We've occasionally followed the story of Mississippi plaintiffs' superlawyer Dickie Scruggs, the more than hundred-millionaire snagged in a plain vanilla bribery scam in his home state. (See "Why Would Dickie Scruggs Risk It All On A Stupid Bribe.")
Well, the Dickster has now pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a state court judge. He is likely to be sentenced to FIVE years in prison and lose his law license, not to mention his stature in the community. (See, e.g., "Legal Legend Dickie Scruggs Pleads Guilty in Bribery")
To review, it was a pretty simple case, not at all sophisticated. Scruggs was in a dispute with other lawyers over how to split the millions in fees they'd earned in Hurricane Katrina litigation with insurers. They went to court. To get a favorable ruling, Scruggs worked with another lawyer to offer the trial judge $40,000 in cash.
The only problem was that this particular judge was offended by the initial approach, turning to the FBI to set a trap. After Scruggs' partner-in-crime was caught red-handed, on videotape, giving the judge cash, the FBI wired him up and sent him into Scruggs office where he indicated the judge wanted another 10 grand for the scheme. Scruggs said he'd take care of it, then negotiated a phony way to make it look like the payment to the other lawyer was for real work.
Under the circumstances, Scruggs didn't have much of a defense, despite some initial bluster from his criminal lawyer. So he caved in, just as trial of his case was about to start in Mississippi.
What made Scruggs, a man who by the time of the bribe in the Katrina litigation was reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars, do it? He had a mansion, a plane (see photo above), a building named after him at Ol' Miss. Indeed, no matter what, he was going to still make millions more in the Katrina litigation, even if he had to buckle and give the other lawyers a larger cut.
So why? Maybe Dickie will answer than question some day.
Most likely, the answer is greed. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.
And most likely, Scruggs didn't think he'd get caught. Which suggests he'd done this before. And suggests that some other Mississippi judges might not have been as honest--or offended--as the one who turned him in. In fact, it raises questions about that whole fortune of Dickie's--was it all a result of graft and corruption, as fortunes often are?
We're glad to see him go to the Big House. We hope prosecutors will squeeze him for details on some of his other schemes and the judicial officials who fell for them.
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