Free Republic

Out of all the topics the Joe Biden White House didn’t want to see in Sunday’s Washington Post, this had to be up there on the list. The capital city’s newspaper of record published recordings Sunday of President Joe Biden’s brother, James, engaged in scoring off his famous last name during the late 1990s. The fact that the recordings were made by FBI investigators couldn’t have made things easier in the Biden household either. The Post article was headlined “James Biden’s dealmaking caught on FBI tapes in unrelated bribery probe,” and just the words alone had to be unsettling at...

Richard F. "Dickie" Scruggs has a gentlemanly demeanor seemingly at odds with his profession as a take-no-prisoners trial litigator. A decade ago, the Mississippi native was riding high. Nobody in the plaintiffs' bar struck as much fear in the hearts of the nation's tobacco manufacturers as he. Now his career appears over, a casualty of scandal, though not of the sort that recently felled securities-industry scourge William Lerach. This March 14, Scruggs, along with his Oxford, Miss. law firm partner, Sidney Backstrom, pleaded guilty in federal court to bribery charges. According to the indictment, the pair, along with three other...

As the prison doors prepared to swing open to admit yet another notorious trial lawyer, this time Melvyn I. "The Class King" Weiss, Vanderbuilt University law professor Richard A. Nagareda found some solace in the mounting troubles in the plaintiffs'-bar world. The publicity accompanying the spate of prominent attorneys who bribed judges, paid kickbacks, hired professional plaintiffs for fraudulent class-action lawsuits or otherwise corrupted the legal system is "in some ways fortuitous," he told The New York Times, because now "there is more awareness that there is some level of abuse going on." That's sort of like Josef Stalin confessing...

JACKSON, Miss. - Plaintiffs attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, facing corruption and contempt charges in unrelated cases, will invoke the Fifth Amendment if forced to testify in a federal lawsuit involving Mississippi's attorney general, according to court records. Scruggs is scheduled for a deposition Friday in a lawsuit filed by State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. The insurer accuses Attorney General Jim Hood of using the threat of a criminal investigation to force settlements in civil litigation over Hurricane Katrina damages.

NEW ORLEANS --A Mississippi judge who ruled in favor of wealthy tort lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs in a civil case was told by a friend siding with Scruggs could mean consideration for a federal judgeship, prosecutors said in court papers unsealed this week. Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter, who did not respond to a call seeking comment Thursday, has denied accepting any bribes and defended his ruling in favor of Scruggs in a dispute with other lawyers over fees from asbestos litigation. However, during a closed-door proceeding in federal court last week, a prosecutor said Scruggs dispatched intermediaries to...

BILOXI, Miss. -- Court records showed through ties to attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, P.L. Blake will earn $50 million. The Sun Herald reported Blake is earning that money for clipping newspaper articles and alerting Scruggs to maneuvering in political "cloakrooms," as Scruggs put it, from Mississippi to Washington. Scruggs has said that Blake will earn $50 million in fees over 20 years from Scruggs' share of tobacco settlements. Mike Moore, who as Mississippi's attorney general guided the tobacco litigation, has said he was unaware Scruggs is paying Blake such a large sum. Accounts of how Blake earned the money are...

JACKSON, Miss. - An attorney has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe a judge and is assisting federal prosecutors in a case involving one of the nation's wealthiest trial lawyers, according to court documents. Timothy Balducci entered the plea late Tuesday after initially pleading not guilty. According to court papers, Balducci was accused of delivering $40,000 to a judge at the behest of prominent attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs for a favorable ruling in a civil case. The case before the judge involved a dispute between Scruggs and other lawyers over $26.5 million in fees from a mass settlement of lawsuits...

The FBI in Jackson has been searching the Scruggs Law Firm on The Square since 10:30 this morning for a specific document that is "ancillary" to Hurricane Katrina insurance litigation, attorney Joey Langston said this afternoon. The FBI confirmed this morning that a search warrant had been executed at the law firm headed by high-profile attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, who successfully sued Big Tobacco and has represented hundreds of policyholders suing insurance companies over Katrina damage.

(Dickie) Scruggs arrested on bribery charges

A grand jury in North Mississippi has indicted Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, his son, Zach Scruggs, Scruggs Law Firm attorney Sidney A. Backstrom, attorney Timothy Balducci and former State Auditor Steve Patterson for conspiring to bribe a state court judge in North Mississippi over a case that involved funds from a settlement with State Farm insurance companies. The indictment, filed late Thursday, said Scruggs attempted to influence Lackey in the case by offering him $40,000 for an order that would resolve the lawsuit Jones vs. Scruggs in favor of Dickie Scruggs and the Scruggs Law Firm. Dickie Scruggs also is accused...

NEW ORLEANS - An attorney who helped negotiate a multibillion-dollar settlement against tobacco companies in the 1990s and has sued insurers over unpaid Hurricane Katrina claims was indicted Wednesday in a suspected scheme to bribe a Mississippi judge. The indictment accuses Richard "Dickie" Scruggs of conspiring to pay the judge $50,000 to rule in his favor in a lawsuit brought by other attorneys who sought fees for work on Katrina insurance litigation. Circuit Court Judge Henry Lackey reported the "bribery overture" to federal authorities and agreed to assist investigators in an "undercover capacity," according to the indictment. Scruggs was indicted...

Host Indicted, Clinton Fund-Raiser Canceled Mary Jacoby reports on the presidential race. A Dec. 15 fund-raising event for Hillary Clinton at the home of prominent Mississippi trial laywer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs is off, now that Scruggs has been indicted for bribery. Bill Clinton was set to be the star attraction at the event at Scruggs’s Oxford, Miss., home. Hillary Clinton wasn’t scheduled to attend. It was the first event that Scruggs, who made a fortune suing the tobacco industry in the 1990s, had offered to host for Clinton, a campaign spokesman said. It was canceled on Wednesday, after the Federal...

Back in June, federal Judge Janis Graham Jack disparaged nearly all of 10,000 claims for the rare lung disease as having been "manufactured for money." She also told the lawyers involved that federal prosecutors wanted access to the documents and X-rays surrounding this "fraud." So imagine Judge Jack's surprise to discover at a hearing last Monday that Houston attorney Scott Hooper -- one of several tort lawyers who brought the claims -- had removed more than 1,300 X-rays from a court depository. The judge had specifically denied Mr. Hooper's request to take the X-rays. Ms. Jack told Mr. Hooper that...