Tobacco Settlement fund.”
In legal disputes involving the attorneys’ fees, sworn testimony indicates that Scruggs paid Blake an initial $10 million through Langston. Court records show Scruggs is paying Blake the bulk of the $50 million in quarterly installments of $468,000 over 20 years. …
Blake’s telephoned assurance that Dickie would pay Balducci and Patterson back the $40,000 bribe to Judge Lackey of course gets a mention, as does that fact that “Blake and Patterson, forced from office in 1996 for malfeasance, are longtime acquaintances” and Joey’s Langston guilty plea to conspiring to bribe Bobby DeLaughter. Which info makes a nice segue to . . .
House stiffens judicial bribe penalties (Michael Newsom)
JACKSON –The House passed a bill Tuesday that sets tough penalties for those convicted of bribing judges.
House Bill 1108 would expand the state’s obstruction-of-justice charge for the felony. Under an amendment offered by Rep. Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, the offense would carry a sentence of no less than five and up to 20 years in prison and a fine of three times the bribe, but no less than $25,000.
Judiciary A Committee Chairman Edward Blackmon Jr., D-Canton, offered the bill, which originally had a five-year sentence and a $5,000 fine. Blackmon said many things could fall under the description of bribe.
“It doesn’t have to be money, it can be a promise of something,” Blackmon said. …
More there.
Clarion-Ledger
AG pulled into Scruggs fray (Jerry Mitchell)
Covers all the Anita Lee territory in one story, whose most interesting passage is:
In a statement Tuesday, Hood – who has acknowledged he had dinner with Balducci and Patterson – said his decision came after prosecutors discussed the lack of evidence.
“Several days before the Jan. 23, 2007, settlement with State Farm, after our prosecutors heard three days of testimony before a Jackson County grand jury, the majority of the prosecutors … determined … that no fact pattern existed that fell squarely within the insurance fraud statute,” Hood said. “I made my decision that there was insufficient evidence to uphold a conviction of State Farm on evidence we had at the time … I am too hardheaded to be influenced by outside forces …”
Hood noted Balducci said of him in one of the FBI’s wiretaps: “He ain’t gonna dance with the one who brought him to … the dance.”
Phil Supple, a spokesman for State Farm, said Tuesday, “We’re not involved in that legal dispute, and we don’t think it would be appropriate to comment.”
Jerry finishes with
On Tuesday, Special Circuit Judge William Coleman said if lawyers in the $26 million legal fees dispute with Scruggs can prove there was an attempt to bribe Lackey, he as judge can enter a default judgment for them.
“The court has the inherent power to protect the court’s integrity,” said Grady Tollison of Oxford, an attorney for the lawyers. “I can’t think of anything worse in a judicial proceeding than trying to bribe a judge.”
Key players in the bribery case
The cast-list you sometimes see attached to Jerry Mitchell’s stories, here as a stand-alone useful to those new to Scruggsiana.
The Associated Press
FBI document: Scruggs paid 2 men to persuade AG not to indict State Farm (Holbrook Mohr)
JACKSON, Miss. — A lawyer accused of trying to bribe a judge also paid two associates $500,000 to convince Attorney General Jim Hood not to file criminal charges against an insurance company over its handling of Hurricane Katrina claims, according to an FBI report in court records.
Plaintiffs lawyer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, who sued State Farm Fire and Casualty Cos. soon after the 2005 storm, was afraid the company “was not going to settle the civil cases” if the attorney general’s office filed criminal charges, according to an FBI report filed Monday in the bribery case.
At the time, Attorney General Jim Hood was pursuing a criminal investigation against State Farm over what he claimed was the company’s fraudulent practices in denying homeowners’ insurance claims.
Scruggs agreed to pay New Albany attorney Timothy Balducci and former State Auditor Steve Patterson “if they could get Hood to relent on indicting” State Farm, according to a report written by FBI Agent William Delaney on Nov. 2, 2007.
Hood would not answer questions Tuesday about the alleged meeting. However, he issued a statement through a spokeswoman saying he made the decision not to file criminal charges after three days of grand jury hearings. …
Mohr gets Hiram Eastland, Patterson’s attorney, to confirm that his client and Balducci were “paid a fee totaling $500,000 over a period of time to assist with the State Farm settlement. … However, Eastland could not confirm that Balducci and Patterson tried to persuade Hood to withhold criminal charges against State Farm.”
Recounting the timeline of the playahs’ interactions with each other and State Farm, Mohr finishes with
When Hood testified earlier this month in the lawsuit filed against him, State Farm attorney Jim Robie asked Hood about meeting with Balducci and Patterson.
Robie suggested that Scruggs sent word with the two that he would support another candidate in the 2007 attorney general’s race if Hood did not back off the criminal investigation.
“If you’re asking me, ‘Did somebody come to me and threaten me?’ the answer is no,” Hood testified on Feb. 6.
Hood acknowledge having dinner with Balducci and Patterson, but testified that “they didn’t convey any threats to me about settling the case or anything like that.”
Scruggs, the brother-in-law of former Republican U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, donated $33,000 to Hood’s campaign last July. He also gave tens of thousands of dollars to the Democratic Attorneys General Association, which in turn contributed to Hood’s campaign. Hood, a Democrat, was easily re-elected to a second term in November 2007.
Hood and State Farm reached a settlement of the insurer’s lawsuit the same day Hood was forced to testify in federal court in Natchez. Neither side has disclosed the terms of the agreement.
I know NMC does not agree with me but P.L. Blake has to have some type of agreement with the Feds. He has been too involved not to have been arrested, indicted, something?
“Hood said "it’s news to me, " when Robie told him $470,000 came through the Democratic Attorney General’s Association.”
I thought Hood’s reply was in response to being questioned about the intent of the meeting.. ie, Balducci and Patterson were there to “influence” him, etc. Not that he had received $470K from DAGA. If that IS the case (not knowing about the DAGA money), that was a bold-faced, 100% lie.
And not at all convincing, is it, MT? What we can call the “why even try” kind of lie.
There is not doubt in my mind P.L Blake has been approached by the feds. The only question is whether he flipped, or told them to go ahead and indict him if they can. And, whoever knows the answer to that question is keeping his cards close to his vest.
That’s why I’m thinking the story was incorrect Lotus… that statement in regard to DAGA would be way way too easily proven a lie.
Regarding PL Blake… I’m trying to imagine all of their lives… I mean, is PL sitting in Alabama and getting calls from folks, friends, Scruggs even? How does this stuff work?? Can they be working out stories themselves? Have they been able to since Day One? I’m telling you, conspiracy is something you have to study up on!
How do these recent revelations from Hood —- particularly that his most experienced prosecutors indicated to him that grand jury testimony up to Jan. 2007 had not indicated enough evidence to prosecute —- jive with his posturing during 2007 that State Farm was guilty of criminal activity and that Scruggs and Balducci and others were working with his office as “special agents” as to the continued prosecution of State Farm (the stance he took to protect the records obtained from State Farm in regard to the Alabama case and the Judge’s contempt order)?????
This timeline could be very interesting. Something is not adding up.
OK folks, I admit that I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so help me get my mind around some of the subtleties of this thing.
First I have no doubt about Dickie paying the 500k to P&B to go to Hood. My question is why? If he were just using them as messengers then they certainly were some expensive ones. I suspect that if their purpose was just to deliver a threat that poor Dickie could have got it done cheaper than that. Seems to be a waste of perfectly good money knowing that if he had to follow through that he would be funding the competition and if he didn’t that he would be funding Hood. Just doesn’t make good business sense to me, but then again, I have never flown in the monetary stratosphere with Dickie.
Second, if I take Hood at face value (which is hard to do) and there was no prosecutable case against SF the what in then name of Zeus is his justification for taking 5 million from them. A penalty??? Paid to a prosecutor because he cannot show a crime?? Is it just me or does this, like most, things Hoodian, have something of a worse foul odor to it than before? True to his form he seems to successfully take a bad public perception and make it worse every time he opens his mouth.
MT 5, was it observer or tiredlawyr who made the point the other day that we without criminal minds can just give up trying to understand, let alone duplicate, their operations?
But like you, I can’t help but wonder occasionally how this crowd are all passing these days. What does one in heavy-duty criminal limbo do with one’s time and energy? If sane to begin with, how does one stay that way?
TL… I thought that as well—a mighty expensive payday, but since Balducci/Patterson knew WHY Scruggs wanted Hood to stop the criminal stuff and the potential of multiple millions of dollars in legal fees alone for Scruggs, I’m guessing that they were at least smart enough to work out a deal in relation to what Scruggs would get out of that meeting. OR… I also considered the fact that he offered them $500K to get the job done—if they had to use some of that to convince Hood, fine–but $500K is what you get to get the job done,—get it done without giving any away, good for you.
TL: I think that may be the FIRST time in this entire affair the truth may have accidentally slipped out of Hood’s lips! If he had a smidgen of enough evidence to get an indictment, I think he would have to save face. This statement completely vindicates SF when they say it was “Tort, Inc.” between Scruggs and Hood and ‘Da Hood’ was using the office and prosecutorial threat to ratchet-up the settlement value of claims for his plaintiff’s bar buddies.
afotl and tired, 6/7, make quite a tag-team, don’t they, Mr. Hood? Now you were saying . . . ?
Tired lawyer, I think it is a mode of operation with Scruggs. He gives someone a huge sum of money, or has it given to them (like with Peters) to “influence” someone to do something he wants.
It’s not hard to figure that Scruggs would know that some of the money will be used for a bribe, but that he thinks using bagmen and cutouts is some kind of insulation for him. And, in the end, why would he care whether they had to pay out some of the money he gave them, or were able to just use their charm, to get what he wanted?
We have at least three instances, Peters and DeLaughter, P&B and Hood, and P.L. Blake and (who knows?) where it looks like this happened. I would call that a pattern.
The trick the feds turned with the Judge Lackey bribery, was to make Scruggs come out and play.
“He (Scruggs) also gave tens of thousands of dollars to the Democratic Attorneys General Association, which in turn contributed to Hood’s campaign.”
$350,000 actually… little more than “tens of thousands”
Can’t recall the exact words, but Balducci himself said… Doesn’t need to know, doesn’t want to know… regarding Dickie
Here is an interesting recent tidbit from Rossmiller, who has pegged this one very early on:
————————–
“I have considered a theory that what Scruggs wanted to do was use the mystery about the documents to keep the media believing they were a smoking gun, and to keep the heat on State Farm as a way of pumping up the rage and creating some more of those “Magic Jurisdictions” in Mississippi that Scruggs so famously spoke of……….
Scruggs even had the AG’s office all worked up in a tizzy about these documents, convincing them he was some kind of confidential informant or some such tommyrot. And he wanted them in a tizzy until such time as they needed to be de-tizzified: when State Farm demanded that the criminal investigation be dropped as part of any civil settlement with Scruggs. ”
————————————
Rossmiller nails the motive behind Scruggs’ and Hood’s strategies, IMO.
And I do seen to recall a lot of continued public huffing and puffing by Hood and others about the “crimes” State Farm committed well after the Jan. 2007 decision by Hood to end the prosecution (based upon advice from his very best and most experienced prosecutors, after hearing 3 days of grand jury testimony, and having reviewed every State Farm document obtained from the Rigsby sisters).
This is the first time that Hood has said he did not have a strong case against State Farm. I do think that back in January 2007 when this was going down, the AG’s office had concerns about relying on the testimony of the Rigsby sisters and Brian Ford because SKG had somewhat tainted them by paying or offering to pay them as consultants.
In his Natchez testimony, Hood said that they reopened the investigation or started a new investigation after receiving new evidence in April. April is when the engineering emails surfaced, documenting the pressure and threats from Lecky King and others at State Farm to make sure that the engineering reports blamed flooding and only flooding for damage. The emails confirmed the sisters’ allegations and provided more credible evidence.
I suspect that what happened in April was that Scruggs and Hood decided that they needed the threat of criminal prosecution once again as leverage against State Farm to try to settle, once again, the remaining Katrina cases (remember the settlement that Senter nixed). So, Hood just conveniently ignored that little ol written agreement with State Farm back in Jan. 2007, and carved out his own exception to it —which of course, ultimately led to State Farm having to sue Hood and recently prevailing.
Many had questioned why State Farm would say in the lawsuit that Hood was trying to use the threat of prosecution as leverage to settle civil suits, when State Farm had previously been the party to propose dropping the criminal prosecution as a condition to the global settlements back in Jan. Well, now we know.
Hood’s second trip to the well failed.
observer-12
I suppose that part of my amazement is Dickie’s ability to seemingly constantly surround himself with underlings who are willing to operate “on the come.” (P&B promised 500k to be paid later, and that same promised money was even used as a hook to get B to act on Judge Lackey; Peters gets 50k to start but his big payday coming only after a reverse split of the “savings”) since everyone concerned should know of his track record for stiffing his partners. Seems that the only person that he hasn’t had problems with is PL, which in my mind raises all kinds of questions.
But now that I think about it more, Dickie probably figured that it was worth 500k to deliver a message to Hood. He probably figured that it would cost him that much more to fund a challenger than it would cost to fund an incumbent.
Gee, tired 18, you just gave me a money-making idea:
Dear Dickie and other well-to-do folo readers,
I’ll deliver mos’ enny message you want to mos’ ennybody.
love,
lotus
P.S. Now cross my palms w’ silver, ya mutts.
How is this evidence that Hood and Scruggs were acting in concert? It is evidence of the opposite.
TL #18 Maybe P.L. and Dickie are on the downlow is why he always gets paid…now wouldn’t that top this thing of with a cherry.
I miss Belle.
Dommage, DN. Not to worry, though — every few days, we get a new hobbyhorse-rider galloping in here and raising the dust, so I’ve no doubt there’ll be another along soonish.
Delta-
Somehow I’m sure she would be more than happy to explain all of this to you. Using geometric logic, just like Lt.Cmd. Queeg.
Wow, tired, somebody I hadn’t thought of in many a year. [clink clink]
Does anyone know the timeline when Dickie went to George Dale to demand Dale “tell” the Insurance company or companies to give SKG 500Hundred Million to administer the claims? When Dale supposeingly said Dickie that would be illegal . Dickie then made a threat, if you don’t do this I will fund your opposition. What laws were broken here? General Hood was told this and Dickie paid TB/SP 500K..after the deed was done. Mike Moore has slipped out of sight like the snake he is and left Jim way in over his head. This is such a pressure cooker for Jim I believe he will remove himself from the kitchen saying the poor people of Mississippi deserve someone that the Republicans are not out to get.
Mag-
Meeting was December 15, 2005 according to David Lee Harrell.
Something I’m trying to work out in my brain timeline-wise…. Reading the Don Barrett letter to Sheila Birnbaum w/ SF on Jan. 18, 2007. Barrett begins with, “… I think that today is the Day. I think he (Hood) will take the deal.”
If Barrett is confident enough to send a letter like that to the opposition—-could it be because he knew already that Balducci/Patterson had met with Hood and that the “influence” had occurred? Therefore, Barrett knew what was going on as far as how Dickie was “getting things done.” AND… if Barrett is confirming that the influence has taken place—it might also be because he’s been assured that it was successful… meaning that Hood indicated that he would drop the criminal charges —after the meeting and not after the “3 days of testimony in Jackson County” as he indicates now. Letter was Jan. 18; settlement was Jan. 23.
Delta Native, our late and unlamented correspondent bellesouth can usually be found at the Clarion-Ledger Web site going after poor ol’ Sid Salter hammer and tongs.
She hasn’t been out to play today, however, in spite of the State Farm/Hood red meat Salter’s offering up, so maybe she’s been sent to Coventry by the CL too.
Sorry, but I really have a bit of a problem thinking that Hood will pull an Elvis and voluntarily leave the building. As I see it, his office is at a complete standstill. In other words, apparently they aren’t doing anything to make matters worse (other than the pearls of wisdom from the head honcho). Leaving office gains him nothing unless it is a part of a deal with the feds. His problems are all based on past conduct which is slowly unraveling and will continue to do so whether he is in office or not. I just have a bit of a problem that he is suddenly going to have a road to Damascus experience and suddenly begin to seriously do what is best for the people of the state, poor or not. But I suppose there is always hope.
Speaking of Don Barrett take a look at the last page of this pdf. Ha!
http://www.barrettlawoffice.com/pdfs/dbarrettcv.PDF
mag 26, here’s folo’s post on that 12/15/05 meeting.
Dragoman 29, belle’s one of those folks who really need to put up blogs of their own where they can rant to their hearts’ content. Who knows, she mought even attract a reader or two . . . Jim Hood’s got some relatives, dunny?
I thought the whole point here is that the $500,000 was paid to Balducci and Patterson, who, in turn, funneled this money to Hood’s campaign via the Democratic Attorney General’s Association. It was previously reported that Hood received a contribution for $470,000 from that organization, which could mean Balducci and Patterson split a fee of $30,000 for their “hard” work. This is all speculation at this point, but it shouldn’t be hard to trace the money.
Does anybody know who Hood’s “most experienced prosecutors” w/whom he consulted re: dropping criminal charges are?
Yes, that would be Tim Balducci and Steve Patterson of the law firm Dumb and Dumber, LLC.
Hood’s too busy spit shining his stupid card to consider resigning. In any event, with his gravy train having been thrown off the tracks, he will most certainly have to go out and get a job to put food on the table, as I suspect Uncle Dickie reneged on funding his offshore account. What self-respecting lawyer or firm in Mississippi would consider hiring an ethically-challenged mound of walking kryponite? Wait. Paging Mike Moore!
Seriously, irate, is Hood referring to staff attorneys or contract special prosecutors which I thought way back he had requested to take on SF? Just can’t remember.
I’d imagine the in-house attorneys. You use to be able to go to the AG’s website and see pics of all the attorneys but since the website changed recently I can’t find the pics.
Two Cents—the $100,000 and $250,000 payments from Scruggs and the $100,000 payment from Langston that all went to DAGA.. that all went to Hood… are completely separate from the $500K to Balducci/Patterson.
My Thoughts – how did you get that information? If that’s correct, are the articles run in the newspapers today suggesting that the money was given to someone else, i.e. Blake, to give to Hood?
That’s pretty old news. Hood’s contributions reports and DAGA contribution reports are the source. The $500K is what Scruggs agreed to pay the Patterson Balducci law firm to influence Hood in the SF litigation… to drop the criminal charges.
Lotus at #8 asks an interesting question, and one that has occurred to me as well, that is, how do these guys “in heavy-duty criminal limbo” pass their time these days?
I mean their professional lives are at a standstill, outside plotting their defense, but how many hours of the day can you engage in that without losing your mind? And the newspapers must make dreary reading.
It would seem to me next to impossible to retain any sense of normalcy. I mean, how do you read a book, enjoy a nice meal, make love to your wife
under such soul-grinding pressure?
I also wonder what kind of local profile they are keeping. I have a niece at Ole Miss, and she told me right after the indictments, Dickie and Diane were making the rounds on the Square and pretty much acting as if the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. But that was before Joey rolled over and the whole thing became a runaway train.
Just looking this stuff up is interesting: DAGA contributions to Hood: $300,000 (1/7); $150,000 (10/19); $250,000 (10/24); $150,000 (9/28); $300,000 (8/13) . . . . .there may be more, but I got tired of looking. Scruggs, Langston and other notables all contribute to DAGA.
That’s all documented here before, as well as the donation info on Scruggs, Langston etc… go to Search and put in “DAGA”
According to the Daily Journal, Hood raised a total of $2.1mm for his campaign as of the end of October of last year. So the DAGA funded about half of that. And he claims he didn’t know where the money came from. I bet Patterson and Balducci reminded him pretty clearly at dinner that night.
And… Hood started off in the hole. He actually had to raise money to pay off his 1st election debt before any plus signs were allowed in his campaign contributions. Those debts were paid by….??
And Langston made an additional contribution to Hood after this past election… 12/07/07 of $5000… three days before his offices were searched by the Feds, by the by
If anyone is in need of a good laugh, Belle has emerged from forty days in the wilderness over at Rossmiller’s. His response to her is hilarious.
Awlbedarn, DN, he actually let her back in.
Why?
I doubt if she can contain herself long enough to get through her probationary period, Delta Native.
And I spoke too soon this morning as to Sid Salter’s blog. She was laying into him this afternoon with the utmost vigor.
You guys are missing it here. Snake Farm made the dismissal of the criminal indictment aka charges part of the deal, not Scruggs. They were already indicted in Jackson County all they had to do ask the Grand jury. (Its a small county.)
Scruggs did not speak for most Katrina attorneys or even represent a majority of the claims dollar wise.
Hood made a deal with the devil, (Devils) and now he has to live with it. We all do.