‘Insider’ Wigand compensated generously as unpaid tobacco fact witness
Wigand doesn’t discourage such suspicion.
He has testified that lawyers gave Smoke Free Kids $2 million; that South Carolina lawyer Ron Motley loaned him $505,000 so he could buy a condominium in Charleston, S.C., that he has stayed at Motley’s home and on his yacht; that he stayed at the home of Scruggs, a Smoke Free Kids board member, along with Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, also a board member.
Moore, now in private practice, retained Scruggs as special assistant attorney general to recover damages from cigarette makers.
In November grand jurors at federal court in Oxford, Miss., charged that Scruggs and others conspired to bribe Lafayette County Circuit Judge Henry Lackey.
Scruggs apparently panicked when lawyer John Jones, who had successfully defended him in a suit over asbestos fees, sued him over fees from Hurricane Katrina cases.
Legal Newsline
2/14/8
Magnolia Tribune
