The Wall Street Journal-20080115-Another Scruggs Case
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Another Scruggs Case
The Dickie Scruggs bribery case keeps getting curiouser, with yesterday's news that even the tort baron's former defense attorney has copped a federal plea.
Mr. Scruggs was indicted in November along with his son and three other lawyers for conspiring to bribe Mississippi Judge Henry Lackey. Two of the defendants have already pled guilty and are cooperating with the feds. And according to court papers released yesterday, Joey Langston, who had until recently represented Mr. Scruggs, has now pled guilty to conspiring with Mr. Scruggs in a scheme to influence a different judge in a separate case.
This new case involves yet another battle over dividing up attorneys fees, this time in state Judge Robert DeLaughter's court. According to the indictment, sometime in 2006 or early 2007 Mr. Scruggs told Mr. Langston that "he could arrange for [Judge] DeLaughter to be considered for a [federal] appointment" and said Mr. Langston should have that information conveyed to the judge. How Mr. Scruggs was intending to help Judge DeLaughter isn't clear, but it has escaped no one that Mr. Scruggs's brother-in-law is Senator Trent Lott.
Judge DeLaughter says he took no bribe, and Mr. Lott isn't named in the papers. Mr. Scruggs is also not a named defendant, though the papers describe him as integral to the scheme. Mr. Scruggs's current lawyer, John Keker, says "Joey Langston apparently has his own problems, but they're not Dickie Scruggs's problems." Presumably, that's what a jury will decide. But Mr. Scruggs must now confront three former intimates who are talking to the feds about Mississippi's tort bar culture, in which bribery seems to have been a signature practice.
