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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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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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In the Clarion-Ledger, Jerry Mitchell reports,

The former prosecutor who made a worldwide name for himself for putting Klansman Byron De La Beckwith behind bars will be in court today, accused of ruling in favor of the former lawyer once called Mississippi’s “king of torts.”

Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter is slated to appear in federal court in Oxford on a charge he was influenced to rule in favor of former high-profile lawyer Dickie Scruggs, who was sentenced this week to seven years in prison in the case. …

No co-indictee nor hearing-time mentioned.

UPDATE: Now add Patsy Brumfield’s story:

OXFORD – Revelations are expected today about additional indictments in the judicial bribery scandal known as “Scruggs II.”

Sources told the Daily Journal on Wednesday that who will be indicted isn’t public information, but confirmed that information will become public today. …

Who will not be indicted today is clear: It won’t be Scruggs … And it won’t be former attorney Joey Langston …

It may not be former New Albany attorney Timothy Balducci or former state Auditor Steven Patterson, both implicated by Langston and Scruggs but given similar immunity for their guilty pleas in the Lackey case. It’s unclear whether that immunity extends to the DeLaughter case.

The only names left from case documents and admissions are:

- DeLaughter, suspended from the bench while these allegations are investigated. He maintains he did nothing wrong.

- Ed Peters, former Hinds district attorney, who Langston and Scruggs admitted was the go-between to DeLaughter, who once worked for Peters. Observers speculate he will not be indicted in return for his full cooperation against DeLaughter and for turning in his law license recently.

- Trent Lott, the former U.S. senator and Scruggs’ brother-in-law, who made the crucial phone call to DeLaughter, after Scruggs asked him to do so, saying the judge was under consideration for the federal bench. Lott insists his contact with DeLaughter was only “a courtesy call.”

UPDATE II: 10:12 AM CST, from NMC in Judge Alexander’s courtroom — DeLaughter’s in shackles, which means he hasn’t bonded-out yet. So far he’s the only defendant in sight.

UPDATE III: DeLaughter pleads Not Guilty; no word yet on who his attorney is.

UPDATE IV: The attorney with him is Cynthia Speetgens.

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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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Patsy Brumfield has been reporting up the famous storm on Scruggsiana since yesterday. Her third filing of the morning hints that Dickie Scruggs won’t be the only pleader Tuesday:

ABERDEEN – Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, perhaps with other defendants, is scheduled to report to federal court on Tuesday to plead guilty to charges related to a judicial bribery scheme prosecutors named “Scruggs II.” …

Whether anyone else has been indicted with Scruggs wasn’t known late Friday. …

Sources close to the case speculated Friday that [Bobby] DeLaughter also may appear with Scruggs next week as a co-defendant in “Scruggs II.” Other U.S. District Court-watchers think [Ed] Peters may not be indicted because of a plea deal to cooperate with prosecutors.

More at the link.

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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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Prominent attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs leaves the federal courthouse in Oxford, Miss., Nov. 28, 2007, after being indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly bribing a judge. His son Zach Scruggs is seen in the background. (File photo/The Clarion-Ledger)

The Clarion Ledger reports:

Dickie Scruggs, once one of the nation’s most powerful trial lawyers, is on his way back to Mississippi from federal prison in Kentucky, prison officials said.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Oxford requested the U.S. Marshals Service return the 62-year-old former lawyer in time for a Tuesday hearing, where documents show Scruggs is expected to appear before U.S. District Judge Glen Davidson and plead guilty to corruption charges related to a second judicial bribery scheme.

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The Clarion Ledger editorialized today about the newly sworn-in Mississippi Supreme Court justices, and said:

Perhaps never in Mississippi history has the state’s judiciary been under more scrutiny. As the “Scruggs I” judicial bribery scandal gives way to an unfolding “Scruggs II” probe in which a former Hinds County district attorney has surrendered his license to practice law, it’s clear that the state’s high court must take a leading role in restoring the perception and the reality of judicial integrity in all levels of the state’s judiciary.

But this state’s judicial elections continue to demean the dignity of the court and to see voters manipulated by special interest groups seeking to hold sway over the judicial philosophies of the courts.

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Update:  If you are coming into Folo looking for information about what happened with Ed Peters today, you might start in this summary-of-the-day here.

Ed Peters has turned in his law license to the state bar, reports WLBT channel 3 in Jackson.

JACKSON, MS (WLBT) – Former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters has given up his license to practice law. Attorney Joey Langston has linked Peters, attorney Dickie Scruggs, and Hinds county judge Bobby Delaughter in a judicial bribery sceme.

According to Langston, Scruggs paid Peters to help influence Delaughter in a dispute over $15-million in legal fees for asbestos litigation. Peters was Delaughter’s longtime friend and former boss.

Judge Delaughter eventually ruled in Scruggs ‘ favor. Peters — along with Langston and former state auditor Steve Patterson — pocketed $1-million from Scruggs , according to Langston’s plea agreement in the federal investigation.

Langston also claims that the bait in the bribery scheme was a federal judgeship Delaughter was interested in. Senator Trent Lott (who is Scrugg’s brother in law) alledgedly submitted Delaughter’s name for consideration on Scrugg’s behalf. Dealughter never received that judgeship.

Things are starting to become visible now?

Update

YallPolitics goes to the docket:

General Docket

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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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