By The Associated Press - New York Lawyer - July 24, 2008
Famed anti-tobacco lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs has been ordered to report to a federal prison in Ashland, Ky., next month to start serving his five-year sentence for attempting to bribe a Mississippi judge. Documents filed Wednesday in federal court in Oxford, Miss., also showed Scruggs' son, Zach, will go to a federal prison in Pensacola, Fla., to serve his 14-month sentence for failing to report the crime. Sidney Backstrom, also convicted of attempted bribery and sentenced to 28 months, previously was ordered to report to the prison in Forrest City, Ark. Dickie Scruggs and Backstrom are each to report to prison by Aug. 4. Zach Scruggs was told to report by Aug. 15. In documents filed with the court Tuesday, Zach Scruggs asked that he and his father both be sent to the prison in Forrest City, Ark. Zach Scruggs said that sending them to the same prison would "ease the travel burden" on his family, especially his "health-embattled mother," Diane, who has Crohn's disease, a gastrointestinal disorder.
Dickie Scruggs was indicted in November along with his son and Backstrom after another attorney wore a wire for the FBI and secretly recorded conversations about the plan to bribe Lafayette County Circuit Judge Henry Lackey. Prosecutors said the elder Scruggs wanted a favorable ruling in a dispute over $26.5 million in legal fees from a mass settlement of Hurricane Katrina insurance cases. Dickie Scruggs and Backstrom pleaded guilty in March to conspiring to bribe Lackey with $50,000. Zach Scruggs pleaded guilty in March to misprision of a felony, meaning he knew a crime was committed but didn't report it. Dickie Scruggs gained fame in the 1990s by using a corporate insider against tobacco companies in lawsuits that resulted in a $206 billion settlement. That case was portrayed in the 1999 film "The Insider" that starred Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.
But then 98 per cent of Manhattan's lawyers and judges would be in jail...
ReplyDeleteTo the above comment...you took the words right out of my mouth.
ReplyDeleteBut what if you told the local FBI and their local chief of police, and they both ignored it stating.."Let the Federal Court handle it".
ReplyDeleteThe local federal court was only handling a civil case against the court, who was participating in criminal intimidation tactics of a felony nature, and the civil action was going to be addressed 3 years from the initial FBI report!
If the public makes law enforcement aware of court felony criminal action, then law enforcement must do their part..a big problem, I seem to have encountered!
You can have thousands of laws on the books, but if you have interference in processing them, they become used intermittently, and usually to prosecute those someone in power, wants to get!
A law to be considered in court corruption and intimidation is: US CODE 18241...FEDERAL CONSPIRACY AGAINST RIGHTS.
this should be automatic go to jail.
ReplyDeletelet me tell you folks something, this is where you want to be. "Misprision of a felony" is what you want. And I will tell you on the q.t., that there are prominent members of the NYC Bar that have diarrhea running down both legs at the prospect of dealing with this issue. I say "Bring it on," the Bar as a whole needs it.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost unheard of for misprision to be charged as a primary offense. It's almost always used as a lesser charge in a plea bargain.
ReplyDeleteOBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE...is what all of these thugs played a major role in, and it's the Judges obligation under the law to report it to the United States Attorney's Office if its a crime. Stay tuned.
ReplyDeleteWow.. this is great.."MISPRISION". Great Job Frank.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you that many associates of mine join me in hoping that real changes soon come to New York's legal system.
ReplyDelete"Misprision of Felony" would be a powerful tool to get at the corrupt attorneys/judges anywhere, but particularly in NYS and the NY Metro area. So who will step up to the plate first and give it a try? Who ever it is will go down in history as a stand up guy or gal.
ReplyDeletetoo many pussy around, don't think that anyone will have the 'BALLS" to stick it to the bad guys. Hey, what do you think? No men left, just pussies, what are we to do?
ReplyDeleteWell, I could honestly say that alot of MISPRISION happened in my case. Can you envision this being applied to the 10 Federal Civil Rights cases that have been marked related to the Anderson case...All are criminal cases. If you applied MISPRISION on the above..All these f-----are finished.
ReplyDeleteHey, if anyone ever pushed the "MISPRISION OF A FELONY' New York would be a lawyer free zone! All the lawyers would be doing hard time and we would all be free from these scum. IT WOULD BE GREAT, just think about it everyone will like it.
ReplyDelete