Scruggs to Plead Guilty Again, Patterson And Balducci to be Sentenced

While the first trial against the disgraced king of torts is drawing to a close, Dick Scruggs is back in Oxford – at the Lafayette County Detention Center -- for the second case against him. MPB’s Sandra Knispel reports on a busy legal week ahead.

Former star tort lawyer Dick Scruggs is expected to plead guilty on Tuesday in a second bribery case reportedly involving Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter, who maintains his innocence. Meanwhile Scruggs’ last two co-defendants in the first case, former state auditor Steven Patterson and ex-lawyer Timothy Balducci, will be sentenced on Friday the 13th… a date as inauspicious as its promise: so far, none of the four defendants already sentenced has walked away with less than a prison term.

“They could each receive some consideration from the court in view of the government’s agreement to move for downward departure for substantial assistance in the case of Mr. Patterson. Also an adjustment to the offense seriousness level, because of his relatively minor role in the offense," said Donald Mason, associate director of the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law at the University of Mississippi.

But Senior U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers does not have to take any of that into account, cautions Mason.

“In reality the court is bound only by the statutory maximum of five years and a quarter million dollar fine and so I think in both cases the defendants could receive the maximum under the law," Mason explained.”

Former New Albany lawyer Timothy Balducci had originally tried to bribe Lafayette County Judge Henry Lackey to rule in Scruggs’ favor in a legal-fees dispute involving Hurricane Katrina litigation. So, with the second round of indictments under way the legal bribery scandal in Mississippi continues.

Sandra Knispel
MPB News, Oxford.