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Yesterday, the special prosecutors filed an interesting document with a ton of exhibits in the Alabama federal court U.S. v. Scruggs, a response to the Scruggs Motion to Strike. This is in the contempt proceeding in which Scruggs and his law firm are charged with criminal contempt for their refusal to return the Rigsby documents in response to a federal court injunction. It has interest for several reasons. First, it presents a very clear statement of the reasons the special prosecutors are prosecuting Scruggs for contempt.

But the big thing for our purposes is that it ties together 3 big strands of the story: The Woullard settlement, the State Farm grand jury investigation, and the Rigsby sisters and their documents. It does so in a way that provides a lot of chronology.

What is interesting here? Well, this gives a framework for our speculation about when Patterson and Balducci met Hood. I’m guessing very strongly the 2nd and 3rd weeks of January. See if that matches your reading of this chronology. It also provides some evidence from when all this went down about how Scruggs came to do the hand-off to Hood of the documents. It provides some evidence from when all this went down as to how closely in lock-step Hood and Scruggs were operating (“sometimes very, later maybe less so”).

They back up the chronology in the brief with a LOT of exhibits: emails, correspondence, court documents, and the like. I have gone through them and used it to rough out a chronology of the events relating to Woullard, the contempt proceeding, and all. When I note a letter or testimony, it is because they are exhibits and I’ve read them, not because I’m pulling them out of the prosecutor’s pleading. The brief is linked at the end of the post. Here’s the chronology as shown by these exhibits:

• 12/15/06 Meeting with Scruggs, Insurance Commissioner Dale, Deputy Commissioner David Lee Harrell. Harrell testified that at this meeting, Scruggs represented he had insiders from State Farm that he was going to work the way he did in the tobacco litigation.
• February 06. By this time according to Scruggs he was representing the Rigsbys and continually represented them at least through the contempt hearing. Kerri Rigsby testified in her deposition in Renfroe to signing a representation with Scruggs at this time. Scruggs testified that this is when they first met. According to the special prosecutors, Scruggs provided cell phones to the Rigbys in the name of a relative of a legal assistant to hide communications between Scruggs and the Rigsbys.
• June 06. The Rigsby data dump, which they testify that Scruggs knew about beforehand. Scruggs denies this.
• 12/8/06. Scruggs formally served with the Renfroe injunction (he admits to this in testimony in the contempt hearing). According to Hood’s testimony in State Farm v. Hood, Scruggs calls Hood on his cell phone to tell him about the injunction on this date.
• 12/11/06. The Renfroe injunction goes into effect when a bond is filed; Scruggs acknowledged in the contempt hearing his office was sent notice of this on this date.

When the judge asked whether Hood or Scruggs had the idea of Scruggs giving a set of the documents to Hood to avoid turning them over to Renfroe, the judge asked: “Did you put the bee in his bonnet or did he put the bee in your bonnet?” Scruggs at the contempt hearing answered, “I did not put the bee in his bonnet, but we shared the same bee, that is fair.”

• 12/12/06 email. Asst A.G. Courtney Schloemer to Scruggs (Ex2): "I am not comfortable that the protective measures put in place by the Court will be effective in keeping these documents out of the grasp of State Farm. I would appreciate if you would provide us with your copy of the documents from Cori and Kerri, and we can return them to you at a time when our investigation is not in jeopardy by the possibility of disclosure of those documents to the wrong party. "
• 12/13/06. Schloemer emails Scruggs saying, “Upon reviewing my letter, I see that I was not clear that I propose taking custody of your documents with the permission of Judge Acker. I don’t want to thwart him and wind up in an Alabama jail. I don’t see how Renfroe could object to that arrangement, but see what they say and let me know if you need me to contact any of them to verify my end of it.” Scruggs did not contact Renfroe about this or do anything about getting the court’s permission to give the documents to Hood.
• 12/15/06. Rigsbys file a motion to stay enforcement of the injunction, nowhere suggesting they do not have the documents.
• 12/15/06. Doug Jones (separate counsel retained by Renfroe on the subpoenas) writes Asst A.G. Schloemer raising that the A.G. "may have requested that the Scruggs firm give the documents, not copies of the documents, to your office. I hope that is not the case because I am afraid that Judge Acker would hit the roof since you intervened and received the order. I do not want to see the intensity level of that case raised beyond what it already is. "
• 12/17/06 email. Asst A.G. Courtney Schloemer to Doug Jones (Ex4): “I did make a request for the documents, but it was conditioned on Judge Acker’s agreement to such an arrangement. These documents will be kept out of Scruggs’ hands until my criminal investigation is over, an arrangement which benefits us both. Judge Acker already trashed this office in his order so we are turning our attention to the 11^th Circuit’s opinion. If, after considering these points you agree this arrangement is a good one after all, I would be amenable to drafting an agreement between this office and Renfroe to confirm that our custody of the documents is not a sham and that we will not return them to Scruggs until our efforts in our criminal case are exhausted. "
• 12/18/06. Motion to stay denied.
• 1/5/07. Renfroe files motion to show cause why the Rigbys should not be found in contempt.
• 1/11/07. Rigbys for the first time say they do not have the documents.
• 1/17/07. State Farm grand jury hearings throughout the week; the Rigsbys testifying.
• 1/18/07. Barrett of SKG writes Birnbaum of State Farm saying, "Your proposal to Hood is fair ".If Hood lacks the wisdom to go through with this deal, it would be in State Farm’s best interest to proceed just with us, and we offer to do that. " He notes a settlement without Hood "vastly reduces the change Hood will go forward with an indictment. " "It may well be that Hood has become wary of ethics issues and has decided he has to put some distance between the civil litigation and the criminal investigation. Going forward with us now solves that problem. " "That Hood may fail his state is not your fault or ours. "
• 1/19/07. Renfroe files a motion to show cause with a pleading that says in footnote 14: “Scruggs fought surrender of the documents until the day the settlements were announced.” In the contempt hearing, the Rigsbys’ lawyer stated that “the only inference I can draw from this explanation of Scruggs arguably not complying with this order in order to increase his settlement value of the State Farm settlement is that somehow State Farm would see them.”
• 1/23/07. The global settlement is announced in Woullard.
• 2/19/07. Scruggs writes State Farm demanding that the Renfroe case be dismissed as a part of the Woullard settelment.
• 3/19/07. Contempt Hearing: Scruggs testifies.

Keep in mind that this is from exhibits to a pleading (one side of a case, etc.). Also, some have slung arrows at the prosecutors for being insurance defense attorneys (I have no idea and don’t really care). But on the other hand, it is all backed up by documents and testimony.

Here’s the Prosecution Response to Motion to Strike. This time, I’m too rushed to post-and-link all the exhibits one-by-one off Pacer; I’ve read and printed them all, and have saved quite a few. If there is a large clamor, I’ll post them later, given time.