folo

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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Good morning.

Hmm, November 28 . . . you know, that rings a bell. On this date one year ago, certain activity in Oxford (pdf) turned Dickie Scruggs’ — and Zach Scruggs’, Sidney Backstrom’s, and Steve Patterson’s — worlds upside down (we didn’t know then that Tim Balducci’s already had been and Joey Langston’s was about to be). The event’s effect on this brand-new little blog wasn’t immediately apparent either, but to say “changed everything” is mere approximation. Don’t know about you, but this one feels more like five years to me — and I’m not even Trent Lott, Ed Peters, Bobby DeLaughter, or PL Blake! As Patsy Brumfield has a look back and forth, I say Happy Anniversary, Scruggsiana.

From Mumbai, with the attack apparently over, the Times of India puts the death toll at 195 (at least 22 were non-Indian; five were Americans or had lived in the US, two were Canadians); eternal peace to them all. Though Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari promised Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to send his intelligence chief to help in the investigation, such opposition to that arose in Pakistan that now only a “representative,” not the ISI chief himself, will go. (What’s Urdu for “Psych!”?) As The Guardian‘s Richard Norton-Taylor and sources discuss the difficulty of spotting terrorists such as these in time to stop them, WaPo describes the focus on Pakistani militants, and Juan Cole and Pat Lang advise that resolving the Pakistani-Indian standoff over Kashmir needs Obama Administration commitment equal to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian one (Lang recommends partition).

Kevin Drum, posting about Samantha Power’s return to Camp Obama (on the transition team analyzing State Department personnel, operations, and policy), notes that

If we accept the conventional wisdom that Obama’s choice of Clinton as Secretary of State is a generous gesture meant to help unify the party, then there would be few more forthright ways for Clinton to reciprocate than by nominating Power for some kind of meaningful position at Foggy Bottom.

Then he adds the sentence italicized in this comment:

It would be a good sign that those hatchets have been well and truly buried.

Oh no, no, no. We’re not giving up that easily. If Hillary’s involved, there’s drama! There’s intrigue! Maybe some backstabbing! And sex!!

And even if there’s not, that’s our story and we’re going to tell that way.

Posted by: The Cable Yakkers on 11/28/08 at 6:07 PM

Hee.

Wiggle a paw if you’ve been stuffing it in like Mocha here:

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Jerry Mitchell just posted:

A federal grand jury in Oxford is expected to hear testimony this month or next on whether imprisoned former trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs influenced Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter – a case prosecutors already are calling “Scruggs II.”

Scruggs’ prosecution earlier this year in an unrelated judicial bribery case received plenty of national media attention, but Matt Steffey, professor at Mississippi College School of Law, expects this new case to attract more. DeLaughter is known nationally for his successful prosecution in 1994 of Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers. “I expect a media feeding frenzy,” Steffey said. …

Joey’s Langston’s lawyer, Tony Farese, wouldn’t discuss the case because it’s under seal, but that didn’t stop Hiram Eastland, Jr., Steve Patterson’s attorney.

“Steve has been a cooperating witness, so it’s not unusual to see sentencing postponed. We haven’t heard anything on sentencing that would lead us to believe sentencing is imminent, but it’s totally discretionary with (U.S. District) Judge (Neal) Biggers.”

Well, this time we’ve been warned. Lay in your popcorn and clear your cache.

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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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Pete Yost and Holbrook Mohr team up for an AP story that includes these mentions of names familiar around here:

WASHINGTON (AP) — In August 2007, three men who later became entangled in a Mississippi bribery scheme raised money for Sen. Joe Biden’s run for president.

A month later, two of the three were overheard in a phone call recorded by the FBI discussing federal legislation and a prospective meeting with Biden’s brother, Jim.

It’s unclear whether any meeting ever occurred or whether legislation was ever discussed, so the episode may mean little — except as an example of the potential political vulnerabilities that Barack Obama’s running mate brings to the Democratic ticket. …

Among the other grist he may provide for John McCain’s mill: …

_The history of Biden’s son, Hunter, as a Washington lobbyist. Since 2002, the firm Hunter Biden co-founded has represented a major constituent of Joe Biden’s, the University of Delaware, which has collected millions in federal funding.

_Donations to Biden’s campaigns totaling more than $200,000 in the past two decades from Delaware-based MBNA, the credit card company, and a similar amount from trial lawyers, including Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, one of the three men implicated in the Mississippi bribery scheme. …

[T]he Mississippi fundraiser and the FBI-taped phone call are the kind of information Obama’s opponents can make use of if they want to, despite the ambiguity of the circumstances

Biden has returned at least $7,500 in campaign contributions from the three men and their families.

The overheard conversation between attorney Timothy Balducci and former Mississippi State Auditor Steve Patterson was recorded in September 2007 while the FBI was investigating a bribery scheme that toppled Scruggs, Mississippi’s most prominent lawyer.

Balducci tells Patterson at one point in the cryptic conversation that he was told “we really need to push on the Senate bill” and “get your man in line in the House if this comes out of the Senate,” according to the transcript.

On the tape, Balducci says he had spoken by phone to Jim Biden, Sen. Biden’s brother, “and we’re gonna meet the Bidens around noon,” according to the transcript.

Balducci said they would “meet with the black farmers at three.”

Around the time of the tape-recorded call, Biden and other lawmakers, including Obama, were pushing legislation to give thousands of black farmers a chance to seek compensation if they were denied loans or crop subsidies by the U.S. Department of Agriculture because of their race.

In December 2007, the Senate passed a farm bill that included language to help the farmers seek compensation if they missed out on an earlier settlement with the Agriculture Department in 1999.

Patterson’s attorney, Hiram Eastland Jr., says that Patterson did not have any conversations with Joe Biden about any of the black farmers and that Patterson “never asked Jim Biden to work on anything.”

Eastland said Patterson may have had limited conversation with Jim Biden because Patterson and Balducci were trying to open a consulting firm in Washington.

The phrase “the kind of information Obama’s opponents can make use of if they want to” is intriguing, isn’t it? Quite conceivably, others may want to talk more about Scruggsiana than Camp McCain would prefer, mayn’t they? This promises an interesting dynamic to watch.

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Folks reading the blog noted that Joe Biden had “returned” the Scruggs-connected presidential contributions to his presidential campaign by donating like amounts to a charity. This had caused some to speculate that Biden was cleaning up his act preparatory to a possible Vice Presidential bid.

I hope that whoever is vetting this one is asking some hard questions and doing a little (or maybe a lot) of digging around.

Really regular readers of the blog may wonder if a partial return of contributions connected to the bribery case is really coming clean. Recall as early as December, Lotus was posting about the fund raiser for Biden in August of last year (right in the warm up to the actual exchange of cash in the bribery plot…) co-hosted by Tim Balducci and Scruggs. I did not see the money from Balducci (or several others very connected to all that) in the list of money being “returned.” Later on, excerpts of transcripts in which the reception was being planned were part of the exhibits to a motion.

A month later, as the bribery scheme rocks along, Tim Balducci talks (into a federal wire) to Steve Patterson and says "I’ve been on the phone with Biden this mornin’, that would be Jim Biden. I’m not tryin’ to be like Joey." That would be Joe’s brother Jim.

Reliable sources suggest that there are some pretty big payments directed Jim’s way in the tobacco expenses that Scruggs was compelled to give up as a part of the Wilson v. Scruggs litigation.

And recall that when we asked “a dozen questions about Scruggsiana,” number 6 from Lotus was: “How did Joe Biden get so chummy with these Mississippi boys, and how has that worked for him over the years?”

While I’m on the subject of vulnerabilities to opposition research, I’ll ask this: McCain trumpets his role in “taking on big tobacco” (or something like that). I’m curious if anyone’s poked around that much…

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That sound you hear is two pincers closing on Bobby DeLaughter, and Jerry Mitchell bears the tales.

(1) Jerry confirms that the Mississippi Judicial Performance Commission is looking at the Middleton case, in which DeLaughter withheld adjudication following former Jackson police officer Jeffrey Middleton’s guilty plea to culpable negligent vehicular manslaughter, which withhold cleared the way for the conviction to be expunged. DeLaughter’s old (a) colleague and (b) boss from the Hinds County DA’s office, Tommy Mayfield and Ed Peters, were Middleton’s attorneys, and the JPC is apparently powerful-curious about how that coincidence may have affected the result. By statute, non-adjudication isn’t available in crimes against persons, such as manslaughter.

(2) Even harder on Bobby’s migraine, Jerry reports that the federal grand jury to be seated in Oxford on August 19 will take up the Peters-DeLaughter[-Lott-Scruggs] funny business in Wilson v. Scruggs, as told by Joey Langston, Tim Balducci, and Steve Patterson.

“Our client continues to cooperate in any way he can,” said one of Patterson’s lawyers, Hiram Eastland Jr. of Greenwood. “It’s still an ongoing investigation.”

Wondering when to schedule your last little summer getaway? Hope this helps.

(h/t Confounded, OMTL, and jdog, very nearly simultaneously)

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Standing in for the Oxford Eagle’s website, folo proudly presents . . .
Younger Scruggs to serve 14 months in jail
Zach Scruggs also ordered to pay $250,000 fine
By Alyssa Schnugg
Staff Writer

U.S. District Senior Judge Neal B. Biggers Jr. said he had a hard time believing Zach Scruggs wasn’t aware of any money being exchanged during a judicial bribery attempt, prior to sentencing Scruggs to spend 14 months in prison.

Scruggs, his father, Richard ‘Dickie’ Scruggs, former attorney Timothy Balducci, former state auditor Steve Patterson and the Scruggses’ law partner Sidney Backstrom were charged in November for attempting to bribe Circuit Court Judge Henry Lackey with $40,000 for a favorable ruling in a lawsuit filed against the elder Scruggs.

In March, Zach Scruggs pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of misprision of a felony, which means he had knowledge a felony had occurred but didn’t report it to authorities.

During his sentence, Zach Scruggs’ attorney, Mike Moore, said his client’s only knowledge was that Balducci was sent to talk to Lackey and use his long-time friendship with Lackey to send the lawsuit to arbitration.

‘He never had any knowledge there was a conspiracy to bribe the judge,’ said Moore, who is the former Mississippi Attorney General.

‘He isn’t being sentenced for conspiracy,’ Biggers said. ‘It’s a stretch to believe that Backstrom never mentioned there was any money involved.’

Zach Scruggs will also serve a year on supervised probation after his release and was ordered to pay a $250,000 fine.

Moore told Biggers that Zach Scrugg’s wife was expecting their third child and asked the judge if Zach Scruggs could turn himself after his child was born in October.

‘You may file a written motion and the court will consider it,’ Biggers said.

On Friday, the senior Scruggs was sentenced to five years in prison and Backstrom received a 28-month sentence. They were ordered to turn themselves into on Aug. 4 to begin their sentences. Balducci and Patterson have not yet been sentenced. No court date has been set for them.

Zach Scruggs said he was deeply sorry for his involvement in the case.

‘I wish I could go back and change what happened …,’ Zach Scruggs told the court. ‘I should have stopped what happened. I should have objected to what happened … I’m deeply sorry and remorseful and I ask this court for forgiveness.’

Biggers called Zach Scruggs’ case a ‘sad’ one, particularly since it was his own father who got him involved with the illegal activity.

Biggers chastised the junior Scruggs for not respecting Judge Lackey, despite his comments about respecting and loving the law during his plea hearing.

‘You didn’t show respect for the Circuit Court when you said, –’We need to get this signed before some other (expletive) gets the case,” Biggers said, referring to a comment Zach Scruggs made on one of the tapes.

During the sentencing hearing, Biggers and Moore butted heads frequently.

‘If I want you to respond, I will ask you to,’ Biggers said at one point.

It was apparent Scruggs and his attorneys, Todd Graves and Moore, were not prepared for a sentence which included prison time since the government asked for leniency for the younger Scruggs and recommended probation.

Moore asked Biggers if he could include a request for a particular institution for Scruggs to serve his sentence in his motion.

‘We were not prepared to do that,’ Moore said. ‘We have not given any consideration about where Mr. Scruggs would go.’

According to the Mississippi Bar, the Scruggses and Backstrom will lose their licenses to practice law for pleading guilty to a felony. The Mississippi Supreme Court will consider disbarment petitions against Dickie and Zach Scruggs and Backstrom in the July-August term, according to the Associated Press. Balducci already has relinquished his law license. Patterson was not an attorney.

–alyssa@oxfordeagle.com

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Patsy Brumfield on Zach’s sentencing:

OXFORD –" Zach Scruggs, the 34-year-old scion of fallen plaintiffs’ attorney Richard ‘Dickie’ Scruggs, will serve a 14-month prison term for failing to report that his father and others, including himself, were plotting to bribe a circuit judge.

At a morning hearing, Senior Judge Neal Biggers Jr. sentenced the slender, blond-haired lawyer in a U.S. District courtroom packed with family and friends.

In addition to the 14 months in prison, Biggers ordered Scruggs to pay a $250,000 fine, which includes the cost of incarceration, and serve a year of supervised probation upon his release.

His attorneys said they will ask that Scruggs not report to prison until October, when his third child is born. Biggers said he would consider the request. ….

Like his father and Backstrom, Zach Scruggs most certainly will lose his law license, which he gained after his 2000 honors graduation from Ole Miss Law School.

He still has something to fall back on –" his bachelor’s degree, earned in 1996, is in accountancy.

Just like Steve Patterson’s, so look out for more, Mississippi . . .

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The Daily Mississippian runs a kind of strange mismatch of story and headline today. The headline reads What now? Ole Miss faculty responds to Scruggs’ maximum sentence — but Curtis Wilkie turns out to be the only faculty member quoted.

Associate Professor of journalism Curtis Wilkie is now working on a book about the Scruggs case.

“I know him personally and he knows that I’m doing a book on this case,” Wilkie said. “That being the case, we have never discussed his situation.”

Wilkie said that few have been as generous in contributing to the university as Scruggs has. [Etc., etc.]

The story also quotes some of Chancellor Khayat’s letter and includes this passage, the last paragraph of which may be slightly garbled in the translation:

Sam Davis, chair of the law school, said he was personally saddened for the families involved and the whole legal system.

“The vast majority of lawyers and those involved in law are honest, law-abiding citizens,” Davis said. “It will take a lot to restore the public’s confidence in the system again.”

Davis said the situation was “a bit of an enigma.”

“As Mr. Scruggs’ attorney said, it would take a Faulkner or a Percy to tell the full story,” he said. “Earwig is an archaic term that means you are going to the judge without the knowledge or permission of the other side. Talking to a judge about a case is a very old term for a very old problem, one that at times has been very serious. Until this case, law students have been saying, ‘Earwig? What is that?’”

Seeing the headline, I was hoping for the view from Ole Miss Law, but no. Meanwhile over at the DJournal, an editorialist opines:

The federal judiciary and its prosecutors delivered a humiliating blow on Friday to the enemies of integrity in the Mississippi state judiciary.

The sentencing of famed plaintiffs’ attorney Richard Scruggs and his former law firm associate, Sidney Backstrom, on charges of attempting to bribe a state circuit court judge, reverberates among all who think they can get away with anything because they are above the law. …

Dickie Scruggs, Zack Scruggs, Sid Backstrom, Steve Patterson, Joey Langston, and Tim Balducci failed themselves, their families, their communities, their friends, their innocent colleagues, and the legal profession.

But they got caught, the single possibility that apparently never entered their minds or touched their consciences.

Here, I rather expected a repeated call for Jim Hood to follow up at the state level, or some handwringing that state law hasn’t been brought to bear too, but nope, not this time.

Guess I’m not very attuned with North Mississippi media yet today.

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