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In an ongoing feud between a former U.S. Attorney and a Mississippi state judge, a federal judge has agreed to let a lawsuit against the prosecutor go forward, the Associated Press reported.

The lawsuit, filed by former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. against former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi Dunn Lampton, is the latest salvo in a nearly decade-long fight.

Oliver Diaz, a former Mississippi Supreme Court justice.

In 2000, Diaz, a former Republican in the Mississippi House of Representatives, was appointed by Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove to fill an unexpired term on the state’s Supreme Court. He later ran for election and won a full eight-year term on the court.

In 2003, Diaz was indicted on bribery and mail fraud charges related to a case against Mississippi trial attorney Paul Minor. The U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of Mississippi, headed at the time by Lampton, prosecuted the case against Diaz.

Minor was a major Democratic political donor who was convicted in 2007 of “honest services mail fraud” for guaranteeing loans for Diaz and his wife, Jennifer Diaz. The loans were used for Diaz’s campaign for the state Supreme Court.  Minor is appealing his case, and the U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering the legality of three other honest services fraud convictions.

In 2005, a jury acquitted Diaz of the bribery and mail fraud charges. Days after the acquittal, Diaz was indicted again on income tax evasion. He was acquitted on those charges as well. His wife, Jennifer Diaz, eventually pleaded guilty to tax evasion. (For more background, see this Harper’s Magazine piece on the case.)

But the story does not end there.

Former U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton. (Newscom)

After the criminal trial ended, Lampton filed a complaint against Diaz with the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance, which investigates claims of judicial misconduct. Dunn Lampton’s relative, Leslie Lampton served on the commission at the time.

As part of his complaint, Lampton submitted to the commission the Diaz’s financial information that he had obtained during the criminal investigation.

In 2008, the Diazes discovered the commission had their financial information and asked for it to be returned. Instead, the commission’s lawyer returned the financial information to the U.S. Attorney. The commission ultimately dismissed the complaint against Diaz in December 2008, but Diaz lost a race for re-election in 2008, in part, he claims, because of the commission’s investigation.

In 2009, Diaz and his wife filed a suit in federal court against Leslie Lampton and Dunn Lampton, accusing them of invasion of privacy for releasing the judge’s confidential tax records and malicious prosecution, among other charges. Diaz has said his prosecution was politically motivated because he defeated a close friend of Dunn Lampton’s in the 2000 Supreme Court race, according to Mississippi’s Clarion Ledger newspaper.

(A more detailed blow-by-blow of the accusations and counter-accusations is outlined in the federal opinion here.)

Dunn Lampton filed a motion with the court to have the case thrown out based on his immunity from litigation as a prosecutor.

But U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan ruled last week that Lampton does not have immunity from Diaz’s lawsuit because the criminal investigation of Diaz had ended when Lampton disclosed the tax information.

“In the present case, Lampton provided the tax records to the commission after Diaz was acquitted,” the judge wrote. “The prosecution was over; the conduct was neither part of his prosecutorial function nor part of his role as an advocate. Because the act was not intimately related to the judicial phase of the criminal process, which had already concluded, absolute prosecutorial immunity does not apply.”