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Today's Must Read
It's been an eventful week for the Lott clan. On Monday, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) announced that he'd be retiring late this year. The next day, FBI agents raided the law office of his brother-in-law, Richard "Dickie" Scruggs. Yesterday, Scruggs, his son, and three associates were indicted for bribery.
Scruggs is a hotshot plaintiff's lawyer who famously cleaned up from lawsuits against big tobacco. His recent business has focused on Katrina-related litigation, especially against State Farm Insurance.
He'd better have a great criminal defense lawyer, because the indictment from the U.S. attorney for Mississippi's Northern District is devastating (you can read it here).
Here's the basic scheme: after Scruggs led a $80 million settlement between State Farm and hundreds of clients, an attorney who had formerly worked with Scruggs disputed the $26.5 million chunk of that settlement to Scruggs' law group. Scruggs wanted his money, and he and his associates decided that the best way to get it was to bribe the county judge presiding over the case, Henry Lackey. But Lackey went to the feds as soon as Scruggs' associates made the overture. He wore a wire. And things went downhill from there. For instance, here's what a lawyer working for Scruggs said to the judge, according to the indictment:
"...[M]my relationship with Dick [Scruggs] is such that he and I can talk very private [sic] about these kinds of matters and I have the fullest confidence that if the court, you know, is inclined to rule... in favor... everything will be good.... The only person in the world outside of me and you that has discussed this is me and Dick [Scruggs].... We, uh, like I say, it ain't but three people in the world that know anything about this...and two of them are sitting here and the other one...the other one, uh, being Scruggs...he and I, um, how shall I say, for over the last five or six years there, there are bodies buried that, that you know, that he and I know where...where are, and, and, my, my trust in his, mine in him and his in mine, in me, I am sure are the same."
The indictment is replete with similarly, um, problematic quotations. There are plenty of mentions of the "package" and the "order" among Scruggs' associates (apparently conversations on tapped phones). In October and November of this year, Scruggs, through his associates, paid the judge $40,000 (and intended to pay $10,000 more). And when it came time for the order to be prepared, the indictment quotes one of Scruggs' associates as saying to two others (one of them Scruggs' son), "we paid for this ruling; let's be sure it says what we want it to say."
It's like I said: it doesn't look good for Scruggs. As for Lott, there's no indication that he had anything to do with the scheme. Whether the impending indictment, which seems to have caught Scruggs very much by surprise, had anything to do with his sudden retirement, remains (like the many other competing theories) unclear.
Comments (20)
freepatriot wrote on November 29, 2007 10:29 AM:repuglitard "Family Values" in action
Patience wrote on November 29, 2007 11:03 AM:Scruggs was actually a big donor to Democrats, notwithstanding his relationship to Lott. Not that I wouldn't be surprised to find that Trent sent plenty of "bipartisan" favors in his brother-in-law's direction.
skibumlee wrote on November 29, 2007 11:04 AM:Just another amazing Coincidence.
Anderson wrote on November 29, 2007 11:19 AM:If there's a connection to Lott, it might be that indicting Scruggs makes it very, very difficult for Mike Moore to run for Lott's seat.
Barbour beat Eaves over the head pretty well with the "trial lawyer" stick, but given Moore's close ties to Scruggs, it would be even uglier.
Btw, Judge Lackey is a "circuit judge" who hears cases in a multi-county district; a "county judge" is a lower magistrate on the judicial totem pole.
SeeDee wrote on November 29, 2007 11:27 AM:Patience: There are still vestiges of the pre-'Dixiecrat' Democrats in Mississippi and the South...I would guess that the Scruggs' donations went to that class of Democrat...aren't they now referred to as 'DINO's'?
JEP wrote on November 29, 2007 11:47 AM:What's that old cliche about manure hitting the fan?
Doesn't this make Siegelman's Alabama conviction look like mother's breastmilk compared to this Mississippi moonshine?
BTW, it is still dry in AL!
http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/12_week.gif
the drought started seriously, the week Siegelman was sentenced.
I'm just saying...
The Conservative Deflator wrote on November 29, 2007 11:50 AM:Between this and the allegation that Lott had a long-running homosexual relationship with a "house boy" being carried on other blogs, I'd say the Trentster is in a world of hurt about now... But, it just couldn't happen to a nicer guy - the big sissie!
brian wrote on November 29, 2007 12:14 PM:Lott has resigned for some very solid reason ... we await its revelation with great interest.
Anne wrote on November 29, 2007 12:23 PM:This doesn't make sense. Scruggs has more money than god. He's a shrewd lawyer, why would he do something this stupid?
Anderson wrote on November 29, 2007 12:38 PM:He's a shrewd lawyer, why would he do something this stupid?
That's the question, isn't it? I think Sharon Stone's character relied on a similar defense in Basic Instinct. Not sure how well that works when your associate is testifying that yeah, you told him to bribe the judge.
Anonymous wrote on November 29, 2007 1:50 PM:Nice tie. Isn't Trent in the barbershop quartet with Larry "Widestance" Craig???
AlbertoG wrote on November 29, 2007 1:50 PM:If Lott got wind of this indictment before it was issued, what are we to make of the new AG's efforts at DOJ?
Anonymous wrote on November 29, 2007 2:39 PM:Scruggs was set to have a Hillary Clinton fundraiser on December 15th...with former President Bill Clinton speaking and attending... at his home in Oxford. No way is Clinton showing now. The house is currently "sequestered" by the way.
sj wrote on November 29, 2007 3:06 PM:I think Scruggs' donations to Democrats went to whomever was friendly to his interests as a trial lawyer.
Tina wrote on November 29, 2007 3:14 PM:FYI
kjoe wrote on November 29, 2007 3:51 PM:Bill always does the right thing. from ben smith---
November 29, 2007
Read More: Hillary Clinton
No Scruggs event for Bill
A Clinton aide said that the campaign has canceled Bill Clinton's planned Dec. 15 fundraiser at the home of Oxford, Miss., trial lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs.
Scruggs, Trent Lott's brother-in-law, was indicted yesterday on bribery charges.
dixiegrl wrote on November 29, 2007 4:32 PM:Let's see...
Anonymous wrote on November 29, 2007 4:37 PM:A lawyer, friend of Lott but who contributed to and supported a Democratic candidate....
and was costing the insurance industry a lot of money.
now being charged for bribery, a behavior almost a necessary qualifier for Bush Co. members.
Sadly, I now look at any charges coming from DOJ with more than a bit of scepticism.
The US Attorney in the case is James Ming Greenlee, appointed by Bush in 2001. Apparently one of the USAs immune to the "4 year experience then out" rule DOJ
claimed to be enforcing.
Putting aside Lott's in-law status, one might look afresh at what happened. Given recent political prosecutions, how can we be certain this political prosecution has been reached justly? Does a dark shadow lurk anywhere?
mac2151 wrote on November 29, 2007 5:10 PM:Came across an Insurance Journal article of 6/30/2005 that mentions a Caprisa Scruggs, an employee of insurance fraudster Recriprocal of America.
margaret wrote on December 5, 2007 2:54 PM:It also stated that Reciprocal division, ANLIR, was the sole hospital insurance provider in the state of Mississippi at the time.
Could this be a redux of the Siegleman Trial in Alabama? With all those big corporations losing to Scruggs, there could be some serious payback going on here.