folo

Interesting email here, don’t you think?

Hey Lotus,

After a quick look-see at the current location of one “Richard Scruggs” my curiosity was raised when my cursory search of “Zach Scruggs” yielded no results….any ideas?  Here’s the link for the Bureau of Prison’s inmate locator page:

http://bop.gov/iloc2/LocateInmate.jsp

Phantom

Anybody know anything to add?

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From Patsy Brumfield:

OXFORD — Zach Scruggs, serving a prison term for his part in the judicial bribery scandal that brought down his famed lawyer father, Dickie Scruggs, is asking the U.S. District Court to tell the Mississippi Bar Association it can’t “permanently” prevent him from practicing law again.

The Mississippi Supreme Court approved the Bar’s motion July 31 to “permanently” disbar the younger Scruggs, who pleaded guilty to knowing about but not reporting a scheme to bribe a circuit judge.

Zach Scruggs’ motion to the federal court insists the disbarment rules cited by the Bar do not contain any references to doing so permanently.

He’s also asking the federal court to hold up on his disbarment until the state Supreme Court rules on his request about the permanency issue.

Here’s the AP’s very brief item too.

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The Clarion-Ledger‘s AP story on Zach Scruggs’s report-to-prison day includes a photo and this quote:

"Not only did we expect probation, nobody goes to prison for misprision of a felony. So it was a pretty shocking turnaround that day," Zach Scruggs’ lawyer, former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, said Thursday. …

As one of the C-L commenters observed:

If no one ever goes to jail for misprison [sic] of a felony, and yet Mighty Mike’s client gets jail time, that must make Mike one of the worst lawyers in Mississippi.

Oh well, I hear Zach had a going-away party. Don’t know who threw it where, who turned out, or what games they played, but maybe Mike won a prize.

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Alyssa Schnugg, for the Oxford Eagle, explains how Zach Scruggs ended up aimed for Forrest City to do his federal time instead of Pensacola:

The Mississippi [sic] Bureau of Prisons on Friday granted Zach Scruggs his wish to serve out his jail time in Arkansas to be closer to his family.

Last week the bureau sent Zach Scruggs a letter to report to the federal prison in Pensacola, Fla. but his attorney’s asked U.S. District Senior Judge Neal Biggers to recommend the younger Scruggs be sent to Arkansas instead.

According to documents filed Friday, the bureau changed its "mind" and is now allowing Scruggs to serve his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution Low Satellite Camp in Forrest City, Ark., where his former law partner, Sidney Backstrom, will be serving his 28-month sentence.

Can’t help but wonder whether the BOP expected trouble if it placed either Scruggs in the same joint with Paul Minor. This would be interesting to know, wouldn’t it?

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After Dickie’s depo the other day, Jim Robie chatted up LegalNewsLine a bit, according to ThinkProgress (emphases theirs).

In an interview with LegalNewsline, Robie said Lott had "initiated contact with people surrounding" the case involving alleged efforts to "defraud" State Farm:

"Clearly, the record couldn’t be more plain that Sen. Lott and his associates were talking to people that were key advisers to Mr. Scruggs, paid consultants and those who were creating an illusion that simply doesn’t have any basic fact," Robie told Legal Newsline on Thursday. [...]

Robie said Lott, a leading Republican, initiated contact with people surrounding this case, something unprecedented for a U.S. Senator.

"Have you ever had a U.S. Senator call you?" he asked rhetorically.

A spokesman for Lott’s lobbying firm told Legal Newsline that "the former senator had no interest in justifying the implication with a response."

Lott has previously been reported to have used his position in the Senate to put pressure on State Farm. In May, the New Yorker reported:

Charles Chamness, the C.E.O. of a national insurance trade association, has claimed that Lott had threatened him, in a telephone call, with "bringing down State Farm and the industry." Lott also co-sponsored a proposal to strip the insurance industry of an antitrust exemption that had been in place since the nineteen-forties.

Robie says "he will continue his efforts to depose both Richard and Zach Scruggs, during which he will probe the influence of Lott."

Unless you especially groove on Trent Lott, ThinkP’s comment-thread offers some good laffs . . . including a familiar name and theme at #19. It’s also noteworthy that ThinkP apparently doesn’t know the LNL’s connection to the “U.S. Chamber,” which I’m sure they’d have mentioned if they did.

(h/t . . . and your littledog too)

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Wow, imagine my surprise to see what all transpired while I was offline for a few hours — thanks to all who kept up on the developments collected here, with special gratitude to Y’allPolitics for linking the pertinent transcripts and affidavit:

Dickie’s depo (74-page pdf)
Zach’s depo (77-page pdf)
Mullen affidavit (12-page pdf)

But first word of Trent Lott’s re-surfacing came in Holbrook Mohr’s story reporting that State Farm lawyer Jim Robie’s questions to Dickie and Zach deftly laid down a minefield of insinuations for Lott (and Gene Taylor) to refuse comment on. By the way, apropos of Trentie’s Butler, Snow gig, you might enjoy revisiting this February 23 thread (lagniappe there: bellesouth’s departure from folo).

Meanwhile, today Anita Lee reports that

Attorney Dickie Scruggs and State Farm are waiting for a federal judge to decide if he must submit to more questions from the insurance company before he reports for prison Aug. 4.

“The Scruggs stonewall continues unabated,” State Farm says in an emergency motion requesting Scruggs be ordered to answer questions and produce all records he possesses about his relationship with two former insurance adjusters and the news media, the theft of State Farm records, and the multimillionaire’s financial dealings with policyholders, potential witnesses and other lawyers. …

Describing the depositions as “daylong affairs at the now-defunct Scruggs Law Firm in Oxford,” Anita writes about the Scruggses’ refusal even to confirm their addresses, let alone answer such questions as “You had a strategy to find an insider to steal documents, a strategy to use the legislature, a strategy to use the judicial officers of Mississippi, and a strategy to use the press in order to put State Farm into an extremely uncomfortable position and pay you money; isn’t that a fact?”

Robie, a Los Angeles attorney, also grilled Dickie Scruggs about an e-mail indicating he supplied sealed court documents, which are strictly withheld from public view, to CBS news. And Robie asked both Scruggses about Dickie Scruggs’ brother-in-law, former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott.

Robie implied that the two adjusters tried to check on Lott’s State Farm claim, at Scruggs urging, and asked Zach Scruggs if Lott had tried to encourage witnesses to offer false information against State Farm.

Harkening back to Robie’s questions to Jim Hood in Natchez, Anita concludes with this flourish:

When questioning Scruggs, Robie asked, “Please tell me, Mr. Hood, where is that good stuff?”

For once, Scruggs didn’t offer his stock response. Instead, he said, “I’m not Mr. Hood, sir.”

Finally, this morning we also have it from Anita that Cori and Kerri Rigsby have agreed to Judge Acker’s suggestion that they seek mediation of Renfroe v. Rigsby (and that, whether the Renfroes like it or not, he’s also accepted Dickie’s offered $65K to pay their fine).

Okay, while I catch up some depo-reading, y’all please continue your fascinating analyses of all this . . .

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The AP’s Holbrook Mohr on the latest in McIntosh v. State Farm:

Convicted attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs and his son want to prevent their sworn testimony in a Hurricane Katrina lawsuit from becoming public and “undermining the presumption of innocence” if they face criminal charges in the future. …

Federal investigators, meanwhile, are looking into at least one other case in which Richard Scruggs and his son have been accused of misconduct. Because of that ongoing investigation, the Scruggses want a federal judge to seal testimony that was taken under oath last week in a civil case involving Hurricane Katrina damages. …

In these videotaped depositions, Mohr reports, State Farm “attorneys ‘alleged activity of a criminal nature against both of the Scruggses,’ according to a motion filed Friday by an attorney representing Richard and Zach Scruggs,” both of whom “invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer the questions, the motion said.”

“The dissemination of the Scruggses’ deposition testimony may seriously prejudice their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in any future criminal proceedings by unfairly portraying them as asserting a constitutional privilege to conceal misconduct and by undermining the presumption of innocence,” according to the motion. …

It’s not clear what the attorneys for State Farm and E.A. Renfroe asked during the deposition. Paul B. Watkins Jr., an Oxford attorney representing Richard and Zach Scruggs, said Monday the court documents “speak for themselves” and declined to discuss the matter.

A State Farm spokesman did not immediately respond to a message. …

Stand by for similar followups to yesterday’s depositions in Jones and Zuckerman.

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. . . we might wonder whether three Scruggsiana disbarments do too, what with this mini-flurry of reporting today.

In the Sun Herald, Anita Lee writes:

Now that judgments have been entered in a judicial bribery case, the Mississippi Bar has renewed its request that the Mississippi Supreme Court disbar or indefinitely suspend attorneys Dickie Scruggs, his son, Zach Scruggs, and Sidney Backstrom. …

And up at the DJournal, Patsy Brumfield has it:

… On July 9, the Mississippi Bar Association asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to disbar them, meaning they lose their law licenses.

“Sidney A. Backstrom consents to the Bar’s requested relief,” Backstrom’s attorney, Frank Trapp of Jackson, said in a motion filed two days after the Bar’s disbarment motion.

The same day, the court received nearly identical disbarment requests for the Scruggses.

The Bar tried to disbar them after their pleas a few months ago, but the state’s highest court apparently decided to wait until the proceedings were complete. …

To which Anita adds:

Backstrom is the son of a former Coast Circuit Court judge, James Backstrom, who is deceased. In a letter to the judge before he was sentenced, Backstrom’s wife said her husband is devastated because he fears that he harmed his father’s legacy.

Makes you wonder about whether MSSC’s had quite all the plumbing repair it may need, hm?

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The Daily Journal has reported that Zach Scruggs has changed his mind about where he wants to serve his time. It seems that his father is not eligible for Pensacola because he’s a pilot, and so is being sent to Forrest City, Arkansas (along with Sid Backstrom, at least if his request is honored). Zach wants to go there too, to avoid the strain on his family.

Here’s the DJ story. Here’s Zach Scruggs.

h/t to It’s All Good

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Here’s the sentencing order carrying Judge Neal Biggers’ recommendation that the Bureau of Prisons park Zach Scruggs’s butt in Pensacola (with his daddy’s). Now to see if BOP goes along.

(h/t NMC)

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