folo

The Eagle’s webmaster has finally put up the Friday edition. I was hoping for a look at Tim Balducci but instead we get this photo that makes me wonder about the barber schools in North Mississippi (if any). Anyhow, here you go . . .

Former Mississippi state auditor Steve Patterson (right) with attorney Hiram Eastland as he enters U.S. District Court for sentencing this morning. Patterson appeared light-hearted before being sentenced, asking the photographers taking his photo: “Where were you when I was running for office?” Photo by Bruce Newman.

2/13/09 – Last two judicial bribery defendants sentenced
Alyssa Schnugg
Staff Writer

The last two defendants in what’s been branded the Scruggs I judicial bribery case were sentenced to spend 24 months in federal prison for their roles in the scheme to bribe a circuit court judge.

Timothy Balducci and Steven Patterson both appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Neal B. Biggers this morning at the Federal Courthouse in Oxford.

Both men pleaded guilty a year ago to a charge of conspiring with Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, his son and attorney Zach Scruggs and his law partner Sidney Backstrom to bribe Circuit Court Judge Henry Lackey with $40,000 for a favorable ruling in a lawsuit against the elder Scruggs involving legal fees in Hurricane Katrina related litigation.

During Balducci’s sentencing hearing, U.S. Assistant Attorney Bob Norman told the judge that his department had never seen such “complete cooperation” from another defendant. He said Balducci’s help has opened the doors to other investigations of corruption and that the Scruggs case got as far as it did because of Balducci’s assistance.

“His cooperation was immediate,” Norman said. “He’s doing the best he knows how to do to right the wrong he has done.”

Biggers agreed but reminded Balducci he was the “bag man” in the case.

“You carried the money,” he said. “You talked the judge into going along with what you wanted to do.”

Balducci told Biggers and the court that he was “profoundly sorry” for what he had done.

“All I can do now is try to make things as rights as I can,” Balducci said.

Norman also reported that Patterson has cooperated with the government, albeit to a lesser degree than Balducci.

Patterson was called a “minor” participant in the case, although he received the same sentence as Balducci.

Before he was sentenced, Patterson said he was embarrassed and humiliated.

“If God gave me a choice to live carefree in paradise the rest of my life, or to choose to go back two years ago and change my actions, I would not hesitate to enlist to do the latter,” he told Biggers.

Both men will report to prison on March 25. The government asked for the later reporting dates because their testimony may be needed when the grand jury meets in the March.

The saga began on Nov. 27, 2007, when FBI agents raided Scruggs’ office on the Square. The next day, the five men were indicted.

On Dec. 5, 2007, the day of his arraignment, Balducci pleaded guilty to the bribery charge.

It was later learned that Balducci had been working with the government in building its case against Scruggs and the others.

But it was also Balducci who got the ball rolling. In trying to gain favor with Scruggs, during a meeting with the other defendants in March 2006, he told the famous trial attorney that he could use his friendship to corruptly influence the judge to find in favor of Scruggs in the lawsuit Jones v. Scruggs.

After Balducci approached Lackey and suggested that if Lackey would find in favor of Scruggs, he would give Lackey a place in his law firm after Lackey retired. Appalled, Lackey told the FBI about the conversation. For six months, Lackey allowed his office and telephone to be tapped. In September 2006, in another meeting with Balducci, the subject of money came up and Balducci offered Lackey $40,000. It was later discovered Scruggs was providing the funds.

Balducci was approached by the FBI in November 2007 and he began cooperating with the government and wore a wire tap himself on the day the money was given to Lackey.

Scruggs was sentenced in June to spend five years in a federal prison in Kentucky. His son is serving a 14-month sentence in Forrest City, Ark., and Backstrom is serving 28 months in Forrest City.

Earlier this week, Scruggs was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in a bribery case involving Hinds Circuit Court Judge Bobby DeLaughter, which came to light during the Lackey case and through testimony of Balducci. The sentence will run concurrent with his original five-year sentence.

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Bruce Newman

All right, a slightly-more usual image of this kind of situation: freshly-arraigned defendant Bobby DeLaughter led out of the courthouse by his lawyer Cynthia Speetgens. But the thing NMC noticed is still intact: their body language makes them entirely separate, in no way a team.

Anyhow, here’s Alyssa’s story:

2/12/09 – Judge DeLaughter enters not guilty plea
Alyssa Schnugg
Staff Writer

A circuit court judge who had an ambition to become a federal judge found himself at the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Oxford this morning — but not in the role he had hoped.

Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Bobby DeLaughter pleaded not guilty this morning to a five-count indictment after being brought into the court room in shackles.

The indictment remained sealed at press time this morning, but was expected to be made public later today. DeLaughter’s indictment stems from a lawsuit against Richard “Dickie” Scruggs over legal fees where DeLaughter was the presiding judge. The government claims DeLaughter was influenced to rule in Scruggs’ favor.

Accompanied by his attorney, Cynthia Speetjens, DeLaughter turned himself into the U.S. Marshals at the Federal Courthouse at about 8 this morning.

U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Allan Alexander set DeLaughter’s bail at $10,000. His trial is set for April 6 before U.S. District Judge Glen Davidson.

Scruggs pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of mail fraud. In the information filed against him, the government says Scruggs, along with former attorneys Joseph Langston and Timothy Balducci, Balducci’s business partner Steven Patterson and former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters, conspired and devised a plan to corruptly influence DeLaughter during the lawsuit, Wilson v. Scruggs.

The government says Scruggs hired Langston and Balducci to work with Peters, who was a close personal friend of DeLaughter, to gain influence over the judge.

The lure was to entice DeLaughter with a federal bench appointment with help from Scruggs’ brother-in-law, former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott. Scruggs contacted Lott and suggested DeLaughter for the judgeship. Lott then called DeLaughter.

DeLaughter has been suspended from the bench pending the outcome of the investigation.

DeLaughter once worked for Peters as an assistant district attorney. They made headlines in 1994 by successfully prosecuting Byron de la Beckwith for the 1963 assassination of Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers. The case was portrayed in the 1996 movie “Ghosts of Mississippi” and actor Alec Baldwin portrayed DeLaughter in the film.

The case came to light during an investigation into Scruggs, his son Zach, his law partner Sidney Backstrom, Balducci and Patterson for attempting to bribe Circuit Court Judge Henry Lackey.

All five men have pleaded guilty. The elder Scruggs was sentenced Tuesday to spend seven years in a federal prison in Kentucky in conjunction with the five-year sentenced he was given last year for his role in the Lackey bribe. His son is serving a 14-month sentence in Forrest City, Ark., and Backstrom is serving 28 months in Forrest City for their roles in the earlier bribe. Balducci and Patterson are set to be sentenced Friday.

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Judge DeLaughter has been arraigned, and we’re about to start Scruggs II, only now one principal actor has changed sides.

Anyone coming to this story now is literally coming in medias res– in a very complex way, in the middle of an arguably tragic tale. It’s complicated because we are in the middle of two distinct narratives.

One is the narrative of the criminal cases for judicial bribery or improper influence, and the other is the narrative of the underlying cases in which the improper influence occurred. (Note that, accepting the guilty pleas of Joey Langston and Dickie Scruggs, and the testimony of Tim Balducci, I’m saying “occurred” as to both cases).

I don’t want to (re)introduce all of the players at this point, because I want to keep the length of this post in reasonable limits. For now, I’ll talk about Judge Bobby DeLaughter, who lives near Raymond in Hinds County, Mississippi, and is one of the Circuit Court judges there. Judge DeLaughter went to work for a firm that included Bill Kirksey after law school (he was graduated from law school in 1977), and in the 1980s went to work as an assistant district attorney for Ed Peters, the District Attorney for Hinds County. In 1994, he had his most famous prosecution, convicting Byron de la Beckwith of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. He used that as a platform to run (unsuccessfully) for judge, but then was appointed county court judge by Republican Governor Kirk Fordice in 1999. In 2002, Democratic Governor Ronnie Musgrove appointed him circuit court judge on the retirement of Judge Breland Hilburn. DeLaughter gained national attention for the Evers proseuction, and the public view of him was in a large sense defined by the versions of that case told in popular books and a movie about it.

By succeeding to Judge Hilburn, DeLaughter succeeded to the case of Wilson v. Scruggs, about which Dickie Scruggs (the defendant) and Joey Langston (one of DeLaughter’s lawyers) have pled guilty to illegally influencing him.

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Jerry Mitchell tracks the change in Dickie Scruggs:

AP – Rogelio M. Solis

“When Scruggs was sentenced on the first corruption charge on June 27, he appeared badly shaken, at one point needing help sitting down, in response to getting a five-year sentence. This time a shackled Scruggs calmly accepted his fate.” And after court, he changed out of his nice suit into something more uncomfortable.

Bruce Newman – Oxford Eagle

Elsewhere, Jerry predicts that Dickie isn’t the only one in for change:

That’s because Dickie Scruggs could become a key witness in future corruption cases. … Scruggs originally was charged with the wrongdoing in a still-sealed indictment, and prosecutors said Tuesday that others are named in that indictment. … Scruggs’ cooperation could lead from the legal world into Mississippi’s political world.

Into Mississippi’s political world? Where feed such creatures as Trent Lott, Mike Moore, and Jim Hood?

“The system needs purging,” Bob Wilson’s lawyer Charlie Merkel told Jerry. “I would hope any leads developed through Scruggs’ cooperation that implicate other public officials or others who tried to influence public officials will be followed up and prosecuted to the fullest.”

Starting with whom? Jerry focuses on P.L. Blake, “the man who bizarrely earned $50 million from the state’s tobacco settlement by clipping newspapers and assessing political activity for Scruggs, who championed that settlement. …” Dickie has had and will continue to have much to explain about P.L. and his errands, no doubt.

Because of his continuing cooperation, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Norman asked that Scruggs be moved from the federal prison in Ashland, Ky., to one much closer so that prosecutors can talk more readily to him. Scruggs’ lead counsel, John Keker of San Francisco, asked U.S. District Judge Glen Davidson to recommend the prison in Forrest City, Ark., because of its proximity.

Under the plea bargain, prosecutors have promised Scruggs immunity in exchange for the incriminating information he divulges. Prosecutors also have promised not to have Scruggs turn over any other money.

Forrest City’s prison camp, you’ll recall, counts Zach Scruggs and Sid Backstrom among its inmates. Maybe the three of them can help refresh each other’s memories . . . say, of jokes about filing briefs on cocktail napkins before one of the smaller fish in this net. Of him, Sid Salter writes,

The questions are rather obvious: Was Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter the innocent target of a judicial bribe like Lafayette County Circuit Judge Henry Lackey? Or was he somehow a player in a backroom scheme to protect Dickie Scruggs’ money? …

While DeLaughter hasn’t been charged with anything, the parade of plea bargains and subsequent cooperating witnesses can’t bode well for the Hinds County jurist.

Player or pawn? DeLaughter’s judicial career now depends on the answer to that key question.

I rather doubt that, don’t you? For a year now, Hinds County has seen the name “Bobby DeLaughter” only in company with “Ed Peters,” “Dickie Scruggs,” “Trent Lott.” For him, the ch-ch-ch-change has already come.

Now to see who else risks walking with a clank . . .

UPDATE: Patsy Brumfield just filed U.S. ATTORNEY: EXPECT ‘SCRUGGS II’ INDICTMENT SOON:

Answers may be public by the end of this week about whether anyone else will be indicted in the judicial bribery scandal named “Scruggs II.” …

Specifically, the shadow falls on scheme participants as described Tuesday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Norman: former New Albany attorney Timothy Balducci and former state Auditor Steven Patterson, plus DeLaughter, former Hinds District Attorney Ed Peters and former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott. …

Coincidentally, Balducci and Patterson will be sentenced Friday for their guilty pleas in “Scruggs I,” the conspiracy to bribe Circuit Judge Henry Lackey of Calhoun City. …

At Norman’s request, Davidson also dismissed the indictment in this case, but only for Scruggs – clearly indicating at least one other person is named in the sealed document.

Details of the indictment will be revealed “very shortly,” U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee said at a news conference outside the Aberdeen federal courthouse.

UPDATE II: From a second Brumfield story:

… Although Scruggs entered the downtown courthouse wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, he wore a business suit and tie for the afternoon hearing. He also wore metal shackles.

But he appeared more physically fit than at his June sentencing, and he smiled broadly when he saw his wife, Diane, in the courtroom.

Also in the courtroom with media and the curious was W. Roberts Wilson Jr. and his family, who have attended many of the proceedings related to Scruggs.

Davidson declined to order Scruggs to make restitution in this case, saying Wilson’s civil lawsuit seeks to settle that score.

Outside, Wilson’s attorney, Charlie Merkel of Clarksdale, predicted Scruggs’ plea will move their civil case along.

“The question about whether or not a bribe took place has been laid to rest,” he said.

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The Eagle’s Alyssa Schnugg, the Clarion-Ledger’s Jerry Mitchell, and the DJournal’s Patsy Brumfield hoist the curtain on today’s 1 PM hearing in Judge Glen Davidson’s court in Aberdeen, Alyssa crisply summarizing the history and cast of Scruggsiana:

[Dickie] Scruggs is serving a five-year prison sentence for attempting to bribe Circuit Court Judge Henry Lackey in 2007 — along with four other men — with $40,000 for a favorable ruling in a lawsuit against him involving $26.5 million in legal fees from Hurricane Katrina. Scruggs’ son, Zach, and a former law partner, Sidney Backstrom, are serving lesser prison sentences for their role in the conspiracy. Former attorney Tim Balducci and former state auditor Steven Patterson are scheduled to be sentenced Friday.

Early in the investigation, former Booneville attorney Joseph Langston represented Scruggs until he, himself, was indicted for conspiring with Scruggs and others to bribe Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter for a favorable ruling in a separate lawsuit against Scruggs, which also pertained to legal fees.

Langston pleaded guilty in January 2008 and has been sentenced to three years in prison. Until now, he’s the only person to be indicted in the case. The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson reported Friday that Scruggs was set to plead guilty Tuesday in the DeLaughter case, but that has not been confirmed by The EAGLE. …

According to Langston, he and others traveled to Jackson several times to engage former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters, who was a “close personal friend to DeLaughter,” as a consultant to assist them in the case of Wilson v. Scruggs, which was pending before DeLaughter at the time. Langston represented Scruggs in that case along with Balducci.

The charges say Langston and Patterson delivered $50,000 in cash to Peters in exchange for his help in influencing DeLaughter. After the case was settled and according to an earlier agreement with Scruggs, Langston along with Patterson and Peters split $3 million which represented Scruggs’ savings from the favorable ruling.

Jerry cues the Jaws music with “If DeLaughter is charged, he could face possible testimony from Scruggs, Langston and others, including his former boss, one-time District Attorney Ed Peters, who is cooperating with authorities.” Eschewing a certain local law professor, he goes farther afield for quotes and drops the new nugget I’ve bolded:

Oxford lawyer Grady Tollison, who led the Katrina legal fees litigation against Scruggs, said if Scruggs pleads guilty, “I think it would have a definite effect” on Wilson’s litigation.

He noted that Langston’s guilty plea bolsters Wilson’s claim that the case should be reopened and DeLaughter’s rulings tossed. Wilson is seeking additional damages through a federal lawsuit filed in Oxford.

Carl Tobias, a professor for the University of Richmond School of Law, said it is unusual to have a defendant return from prison to plead guilty in a related case. “Usually, if they’re pretty close in time and they’re related, you’d try to do them together and have a package deal,” he said.

Last year, prosecutors reportedly offered Scruggs a deal in which he could plead guilty in both cases, and, in exchange, prosecutors would recommend he serve no more than seven years in prison. But Scruggs reportedly balked at the offer.

Although the Hinds County lawsuit ended with a settlement, bribery allegations could be used to try and reopen the case, Tobias said. “It’s not clear how a judge would resolve it.”

Okay, if Jerry’s got it right, Dickie’s in for an additional five years . . . or more? Whaddaya think?

Drawing back from the hint-dropping she indulged in earlier, Patsy now allows only, “It’s still not clear if anyone else ensnared in this case, known as ‘Scruggs II,’ will appear with him as a co-defendant” and that Lafayette Sheriff Buddy East “said he wasn’t aware Scruggs had any visitors” during his four days in county jail.

In Alyssa’s second story, on the Balducci and Patterson pre-sentencing letters, we find that sweet Brother Flemming proving once again why we don’t want preachers running our court system.

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Our friend Paul Quinn’s piece in the C-L on the pre-sentencing letters for Tim Balducci and Steve Patterson is one you don’t want to miss — not only for the text, but also for the accompanying video of Paul’s interview with Judge Henry Lackey.

Judge Lackey has recused himself from the JPC’s investigation of Bobby DeLaughter, due to “my involvement in the beginning of the whole inquiry.” He believes “the perception would be that I could not be fair — and he’s entitled to a fair hearing. He surely is.”

The story proper makes riveting reading.

A sheriff, a mayor and a former homeless man are among more than two dozen people writing a federal judge seeking mercy when former state Auditor Steve Patterson and Timothy Balducci are sentenced next week in a judicial bribery scandal that brought down trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs.

Patterson himself wrote the judge along with his son, family, friends, insurance agents, a minister and a former law partner of both defendants.

The two people who wrote about Balducci asked that he get the harshest punishment possible. …

In his letter, Patterson quotes from the novel The Trial. But “unlike Kafka’s character, I do dwell on my own shortcomings and freely admit to my own effort to recover the money spent on this splendidly foolish endeavor. Because of my poor judgment, my wife, my two boys and mother have already been punished disproportionately and continue to suffer anxious days and sleepless nights for fear of a future without a husband, a father and a son. Their pain is pure torture to me.” …

Attorney Richard Babb, who wrote after being solicited by Patterson, said though he has forgiven Patterson, he felt like a victim in the fiasco. He had worked in the same firm with the men.

“I had left a secure job in Ripley for what I believed a better opportunity,” Babb of Tupelo wrote. “Thus, while the public has watched these events unfold with a sort of morbid, but detached, fascination, for me it was much more personal. In one fell swoop, I was thrown out of the job, lost a salary upon which I was totally dependent and lost my health insurance. … My personal conviction is that the better and higher road is to forgive.”

Patterson’s son, John Calvin Patterson, described how the indictment affected his father.

“During this time I have witnessed my father change physically. Because of the stress of this ordeal, his hair is now nearly all gray; and it pains me to no end to watch him shaking nervously as he attempts to eat.” …

More there. By comparison, Patsy Brumfield’s story in the DJournal pales, except for its first two sentences:

You would have thought disgraced and disbarred attorney Timothy Balducci could have gotten at least one sympathetic letter to U.S. District Senior Judge Neal Biggers Jr. before Balducci’s sentencing Feb. 13.

He didn’t.

Patsy does have another story, though, listing the letter-writers for Patterson and offering a number of excerpts.

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As won’t surprise you, Joey Langston’s sentencing ledes all the major Mississippi papers today.

Seems it’s the season for software updates (‘ow you like ours, cherie?), and the Clarion-Ledger must have had one, since Jerry Mitchell’s story has all manner of new sidebar bells-&-whistles. Check ‘em out: not only Paul’s video but also a podcast of Kathleen Baydala, Chris Joyner, and Jerry discussing yesterday’s hearing in the context of Scruggs I/II (hey, it’s new — they’ll get better with practice), a pdf link to Joey’s remarks, and some kind of stats gizmo up top that it doesn’t look as if anybody’s played with yet. Good on the C-L for trying new tricks. And Jerry was apparently the only reporter to snag Judge Lackey:

The judge who reported the bribe in the Lafayette County case, Henry Lackey, worries what might happen to public perception of the judicial system if more indictments are handed down.

“I hope we are recovering from the fallout, but when the other shoe drops, as I expect it to do briefly, I fear it will impede what progress we have made,” he said.

Not sure what to make of that. My assumption that “briefly” here means “soonish” could be wrong, but mostly I wonder about his impeding-progress remark. Seems to me that getting all the sunlight we can on this set of crimes to finish the disinfection is progress. But apparently for Judge Lackey, professional mortification remains the main impression.

The Sun Herald must not have sent Anita Lee to Oxford; instead they run the AP’s write-up, with a Bruce Newman photo of Joey and Tony striding away from the courthouse.

At the DJournal, no new Patsy Brumfield story yet, but they do link the 17-page transcript.

If you missed Alyssa Schnugg’s story for the Eagle yesterday, it’s here, and the Eagle’s homepage has another Bruce Newman photo of Joey in the courthouse lobby (maybe some of you locals can ID the bystanders for us?).

For the Daily Mississippian, Paul Quinn observes, “Many of the lawyers caught up in the judicial bribery scandal that rocked the Mississippi legal community are University of Mississippi Law School alumni. Scruggs and Langston also donated heavily to the law school.”

There you go, that’s a good one just to leave percolating . . .

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I have ere this mentioned my love for peanut brittle, a trait shared with Judge Henry Lackey: “May 4th, phone call, Balducci calls Lackey. Lackey is eating peanut brittle (Balducci guesses chewing tobacco…).” But since he lives in Mississippi, no doubt the judge’s supply is tastier and more reliable than mine.

I developed my letch for the stuff in early childhood, back in Amory. A leading citizen of the town (in fact, I think he was mayor) who was also the granddaddy of one of my playmates, Mr. Jack Thomas, made the best peanut brittle the world has ever known and every now and then gifted us a batch. Thin and crispy it was, with just the right balance of candy and peanuts, perfectly flavored. Yow, fine stuff.

Decades would pass before I found some almost as good as Mr. Jack’s. But around 1990, I think ’twas, Lambert’s Cafe (The Home of Throwed Rolls) expanded from Sikeston, Mo., to Ozark, a town near Springfield on the road to Branson; among their delicacies on offer was excellent peanut brittle (also horehound candy, another taste of mine now hard to satisfy). When my mom was still alive and I’d go back to Springfield to visit, I’d score me some Lambert’s brittle and horehound every trip. But since ‘94, my only crack at it has been begging the occasional houseguest from that area to bring me some — a pipeline that, alas, natural attrition has gradually restricted.

So, though it may please my dentist, peanut brittle has turned into pretty much a pleasure only of memory for me now. I’ve seen complicated-looking recipes for it over the years, never attempting to make my own, but doodling around on NYT’s website this weekend, I ran across Mark Bittman’s very simple recipe.

I don’t know. Can one trust a Noo Yawkah to know what he’s talking about on this subject? Here’s what he says do:

PEANUT BRITTLE
Time: About 20 minutes, plus cooling

Butter for greasing pan
2 cups sugar
2 cups roasted peanuts, salted or unsalted, or other nuts
Salt, if using unsalted peanuts (optional).

1. Use a bit of butter to grease a baking sheet, preferably one with a low rim. Combine sugar and 2 tablespoons water in a heavy skillet and turn heat to medium. Stir until smooth, then cook, adjusting heat so that mixture bubbles steadily. Stir occasionally until mixture turns golden brown (which it may do rather suddenly).
2. Stir in the peanuts and a large pinch of salt, if desired. Pour mixture onto greased baking sheet and spread out. Cool for about a half-hour, then break into pieces. (You can score brittle with a knife when it has solidified slightly but not yet turned hard; that way, it will break into even squares.) Store in a covered container for up to two weeks.
Yield: About 1 pound.

Any of y’all know brittle-making and care to kibbitz on this? It just seems too simple (that he thinks regular squares might be a desired shape of the pieces ain’t a good sign, is it?). What do you think?

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Oxford has had its fair share of being in the limelight this year, such as hosting the first presidential debate in September on the University of Mississippi campus.

But just a few months prior, it was the rise and fall of prominent attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, often referred to as the “Tort King,” that turned all eyes on Oxford in 2008.

On Nov. 28, 2007, Scruggs, his son Zach Scruggs, law partner Sidney Backstrom, former attorney Timothy Balducci and former state auditor Steven Patterson were indicted on federal charges for trying to bribe Circuit Court Judge Henry Lackey with $40,000 for a favorable ruling in a lawsuit — Jones v. Scruggs —against the elder Scruggs over Hurricane Katrina litigation.

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How the case that transformed this blog took shape:

If you’re just becoming aware of this strange situation we call “Scruggsiana,” you may want to review a few earlier posts in the series to get up-to-speed quickly. For instance:

• The story broke first with a search of Dickie Scruggs’s law office on November 27, 2007, then the indictment of Scruggs and four others the next day. This drew folo’s attention, along with the observation that Dickie is Trent Lott’s brother-in-law, and that Lott had resigned the day before the search. Scruggs was indicted along with his son Zach, their law partner Sid Backstrom, and Tim Balducci and Steve Patterson for bribing circuit judge Henry Lackey in the case Jones, Funderburg v. Scruggs. folo ran descriptions of news accounts of the arraignment (and grounding of Scruggs’s plane), and later a post about the indictment and local coverage of the arraignment.
• The Wall Street Journal did a story about the case, interviewing Judge Lackey, who has not talked about the case to the media since.
• By December 1, observers noted that a defendant seemed scarce in public view, and news reports began to appear suggesting that defendant Tim Balducci, the lawyer accused of actually approaching Judge Lackey about the bribe, had become a witness for the government. This was confirmed when Balducci was arraigned and then pled guilty on December 5.
• Also on December 5, Trent Lott gave an interview in Washington in which he denied any coincidence in timing between his retirement and the Scruggs investigation (which, he said, he had not known about ahead of time).
• As time passed, folo began to sort through the Jones, Funderburg lawsuit, posting several times about that lawsuit and other background information.
• One of the most significant (if slow-emerging) pieces of the whole mess is the interweaving of private and public forces and resources that’s gone on for several years in Mississippi. Not only private attorneys but state officeholders now have more splaining to do than they may be equipped for (just sayin’).
• The ones to whom this job of delicate splaining will fall are, of course, the defense attorneys hired by the accused. folo has done its dead-level best to keep up with who’s whose, but it seems practically none of these guys much want to dance with who brung ‘im. (This is the one page on the whole site that may tickle the illiterate — even cats crack up when they see it.)
• December 10 marked two phenomena of related import: Joey Langston’s law office got raided, leading to what still stands as folo’s funniest comment-thread to date. (Er, sometimes posts giggle and run away too.)
• Lest you suspect Trent Lott of being the only (ex-)U.S. Senator whose name has come up in Scruggsiana, Fred Thompson and Joe Biden woefully beg to differ.
• On December 14, other names swam into clearer (if not yet “clear”) focus, including David Nutt and Bill Jones — and never let us overlook P.L. Blake, the man to whom Dickie Scruggs is paying $50 million over 20 years . . . though neither can quite explain why.
• And then along came former Hinds County (Jackson) D.A. Ed Peters and current Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter to open up another vein of this mother lode of reek (“Who and where next?” echoes folo’s constant refrain).

There’s much, much more to Scruggsiana — other cases (civil and criminal) in both Mississippi and Alabama, other important figures, other pots of money whose destinations are still to be discovered — but this much will get you well started. Lawd only knows how long it may take, but at some far-distant point — we dare say — it will also be well ended.

lotus and NMC

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