WOW!  We have a copy of the indictment.  It is a barnburner.  The feds didn’t have near this kind of slam dunk on Paul Minor (son of liberal insult hurling colunmist Bill Minor).  Balducci’s going to jail and he is going to flip like a pancake on Scruggs.

I am struggling with how to show all of the connections between Hood, Mike Moore and the indicted ones.  This effectively ends Mike Moore’s shot at a Senate run.

Missing in Minor’s case was the quid pro quo.  This case is totally different.

Scruggs, himself, will be singing like a bird to save his own fanny and that of his son.  Jim Hood and Mike Moore had better begin interviewing counsel for themselves, because Scruggs will point the finger right at them, corroborating the things that Balducci will no doubt tell the feds as well. 

I seem to remember JxnDem disagreeing with me about 3 weeks ago when the discussion was who might run for a potential Cochran Senate vacancy that Mike Moore had no baggage. 

I’d contend that Mike Moore has more baggage than the Mori luggage store…

I hear that Jim Hood hasn’t been at work in the last 3 days.

Those sounds that you hear are the keyboards of computers belonging to Republican attorneys all over the Magnolia State, getting their CV’s updated, for Governor Barbour just might soon have himself an AG vacancy to appoint, as well as a US Senate appointment to make.

Isn’t it quite the coincidence that the lawyer/spokesperson for Tricky Dickie is Joey Langston?

Yes, THAT Joey Langston.  The “first come, first served” Joey Langston, who Jim Hood gifted $14M to in the MCI settlement. 

Now wasn’t Joey Langston involved with Balducci character as well??

Scrugg’s thugs reminds me a lot of the movie Untouchables.  Finally they are being exposed for exactly what they are greedly self serving slip and sue attorneys who will stop at nothing to make a buck.  They’ve tarnished MS image for too long. 

Doing what they do is bad enough but they also desperately tried to win state elections and take back the legislature as one can only surmise they want to overturn tort reform and punish those who secured it’s passage.  They just as well may have succeeded.  Several attorneys have won seats that are closely tied to Scruggs and the industry.

Brandon Jones committment to Speaker McCoy immediatly upon being elected from a highly conservative republican district tells us all we need to know. 

His only redemption in the house is to vote for Smith or some other comprimise candidate.  Otherwise everyone will know who his master is.  And the funny thing is supporters of both Smith and McCoy know who were bought and who were not.  Those who actually believe deeply in either candidate have no respect for those that even vote with them for their choice if their vote is tainted.

That’s just one freshman legislator there are several more.  They will all have a chance to cast the right vote but these politicians need to quit thinking we are so stupid.  We know how to connect the dots.

If Brandon Jones does indeed vote for McCoy, he will be a one termer.  I can guarantee you that.  Same thing for Russ Nowell.  Neither of those districts will vote them back into office after the 4 years of nutsy House leadership created by their votes.

If they have any sense at all, and I mean any sense at all, they will vote for Smith.

No wonder Musgrove is sounding so much like a candidate.  All he has to explain away is a fling with a fairly attractive sexaholic.  Compared to Mikey, he’s got it made.

There’s a very good chance that Musgrove will have major baggage of his own that should it come to fruition will keep him from being a candidate for the US Senate, and/or keep him from winning such an election.  He’ll most likely have his hands full during 2008, and wish he’d never heard the words “cull cow”.

Remember that there’s a reason that Sean Carrothers isn’t serving his time yet...the releases thus far in the press say that he’s working with the feds.  Moooo-sgrove.

Maybe Gary Anderson should run.  What does he have to lose except another election?

Gary Anderson is probably busy trying to pay back those mysterious “loans” in his campaign finance reports.  I don’t think the original guarantor of those loans has the pay back at the top of his to-do list at this moment.

Given that Gary Anderson did a large fundraiser at Joey Langston’s law firm, I’ll bet you that most, if not all, of the freshly indicted crew are Anderson contributors.

why should he have to explain it away?

I’d be more worried if he turned down sex with a good looking sexaholic.

This is like reading a Grisham novel.  The issue that bothers me the most is the Scruggs has 1.5 Billion dollars...why would he want to risk going to jail for a part of 25 million?  That’s like $2,000 for most of us on this board.

That part blows me away.  This is going to get interesting and drug out for a long time.

I assume the FBI had wire taps on the Scruggs Law Firm.

Because greed always blinds the greedy…

Deserves what he gets if this is all true.. Certainly seems like a much storonger case than the one againwst Minor.

Get off Brandon Jones already, wonder who cannot just let that go! Weird how someone makes a commitment to vote for anyone other than McCoy and then still loses the election. I know everyone hates McCoy but he is not public enemy #1 to most Mississippians!  Should concentrate on beating him if you want him gone. Certainly appears that making McCoy the issue in a campaign certainly did not work.

Anyone heard who else is talking? Soneone besides Lackey contributed to those facts, you can bet on that!

Rossmiller with some great coverage this morning.<blockquote>“Look how bad this looks for Hood.  Scruggs, his cohort in the big battle against State Farm, is actually, at the very same time Hood sends his “confidential informant” letter to Alice Walker, being allegedly reeled in by a real confidential informant.  Hood is also on a losing streak—State Farm, the kid he used to beat up on and steal his lunch money, bulked up and lifted some weights over the summer and came back to school ready to put the teach on Jim.  State Farm filed a lawsuit against Hood that accused him of unethical conduct and sought to enjoin his further criminal investigation of the insurer, and what’s more, the company got a federal magistrate to sign the injunction.  How embarrassing for Hood.”

Back on Malkin for the 3rd time this week.  I think she may have a blogcrush on me.  It’s either that or we just kick ass.

Seriously, I have heard some great things about Judge Henry Lackey in the last 24 hours.  He has a great reputation as a straight shooter and a fair jurist.  The folks that I know who’ve been in front of him are a bit marvelled that these knuckleheads thought he, of all people, would “play ball”.

It sounds very much to me like there were wire taps at the Scruggs Law Office.

Now ask yourself, do you think that the feds heard and have tapes of any conversations regarding the collusion between Scruggs and AG Jim Hood in regard to the shenanigans leading up to the criminal contempt charges before Federal Judge Acker’s court in Alabama?  Given that it seems that Scruggs was being scrutinized since March of 2007, I’d suggest that there’s a very strong possibility that they did. 

Also ask yourself about how plausible it is that during that same time, and with those same wire taps, they’ve taped conversations between Scruggs and Mike Moore as it pertains to Katrina lawsuit investigations by Hood’s office and Moore’s involvement?

Further, ask yourself how plausible it is that there would be wire taps of Timothy Balducci during the last 8 months?  Now, given that Mr. Balducci received half of the MCI settlement millions from Joey Langston and that both of these guys were running thousands of dollars through the Democrat Attorney Generals Association for AG Jim Hood at the time, and that the MCI settlement circumstances were one of the largest AG campaign issues, might one suppose that the Feds heard some things that might be a little shady, if not illegal, regarding Mr Hood, Mr. Langston, and Mr. Balducci?

Finally, given that they have a pretty tight case in the current indictment, don’t you think that Mr. Balducci, and Mr. Scruggs and the other Mr. Scruggs will be cutting a deal pretty soon?

And who do you think they will be cutting the deal against...do you think they’ll be pointing the finger at their respective paralegals, or their secretaries??  The Federal boys won’t consider those approriate trades, now will they? 

Jim Hood and Mike Moore had better hire some lawyers of their own because the Feds are coming.

TTS, please don’t tell me where to get off, for I know what it is that I speak of.

The fact is that Brandon Jones will represent a conservative district and this time around, and I’ll repeat that for emphasis, this time around Brandon Jones did not have the public scrutiny put on him by those that can and will shine a very bright spotlight on him to the point that he will not win the next election should he choose to help make McCoy speaker again.

I’m surprised no one has said anything about the rumors surrounding Lott’s resignation and the male escort!

Around here, we kindly allow “journalists” like Donna Ladd at the Jackson Free Press get into those types of things.  Here we’d rather deal with reality.

Speaking of the querulous crowd over at JFP, have you noticed that, in their blogging about the caoching change at Ole Miss, that THEY ALL HATE OLE MISS. How can they get every single thing wrong?

Either they’re that wrong . . . or really lucky.

<a href="Lawyer Battling for Katrina Payments Is Indicted">Look how the NYT spun this</a>.  They certainly lionized Scruggs in the title.  It sounds like he was “battling for the people”, when in fact he was bribing (allegedly) Judges on a lawyer fee fight between guys on the same side.

Here’s my question—how long before Dickie & Friends start bleating about entrapment?  The indictment is a little fuzzy on the timeline, but certainly leaves room for the possibility that Judge Lackey might have misunderstood the original conversation with Balducci and, with Paul Minor’s conviction fresh in his mind, skeedaddled to the Northern District feds.  They, of course, were wildly jealous of their Southern District collegues who were the toast of the town after taking down Paul Minor, so they wired up Judge Lackey and got him to solicit the bribe in question.

I’m not saying that’s what happened.  I’m just predicting that that’s what Dickie will say happened.  He’s just an innocent victim, you see.

Hey Alan, your stupid computer refuses to allow you to link just like it refused to allow me last night.  Fix that pronto, propeller head.

Remember this, too.  Dickie testified at Paul Minor’s trial.  Dickie paid off Teel’s loan, and I think substantially testified that he just didn’t know the context behind it.  He just did it because Minor asked him to.  I am going to try and get the trial transcripts.

For any of you aspiring journoblogger types with some time on your hands . . . it’s time to look at judicial campaign finance reports to see who these folks have been giving to.

Here is another astute tidbit from Salter.  Tim Balducci was appointed by Jim Hood as a Special Assistant Attorney General in the MCI case.  If I am a US Attorney, I think I might have to open that case back up.

Bill and Hill won’t be dropping by.

“A Dec. 15 fundraiser at the Oxford home of attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs for the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and featuring former President Bill Clinton has been canceled, a campaign official said Thursday.”

If Hillary will take illegal straw man contributions from asian cooks and waiters, I don’t know why she wouldn’t take dirty money from Tricky Dickie…

The MCI deal stinks to high heaven.  Ask yourself, why on earth would MCI ditch their lawyer who had previously offered only $20 million to settle, hire Mike Moore, with his myriad connections to Langston and Hood, and then go along with his crazy advice to quintuple their settlement offer and throw in $17 million in attorney fees, to boot?  What was the deal inside the deal which made that an acceptable outcome for MCI?

First came the indictment of the lawyers who cooked up fake prescriptions to leverage diet-drug settlements.  Then we had Paul Minor bribing judges.  Now we have Scruggs, Balducci, etc.  Plaintiffs’ practice in Mississippi has been nothing more than a vast criminal enterprise for at least the last decade.

Why is it that all lawyers are a bunch of thieves?

So Alan, what happens to your traffic count when Michelle Malkin gives you a link?

Walter Olson also linked to this site at overlawyered.com.

They, of course, were wildly jealous of their Southern District collegues who were the toast of the town after taking down Paul Minor, so they wired up Judge Lackey and got him to solicit the bribe in question.

I’m not saying that’s what happened.  I’m just predicting that that’s what Dickie will say happened.
Jim Greenlee won’t be an easy mark for that.

what happens to your traffic count when Michelle Malkin gives you a link?

It increases.  Substantially.

The deal inside the deal was that at the time, MCI was being bought out by Verizon.  Any outstanding litigation over disputed taxes owed by MCI created an obstacle to the buyout being finalized.  So MCI was forced to settle the lawsuit in order to pave the way for the buyout to finalize.

I generally call the situation that MCI was in: A Gun to the Head

Actually, Micah, that’s a question that bears serious consideration.  And keep in mind, I’m a lawyer.  Something drastic happened in Mississippi over the last twenty years which opened the door to an incredible series of abuses.  If you want to argue root causes, you might consider Mississippi’s refusal to allow class actions when it adopted its Rules of Procedure back in 1982.  The plaintiffs’ bar quite creatively circumvented that prohibition through a device which became known as the “mass action”—essentially, joining scores, hundreds, even thousands of plaintiffs with vaguely similar problems in a single lawsuit, then cherry-picking the sickest ones, trying those cases and using those verdicts to establish settlement values.  It was “class action” without any of the procedural protections normally afforded to defendants.

This arrangement basically turned Mississippi courts into a candy store for unethical, and in many cases downright incompetent, lawyers who were willing to run TV ads and do other unsavory things to recruit clients.  A great many of these lawyers became wildly rich in the heyday before tort reform, and started throwing their money around in political races, including judges races, in an unprecedented fashion.  It’s no coincidence that the Democratic nominees for Gov. and Lt. Gov. were both rich plaintiffs’ lawyers.  And I defy anyone to look at John Arthur Eaves and tell me that he got rich because he was smart.

Anyway, there are a lot of contributing factors, and the Mississippi Bar Association is going to have a huge problem on its hands cleaning up the mess.  For one thing, it absolutely cannot allow the Attorney General of the State to line the pockets of his contributors by threatening civil defendants with criminal prosecution of they don’t settle.  Any other lawyer doing such a thing would be disbarred immediately.

“The deal inside the deal was that at the time, MCI was being bought out by Verizon.  Any outstanding litigation over disputed taxes owed by MCI created an obstacle to the buyout being finalized.”

So why didn’t every other state play the same extortion racket?  Why was Mississippi the only one able to turn it into a huge payday?  And why did they switch lawyers and hire Mike Moore if that’s all there was to it?

ReadyForAChange said: <i> For one thing, it absolutely cannot allow the Attorney General of the State to line the pockets of his contributors by threatening civil defendants with criminal prosecution of they don’t settle.  Any other lawyer doing such a thing would be disbarred immediately. <i>

That’s also what I’d call:  A Gun to the Head

I have no way of knowing why they switched lawyers to Mike Moore.  Perhaps it was suggested that they do so by Jim Hood?  I do know that Mississippi was one of, if not the last, states to deal with issue.

Good point R.D.  It can also be called a fish rotting from the head.

I think we can all rest assured that the stories will all come out in the bathwater of these criminal trials. 

Balducci was involved in the entire MCI deal.  He’ll be singing like a bird pretty soon.

“I have no way of knowing why they switched lawyers to Mike Moore.  Perhaps it was suggested that they do so by Jim Hood?”

(a) In the relationship between Jim Hood and Mike Moore, rest assured Hood ain’t the one doing the thinking.

(b) Why in heck would MCI take advice from Jim Hood on who they should hire as lawyers, anyway? He was the one trying to shake them down.  That’d be like Israel taking advice from Hezbollah on who they should appoint as General.

Over in the alternative (to common sense) universe, they are not trying to say that Scruggs was a republican donor, the judge was actually the one on the take and other crazy moonbat conspiracy theories.

Actually, they’ve been pretty quiet.

You’re right on point (a), RFAC.  On point (b), all I can do is shrug my shoulders.

Boys and girls, this thing could have tentacles reaching into unexpected places. If the allegations in the indictment are proven, how many previously adjudicated or settled cases will bear looking into again in light of this? The Mississippi bar has taken some serious blows, as RFAC notes, and really needs to clean itself up. Public respect for both bar and bench are at stake.

Balducci was filmed and recorded with Lackey and then told the feds had a movie they wanted him to see. They asked what he thought of spending the rest of his life in prison and the then wore a wire to record the other co-defendants.

You heard it here first

Can someone please tell me how the Bar let Balducci and Patterson use Patterson’s name in the name of the law firm?  All fifty states bar non-lawyers from operating law firms with lawyers!  And it’s not like this was being hid!  I am deeply embarrassed for the legal profession.

Rule 5.4 Professional Independence of a Lawyer

(b) A lawyer shall not form a partnership with a nonlawyer if any of the activities of the partnership consist of the practice of law.

(d) A lawyer shall not practice with or in the form of a professional corporation or association authorized to practice law for a profit, if:

(1) a nonlawyer owns any interest therein, except that a fiduciary
representative of the estate of a lawyer may hold the stock or interest of
the lawyer for a reasonable time during administration;

(2) a nonlawyer is a corporate director or officer thereof; or

(3) a nonlawyer has the right to direct or control the professional judgment
of a lawyer.

The Bar doesn’t clear firm names.  It relies on members to do the right thing and, if not, it relies on someone to file a complaint.  Do you think self-policing is working?

Has anybody looked into the background of who Sid Backstrom is? Wasn’t his father the chancellor who presided over the tobacco litigation on the coast, and approved the tobacco fees? Hmmmm.  Maybe Big Tobacco is going to look into this.

Why no mention of the other firms that were co-defendants with Scruggs in the fee dispute? They knew nothing about the “strategy”?

The indictment says “Patterson & Balducci, PLLC” existed.

I haven’t found that company on the SOS’s website.  I don’t think it existed.  Balducci’s website doesn’t make reference to it.  Does anybody have a letterhead representing that company?  Balducci is only listed one time on the SOS website in the name of a firm (the old Webb Sanders Deaton group) and once more as an officer for a leasing company.  He is the Agent of process for a couple of companies.

I think a Rule 5.4 violation and practicing law without a license are the least of Balducci and Patterson’s worries. 

It is common for non-lawyers to partner with attorneys on consulting and lobbying business.  I wonder exactly what Patterson’s role was in this partnership. Reading his bio, it appears that he is in fact a consultant.  They are pushing it, but the group may not technically be violating 5.4. If they are partners in a PLLC, they may be in violation of statute, and especially 5.4 if they designated that the company practices law.

"Patterson and Dickie and Zach Scruggs pleaded not guilty to the charges in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Allan Alexander. Zach Scruggses and Patterson were released on $50,000 bonds each and Dickie Scruggs on a $100,000 bond. All three had to put up their homes as collateral.

U.S. Attorney Tom Dawson asked Alexander to set a $5 million bond on the Scruggses, saying they were a flight risk with the family having a home in the Bahamas and owning a private jet.

“These two have access to airplanes that are capable of international flight,” Dawson said. “ ... Remaining a fugitive is extremely expensive and only those who have the means can do so.”

Attorney Tony Farese, representing Zach Scruggs, told the judge that his client as well as his father, are by no means, flight risks.

“These men have no intention of fleeing,” Farese said. “And anyone who knows them would know that. They are no more a flight risk to leave this country than they are to go to the moon.”

Alexander grounded the Scruggs’ plane and demanded all three men turn over their passports. Any travel out of Mississippi would have to be approved by the court. The judge did allow the plane to be used for medical reasons with prior permission from the court.

The senior Scruggs was represented by attorney Joey Langston, and Patterson by attorney Ken Coghlan.

Backstrom is expected to be arraigned today, but it was unclear when Balducci would make his first court appearance, according to an Associated Press report.”

Sid Backstrom is the son of the late Jim Backstrom who was a Circuit Court Judge in Jackson George and Greene Counties. He retired from the bench and was practicing on the Coast at a plaintiff’s law firm at the time of his untimely death. He had a heart attack while arriving home after work one night, he never got out of his truck and drove it through his driveway into a bayou behind his home. He was a wonderful man, who would be devastated by these events.

What’s up with Don Barrett claiming that he is running the Katrina litigation, and then an hour later Dick Scruggs says he is?  Don’t you know State Farm is loving this.

Overlawyerd.com has a zillion links on the Scruggs indictment.

Overlawyered has a pdf of Johnny Jones’ suit against the Scruggs Katrina Group, which includes as Exhibit “A” the joint venture agreement.  The agreement expressly provides that any of the five members can be voted out by a “super-majority” of the other members (meaning 4 votes) and, if that happens, the rejected member “forfeits all rights” under the agreement.  Which makes it sound like Johnny didn’t have such a great case, after all.

Ironically, Johnny’s complaint says he insisted repeatedly that they arbitrate—at least 20 times, he says.  When Dicky refused, Johnny was forced to file suit, and then Dicky put his entire career on the line by bribing a judge to issue an order compelling Johnny to arbitrate.

The stupidity of these people is apparently boundless.

I knew there were corrupt lawyers and judges in Mississippi but never imagined it was this bad.

How ironic it is that corrupt lawyers lawsuit against a corrupt insurance company and greed is what started this whole chain of events. 

The really sad thing is that all these mega lawsuits instigated by attorneys only make attorney’s wealthy and the real victims of the hurricane, tobacco, asbestos still get nothing when all is said and done.

There should be a legal limit to what attorneys can get for these mega lawsuits where they win hundreds of millions of dollars just as the public has a limit on what they can be awarded in a lawsuit.