Posted on 09/07/2007 8:06:42 PM PDT by LdSentinal
JACKSON (AP) — Gulf Coast attorney Paul Minor was sentenced Friday to 11 years in prison for bribing two Mississippi judges.
Minor and two former judges were sentenced by U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate.
Minor was found guilty in March on charges ranging from racketeering to bribery.
In the same trial, former Judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield were convicted of mail fraud and bribery for accepting the bribes.
Wingate said Minor’s attorneys had asked for leniency and for him to be sentenced to time served.
‘‘I cannot do that. The crimes for which you’ve been convicted are just so great to a system of justice,’’ Wingate said.
Wingate also fined Minor $2.7 million and ordered him to pay restitution of $1.5 million. Minor also was given three years supervised release.
After the verdict was read, Minor turned in his seat to smile and nod at his family in the courtroom.
Earlier Friday, Minor thanked Wingate for having put him in jail last year before a judicial bribery trial.
Minor was sent to the Madison County Jail in September 2006 after Wingate found Minor had violated terms of his bond, in part, for excessive drinking.
Minor, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, told Wingate that his time behind bars has helped him realize that it’s time to deal with a lifelong struggle with alcoholism.
‘‘It has helped me to look deep, deep inside myself,’’ he said, drawing tears from family members and friends in the courtroom. ‘‘While being shackled like a dog ... is horrible, there are positive things that can be gained.’’
Minor, who amassed a fortune from tobacco, asbestos, medical malpractice and car safety lawsuits, also asked for leniency.
‘‘Give me the opportunity to serve society so when I die, my tombstone does not read, ’Here lies the man who rotted his last years in jail.’’’
The three were convicted in March in a case that revealed financial ties between Minor and the two judges from coastal Harrison County.
Minor was found guilty on charges ranging from racketeering to bribery. He faced up to 95 years in prison.
Teel and Whitfield were found guilty of mail fraud and bribery for accepting the bribes. Teel faced up to 25 years in prison, and Whitfield faced up to 50 years.
Minor was convicted of guaranteeing $140,000 in loans to Whitfield in 1998, then using cash, a third party and a backdated promissory note to try to conceal the fact that Minor paid off the loan. Whitfield awarded Minor’s client $3.6 million in a lawsuit. The Mississippi Supreme Court later reduced the award to $1.6 million.
Minor was also accused of guaranteeing a loan of $24,500 to Teel the same year. Prosecutors said Teel forced through a $1.5 million settlement in one of Minor’s cases before his court.
Minor acknowledged guaranteeing loans for Teel and Whitfield, but claimed he was only helping friends who had fallen on hard times and that he expected nothing in return.
Whitfield’s attorney, Michael Crosby, told Wingate this week that Whitfield accepts responsibility for what he did.
His father, Bill Minor, is a left-wing loon columnist in Mississippi.
You got that right. Minor is a hit man for the Democrat Party and is all things Democrat. Republican hatred and prejudice just drips from most of his editorials. Sadly, he is revered in Mississippi by the Democrats.
I believe the trial lawyers of Mississippi are really gunning for this election and trying to add to their supporters by dumping large sums of money into the election of state house and senate elections.
Here in NE MS, the trial lawyers and Black Legislative Caucus (another arm of the trial lawyers) are spending inordinate amounts of money to garner the seat being vacated by Republican Travis Little. Eric Powell, a pipefitter and Union man, is ahead in the primaries and right now likely to get the seat. What is sad is that he will ignore his constituents immediately and go with the trial lawyer supported Black Legislative caucus. How does this tie in with Paul Minor? The scumbag trial lawyers want to reverse some of the laws that limit their dishonest practices that have garnered them the outrageous settlements won in the past ten years. Mike Moore controls the tobacco settlement with $10 million going to the Democrat Black Legislative Caucus yearly...(for what I have nfi). Paul Minor was just the one that got caught being sloppy in his bribes...there are several others..Langston, Farese, Scruggs, et al....that have made billions with the lax laws that let lawyers get away with massive theft.
I didn't know about the family connection. Minor has been a lefty democrat propagandist since the dems in Mississippi decided to change their stripes.
These huge class-action awards that are parceled out in secret by crooked lawyer scum are a real problem. There is very little transparency here, and much of this money is recycled into Democrat coffers.
We should push for accurate accounting of these awards, loud and long. If we can find and publicize enough dirty laundry, it would help very much in bringing about serious tort reform. This is the single most important thing we can do to destroy the Democratic Party. A huge proportion of their financial support comes from trial lawyers. It would be a most painful kick in the nuts for the Democrats if we could bankrupt the plaintiff's bar, in addition to improving almost every other facet of American social and commercial life.
-ccm
You repeat yourself. Twice, in fact.
-ccm
man I knew a lot of these folks growing up
My mom babysat Paul Minor as a lad in Jackson.
His daddy was a big freedom rider type and stayed left from there on...
Now, THIS is what I call Jackpot Justice!
Wow!
He's getting serious jail time!
I never thought I would see that.
Of course you know the players involved, wardaddy...you know everybody. ;o)
Have I got good news for y'all!
"The annual diversion of $20 million of tobacco settlement funds to a smoking cessation program was wrong, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The Supreme Court upheld a December 2006 order from a Jackson County chancery judge, who said only the Legislature could appropriate money to tobacco cessation programs."
His group, The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi, has gone out of business, too. lol
Better late than never ping!
Wes Teal’s son was just sent to prison for beating a man to death in the Harrison County jail. He was a deputy sheriff. The feds took the case because the local DA didn’t want to touch it. No charges were filed by the state/county for months, and months, and months! The local sheriff has been voted out of office by a huge margin.
The dead man’s family settled out of court for $10,000,000. Guess who gets the bill.
A little known fact about the tobacco settlement money is that the first payment was deposited in a local bank in Pascagoula! Whose home town is that? Dickie Scruggs, brother-in-law to Trent Lott and involved in the law suit by Michael Moore the former state AG. Guess who else is from Pascagoula? Michael Moore.
Mark my words, Moore will run for the US Senate as soon as Lott or Cockran retire. He will be elected too.
One need only scratch the surface of politics and the rot and stink is overwhelming.
Wardaddy, your mom should have thrown the baby out with the bath water.
AND HAS BEEN FOR YEARS AND YEARS!
I let MS 10 years ago...and I’d STILL like to get a running start and kick Bill Minor in his nuts. What a jackass.
Don't be surprised if Minor is indicted by a separate grand jury in Washington. I have it on very good authority that he was being looked into for straw-man contributions (a-la the Budhist nuns for Gore) in the 2004 campaign.
yep...on 11 years he’ll do 87%...no parole in the feds since 1987
Good evening! ;o)
Here in NE MS, the trial lawyers and Black Legislative Caucus (another arm of the trial lawyers) are spending inordinate amounts of money to garner the seat being vacated by Republican Travis Little.
southwest mississippi is in chaos too - adams, jerrerson and wilkensin counties are a cesspool - a friend called trent lott and he admitted that not much could be done in that area of the state
here in dallas, a federal judge siezed control of our school system for decades - and redistributed the taxes from affluent (read high tax) districts to poor districts - i don’t know how that is possible under the constitution, but he did it
mississippi needs something like that - when a judge ignores crime in adams county (vines) and allows him to continue in office - when the jefferson county judges award hundred million dollar judgments for tort lawyers (when the people suing only filled one pill of a prescription to get in on the game) - when the sheriff takes ballot boxes from a mixed race committee and allows only the blacks to access them - when houses are torched because someone dare cross the corruption in wilkenson county - - - its time for the national guard or something
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