The Justice Department has finished its long-running criminal investigation into judicial bribery allegations against trial lawyers in Mississippi, The Clarion-Ledger reported Tuesday.
Dickie Scruggs (Biloxi Sun Herald Via Newscom)
Federal prosecutors dropped a case against political operative P.L. Blake, who was accused of having ties to a bribery scandal involving prominent lawyer Dickie Scruggs and others. Scruggs, one of the country’s most famous trial lawyers, reportedly earned $1 billion in fees from litigation against tobacco companies in the 1990s. He was a major Democratic donor.
Today, Scruggs is serving a seven-year sentence after pleading guilty in 2008 to conspiring to bribe a state judge. He is serving a separate and concurrent sentence for attempting to corruptly influence another state judge.
Former Northern Mississippi Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Dawson, a Tea Party member who was one of the Scruggs prosecutors, teamed up with a conservative blogger last year to write a book about the case and that of another convicted Mississippi trial lawyer, Paul Minor.
“We obviously are very pleased,” Blake’s attorney, Doug Jones, told the newspaper. In what appeared to be a swipe at Dawson, Jones praised the other prosecutor on the case, adding: “We appreciate Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Norman’s professionalism. We’re pleased the matter is behind everybody, and life will go on.”
This story has been updated.
