If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the Folo RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
While we await further word on whether Zach Scruggs has made a deal, hat-tips to IAG and jester for the Bobby Harrison story in the DJournal, Hood offers DAs help in bribe cases.
Sez here:
JACKSON – Attorney General Jim Hood has told three district attorneys his office is at their disposal if they want to pursue state charges in connection with current judicial bribery cases.
The offer was communicated in a Feb. 25 letter to the prosecutors.
Hood, a second-term Democrat from Chickasaw County, has come under criticism for saying he did not intend to pursue state charges because it would be like prosecuting a relative.
Many of the attorneys involved in the high-profile federal investigation – among them, Richard “Dickie” Scruggs of Oxford and Joey Langston of Booneville – either had done work for Hood’s office, contributed to his campaigns or both.
Langston, who has pleaded guilty to judicial bribery charges involving a Hinds County case, was hired by Hood to represent the state against MCI. His efforts brought the state more than $100 million, and he was part of a group of attorneys who received $14 million in legal fees.
Langston and Scruggs, who is accused of trying to bribe Circuit Judge Henry Lackey of Calhoun City, have contributed to Hood, as have Tim Balducci and Steve Patterson of New Albany.
Balducci and Patterson, like Langston, pleaded guilty to federal judicial bribery charges. Scruggs and two other attorneys are awaiting federal trial.
On Feb. 25, Hood sent letters to District Attorneys John Young of Corinth, Ben Creekmore of New Albany and Robert Schuler Smith of Jackson.
He told them “the full resources of my office will be available to you should you decide to pursue state charges … .
“I have stated that I believe the federal government is conducting a fair and thorough investigation and that a state investigation could impede their efforts. Once a federal investigation is finished, however, state charges are often brought as well through the district attorney’s office.” …
Well, let’s see . . . has ‘at ‘ere sweet potato cooled any in the three weeks since it was passed? Bet not.
While we await further word on whether Zach Scruggs has made a deal
Lotus
Did I miss something, is there actual word of this?
Not that I know of, Seacrest, so the operative word there is whether.
Thanks.
wonder why he (hood) left out lafayette county d.a.?
Isn’t that Ben Creekmore’s territory, confounded?
BTW, NMC reports “nada” on PACER.
Ben Creekmore, Confounded.
I think the rumor might have made it’s way into comments a tad prematurely. I worry about the echo chamber effect– once it’s online, you never know of all the people repeating it are just people who know people who read blogs.
I am hearing the same thing from my sources re Zach. And I don’t think it is the result of the echo chamber, as the info does not come from the internet or blogs.
What “same thing” afotl? That it’s an unsubstantiated rumor or that it has legs?
that it has legs
Your sources have any more details, afotl?
R.I.P., Spc. Taylor McDavid of Starkville. Thank you for your service and sacrifice.
no details to speak of — just hearing a deal of some sort
plea deadline is looming — Monday 3/17
Scruggs has filed another Motion for Discovery very late this aafternoon
Thanks, nancy. Is it on PACER yet? (Dickie, you mean?)
I don;’t know if it’s on Pacer yet. The attorneys for the other people who were involved in this thing got it sent to them just before 5 o’clock
Hmmm, that’s mighty interesting. Thank you, nancy. Do you know what they’re asking for?
i will wait till nmc does his bit b/f i stick my neck out.
Thankers, super-g. Wonder how much of this Biggers, J., will stand for.
DJournal story in my new post, and NMC will have it off PACER for us soon.
delete
As far as Zach. It would almost be malpractice for an attorney to not be at least asking the prosecutors what kind of plea agreement could be given. That’s a long way from being able to convince a client that he needs to take it.
It sure appears to me that the overwhelming problems with Zach pleading are:
(1.) that he can’t get a sentence he can live with without a 5k sentence reduction. And,
(2.) he can’t get a 5k sentence reduction without testifying against his father (unless his father were to plead guilty, too). And,
(3.) Dickie’s age precludes any kind of plea from being a good deal for him.
(4.) The above situaton has Zach stuck in an OODA loop, unable, or refusing to make a decision and to act.
This is just my guess, but that’s my take on the Zach situation.
Sounds reasonable to me, observer. Don’t see how he escapes learning to live with a sentence eventually, though — and now’s his only opportunity to have some control over how long we’re talking.
I’m loving more and more Mississippi politics, especially this judicial corruption scandal; it’s like old home week in Chicago.
I’m tryin to figure out the sweet potatoe thing, can someone explain that to me in Yankee?
Oh, pam, have we godda post and comment thread for you: The Redneck Sopranos.
Good observations, observer. I had to Google OODA Loop, and find it’s a good way look at Zach’s predicament. Most apt.
TO PAM (25): You have to understand, in North Mississippi there is a sweet potato, and there is a sweettater.
A sweet potato is the root of a certain kind of morning glory. The root has a sweet taste and is a popular food item, both as a stand-alone item and as an ingredient in numerous recipes.
And then there’s the sweettater.
Here, a sweettater is an idiomatic metaphor for just about anything you can imagine that might come from, or be obtained in, or delivered to Calhoun County.
The little town of Vardaman, in Calhoun County, is the self-proclaimed “Sweet Potato Capitol of the World.” Sweet potato farming is big business in and around Vardaman. The town has (or at one time had) an annual “Sweet Potato Festival,” complete with a “Sweet Potato Queen,” or “Miss Sweet Potato.”
Calhoun County and sweettaters are interchangeable mental images for North Mississippians and those images are often used in our daily speech, generally as comic, figurative terms.
To illustrate: When, as a child, I asked my Daddy where he was going as he headed to work, his response as likely as not would be: “I’m going to Vardaman to see a man about a sweettater.” Or perhaps, “I’m going to Calhoun County to get a load of sweettaters.” He wasn’t actually going to either Vardaman or Calhoun County and he wasn’t going to return with one or more sweet potatos. He was merely giving joking responses to my questions.
When I’d do some knuckleheaded stunt, as I frequently did, my Mom or Dad might say, “That’s about as smart has hauling sweettaters to Vardaman.”
A lady with a particularly noticeable figure might be described as, “She’s got some fine sweettaters in that sweater.”
If my wife were to ask me where I’m going on my motorcycle today, it wouldn’t be unusual for me to grin and say, “I’m going to Vardaman to check on the sweettater crop.”
It’s just a figure of speech and it’s used all the time in all kinds of settings, and I’m confident other localities in the nation have similar metaphors arising from activity common in the locality.
Tim Balducci wasn’t really dealing with sweet potatos in his conversations that have become associated with US v. SCRUGGS … he was referring to sweettaters, a metaphor that encompasses anything and everything or maybe nothing at all: a bag full of money (perhaps, perhaps not), a draft court order, a proposal to join the Balducci firm in an “Of Counsel” capacity, a bottle of whisky (Calhoun County being dry), or maybe that he was just driving south from Oxford (in the direction of Calhoun County). The list is endless. It’s just metaphor arising from the context of the conversation people may be having at the time the term is used.
Don’t read anything significant into “sweettaters” in this prosecution. It’s not like the participants were using secret code that could broken only by others wearing a secret decoder ring.