This man is a scum-sucking bottom feeder of the worst kind. Calling him a shyster is a disservice to other lawyers. Someone ought to lock him in one of these trailers and throw away the key.
Would someone please stop helping the Karina “victims”. All that I have heard anytime someone tried to offer assistance is how badly they have done it. Leave them alone and let them help themselves, they don’t appreciate anything that anyone has done so far, there will probably be lawsuits for giving trailers for FREE! Also, did the Feds build the trailers? If someone else bought these trailers would there be this sort of press? When is this waste of time and money going to STOP!
How about if we get all the FEMA trailers in a big pile, load all the attorneys on top & set the whole thing on fire. Any outlying moths would be drawn to the flame also.
Mr. Buzbee is bandying about a lot of “standards” for the formaldehyde content in the workplace, but I seem to recall a great upheaval years ago about formaldehyde in residences from wallpaper, paneling, and carpeting. Buzbee hasn’t brought to light any “standards” for residential formaldehyde levels. I wonder if they differ enough from workplace standards that he has no interest in looking at them (or having a jury look at them). Anyone have any idea as to whether there have been residential standards established? Also, since the trailers in question are largely of the camp trailer variety, are there any separate standards for them?
Let’s go back to the beginning. If these trailers were released with toxic levels, then why doesn’t the government go back to the jerk that released them and fire his rear. That’s the big problem with government, everyone is protected from their decisions. Put the individual to work in the private sector and let’s see how long mistakes like this last before they’re fired. I agree that the Katrina victims do nothing but complain that the world is owed to them because they were stupid enough to build below sea level with concrete separating them from the ocean, but we could have a better way of shutting them up instead of killing them off with toxic trailers. Let’s allow them to rebuild there again and maybe this time they’ll drown in their sleep.
Which right wing racists? Randall, if you are confusing right wing racist groups you’ll never get anywhere. Please
be more specific – is it the vast right wing conspiracy? Is it the right wing media? Is it the right wing part of the Republican OR Democrat party? Is it Brownie? Most of the right wing racists I know didnt want to give away 143,000
trailers to begin with, so it must be a really insidious group of cunning haters, don’t you think? Next time, let NOT give away 143,000 trailers worth of taxpayer dollars. Obviously, it is not appreciated. And the other 2 million travel trailers purchased by those who had the audacity to actually pay for them (what a concept – pay for your own habitat)? Well, all I can say is that the travel trailer salesmen who foisted these formaldehyde fraught flophouses on the general public must really be, must really be, must really be…..right wing racists. Too @#$%ing funny.
Dickie Scruggs, Legendary Trial Lawyer, Pleads Guilty to Trying to Bribe a Judge
Posted 1420 MOuntain Standard time on 03/14/2008
This is a May 31, 2007 file photograph of prominent Mississippi attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, taken in Jackson, Miss. Scruggs has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy in a judicial bribery case. The surprise plea came Friday, March 14, 2008,during a hearing in Oxford, Miss. on pretrial matters. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
03-14-2008 1:07 PM
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Writer
JACKSON, Miss. (Associated Press) — Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, the legendary trial lawyer who made Big Business tremble every time he set foot in court, pleaded guilty Friday to conspiring to bribe a judge _ a crime that will almost surely send him to prison and perhaps spell the end of his storied legal career.
Federal prosecutors are asking for the maximum of five years behind bars for the 61-year-old Scruggs, the multimillionaire “King of Torts” who combined a shrewd legal mind and the aw-shucks charm of a Southern country lawyer to extract billion-dollar settlements from the tobacco and asbestos industries, among others.
He could also lose his license to practice law.
Scruggs and another lawyer in his firm, Sidney Backstrom, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud for offering a $50,000 cash bribe to a Mississippi judge for a favorable ruling in a dispute over legal fees from a Hurricane Katrina insurance lawsuit.
In return for Scruggs’ guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop several other counts against him, including fraud. No sentencing date was set.
Scruggs’ son and law partner, Zach, also is charged in the case but did not enter a plea and is expected to go to trial.
For months, Scruggs appeared intent on fighting the charges, and many reporters who had closely followed the case were caught off-guard by the plea bargain. Scruggs folded after two of his co-defendants turned on him, one of them secretly tape-recording him for the FBI.
Federal prosecutors refused to comment, and Scruggs’ attorneys did not immediately return calls.
A giant of the nation’s plaintiffs’ bar, Scruggs was a chief architect of the $206 billion nationwide tobacco settlement in the 1990s, working with whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, a former tobacco company scientist. The actor Colm Feore played Scruggs in the 1999 movie about the case, “The Insider,” starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.
After Katrina struck in 2005, Scruggs sued insurance companies on behalf of hundreds of homeowners whose claims were denied.
Many industries that have tangled with Scruggs regard him as a buccaneer, a shakedown artist with a law degree.
Scruggs has been “the bane of Wall Street,” and leaders of some of the companies he sued might take satisfaction in his downfall, said Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor and authority on legal ethics. He described Scruggs as “an exceptionally prominent American lawyer with astonishing success and wealth from law practice.”
Scruggs was indicted along with his son and three associates in November.
They were accused of conspiring to bribe Lafayette County Circuit Judge Henry L. Lackey, who was overseeing a dispute between Scruggs and other lawyers over $26.5 million in legal fees from a mass settlement of Katrina cases. Lackey reported the bribe overture to the FBI and worked undercover.
Two of the men indicted, attorney Timothy Balducci and former Mississippi State Auditor Steve Patterson, pleaded guilty and began working with the prosecution.
Balducci admitted to the FBI that he paid Lackey $50,000 in cash and said he did so at the behest of the Scruggses and Backstrom. Balducci also wore a wire and recorded incriminating statements from Scruggs.
Scruggs lives in Oxford and flies to and from legal engagements around the South in his personal jet. The Mississippi native is also supremely well-connected politically as both the brother-in-law of former Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and a major contributor to Democrats.
A graduate of the University of Mississippi, he is one of the school’s largest donors. The music department building at Ole Miss bears his name.
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This man is a scum-sucking bottom feeder of the worst kind. Calling him a shyster is a disservice to other lawyers. Someone ought to lock him in one of these trailers and throw away the key.
Would someone please stop helping the Karina “victims”. All that I have heard anytime someone tried to offer assistance is how badly they have done it. Leave them alone and let them help themselves, they don’t appreciate anything that anyone has done so far, there will probably be lawsuits for giving trailers for FREE! Also, did the Feds build the trailers? If someone else bought these trailers would there be this sort of press? When is this waste of time and money going to STOP!
“The first thing we will do, we’ll kill all the lawyers”.
How about if we get all the FEMA trailers in a big pile, load all the attorneys on top & set the whole thing on fire. Any outlying moths would be drawn to the flame also.
Mr. Buzbee is bandying about a lot of “standards” for the formaldehyde content in the workplace, but I seem to recall a great upheaval years ago about formaldehyde in residences from wallpaper, paneling, and carpeting. Buzbee hasn’t brought to light any “standards” for residential formaldehyde levels. I wonder if they differ enough from workplace standards that he has no interest in looking at them (or having a jury look at them). Anyone have any idea as to whether there have been residential standards established? Also, since the trailers in question are largely of the camp trailer variety, are there any separate standards for them?
You right wing rasists make me puke. you gave out poison trailers that are killing people. And you have the gaul to compain when they sue you?
You asswholes are so goddamm stupid!!
Someone should take all the racist right wingers and shoot their faces off!!! And light their children on fire and watch them run!!!!
calm down everyone……
Let’s go back to the beginning. If these trailers were released with toxic levels, then why doesn’t the government go back to the jerk that released them and fire his rear. That’s the big problem with government, everyone is protected from their decisions. Put the individual to work in the private sector and let’s see how long mistakes like this last before they’re fired. I agree that the Katrina victims do nothing but complain that the world is owed to them because they were stupid enough to build below sea level with concrete separating them from the ocean, but we could have a better way of shutting them up instead of killing them off with toxic trailers. Let’s allow them to rebuild there again and maybe this time they’ll drown in their sleep.
Which right wing racists? Randall, if you are confusing right wing racist groups you’ll never get anywhere. Please
be more specific – is it the vast right wing conspiracy? Is it the right wing media? Is it the right wing part of the Republican OR Democrat party? Is it Brownie? Most of the right wing racists I know didnt want to give away 143,000
trailers to begin with, so it must be a really insidious group of cunning haters, don’t you think? Next time, let NOT give away 143,000 trailers worth of taxpayer dollars. Obviously, it is not appreciated. And the other 2 million travel trailers purchased by those who had the audacity to actually pay for them (what a concept – pay for your own habitat)? Well, all I can say is that the travel trailer salesmen who foisted these formaldehyde fraught flophouses on the general public must really be, must really be, must really be…..right wing racists. Too @#$%ing funny.
Dickie Scruggs, Legendary Trial Lawyer, Pleads Guilty to Trying to Bribe a Judge
Posted 1420 MOuntain Standard time on 03/14/2008
This is a May 31, 2007 file photograph of prominent Mississippi attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, taken in Jackson, Miss. Scruggs has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy in a judicial bribery case. The surprise plea came Friday, March 14, 2008,during a hearing in Oxford, Miss. on pretrial matters. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
03-14-2008 1:07 PM
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Writer
JACKSON, Miss. (Associated Press) — Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, the legendary trial lawyer who made Big Business tremble every time he set foot in court, pleaded guilty Friday to conspiring to bribe a judge _ a crime that will almost surely send him to prison and perhaps spell the end of his storied legal career.
Federal prosecutors are asking for the maximum of five years behind bars for the 61-year-old Scruggs, the multimillionaire “King of Torts” who combined a shrewd legal mind and the aw-shucks charm of a Southern country lawyer to extract billion-dollar settlements from the tobacco and asbestos industries, among others.
He could also lose his license to practice law.
Scruggs and another lawyer in his firm, Sidney Backstrom, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud for offering a $50,000 cash bribe to a Mississippi judge for a favorable ruling in a dispute over legal fees from a Hurricane Katrina insurance lawsuit.
In return for Scruggs’ guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop several other counts against him, including fraud. No sentencing date was set.
Scruggs’ son and law partner, Zach, also is charged in the case but did not enter a plea and is expected to go to trial.
For months, Scruggs appeared intent on fighting the charges, and many reporters who had closely followed the case were caught off-guard by the plea bargain. Scruggs folded after two of his co-defendants turned on him, one of them secretly tape-recording him for the FBI.
Federal prosecutors refused to comment, and Scruggs’ attorneys did not immediately return calls.
A giant of the nation’s plaintiffs’ bar, Scruggs was a chief architect of the $206 billion nationwide tobacco settlement in the 1990s, working with whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, a former tobacco company scientist. The actor Colm Feore played Scruggs in the 1999 movie about the case, “The Insider,” starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.
After Katrina struck in 2005, Scruggs sued insurance companies on behalf of hundreds of homeowners whose claims were denied.
Many industries that have tangled with Scruggs regard him as a buccaneer, a shakedown artist with a law degree.
Scruggs has been “the bane of Wall Street,” and leaders of some of the companies he sued might take satisfaction in his downfall, said Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor and authority on legal ethics. He described Scruggs as “an exceptionally prominent American lawyer with astonishing success and wealth from law practice.”
Scruggs was indicted along with his son and three associates in November.
They were accused of conspiring to bribe Lafayette County Circuit Judge Henry L. Lackey, who was overseeing a dispute between Scruggs and other lawyers over $26.5 million in legal fees from a mass settlement of Katrina cases. Lackey reported the bribe overture to the FBI and worked undercover.
Two of the men indicted, attorney Timothy Balducci and former Mississippi State Auditor Steve Patterson, pleaded guilty and began working with the prosecution.
Balducci admitted to the FBI that he paid Lackey $50,000 in cash and said he did so at the behest of the Scruggses and Backstrom. Balducci also wore a wire and recorded incriminating statements from Scruggs.
Scruggs lives in Oxford and flies to and from legal engagements around the South in his personal jet. The Mississippi native is also supremely well-connected politically as both the brother-in-law of former Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and a major contributor to Democrats.
A graduate of the University of Mississippi, he is one of the school’s largest donors. The music department building at Ole Miss bears his name.