In March, the New York Times described lawyer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, as “often folksy and smooth as molasses in court.”
And, as the story made clear, Scruggs’s downhome style has made him a millionaire many times over.
The Mississippi native and brother-in-law of Sen. Trent Lott has taken on the asbestos, insurance and tobacco industries and won.
He has gained huge settlements for his clients and come away with giant fees for himself.
But now Scruggs, 61, finds himself heading to court for a different reason.
He and four co-defendants, one of them his son and law partner, David Zachary Scruggs, were indicted Wednesday on federal criminal charges of trying to bribe a Mississippi circuit court judge.
As the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page wrote last week, “The indictment reads like something out of a bad John Grisham novel.”
Tucked within the document’s legal language (”on or about,” “to wit”) are descriptions of cash payments, quick meetings and secret doings.
Central to this story is the allegation that Timothy R. Balducci, another Mississippi lawyer, approached Judge Harold L. Lackey, of Mississippi’s Third Circuit Court in March.
Allegedly, Balducci proposed paying the judge money to influence his ruling in a case involving Scruggs.
After a few days, Lackey contacted federal authorities about the bribe offer. The judge agreed to have his subsequent meetings and telephone conversations with Balducci recorded secretly.
Allegedly, Balducci made three cash payments to the judge totaling $40,000.
According to the indictment, Scruggs reimbursed Balducci the $40,000 and also gave him an addition $10,000 to go to the judge.
The indictment does not indicate whether the judge received the final $10,000.
In conversation reported in the indictment, Balducci allegedly told Lackey: “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.”
Lackey was presiding over a civil case that had been filed by the law firm of Jones, Funderburg, Seesums, Peterson & Lee against Scruggs, the Scruggs Law Firm and other plaintiffs.
The Jones firm had participated with Scruggs in a successful post-Katrina against State Farm Insurance. The firm disputed Scrugg’s division of $26.5 million in attorney’s fees.
A native of the Gulfport community of Pascagoula, Miss., and a graduate of the University of Mississippi Law School first made millions in asbestos-related cases filed on behalf of workers in the shipbuilding industry.
In the 1990s, he led a suit against tobacco companies that gained almost $250 billion in a 1998 settlement. Scruggs’ firm was said to have received nearly $1 billion.
The movie, The Insider, looked at the tobacco case and the involvement of whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand.
Scruggs and his wife, Diane, have contributed heavily to political candidates. This year he has donated to the presidential campaigns of Sen. John McCain, a Republican, and to Sen. Joe Biden, a Democratic.
The Associated Press reported that in the wake of the indictment, a Dec. 15 fund-raiser at Scruggs’ home for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been cancelled.
Scruggs was released Wednesday on $100,000 bail.
He is being represented by, among others, John W. Keker, a San Francisco lawyer.
Keker prosecuted Oliver L. North in the Iran-Contra scandal. He has represented many high profile clients, including Andrew S. Fastow, Enron’s chief financial officer and Frank Quattrone, a Credit Suisse First Boston investment banker.
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