What other illegalities has Richard (“Dickie”) Scruggs committed besides the one that’s sending him to prison? According to the AP’s Holbrook Mohr (via), in Scruggs’s deposition in the ongoing McIntosh v. State Farm lawsuit, the insurer’s attorneys “‘alleged activity of a criminal nature against both of the Scruggses,’ according to a motion filed Friday by an attorney representing Richard and Zach Scruggs,” both of whom “invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer the questions, the motion said.” Scruggs and son “want to prevent their sworn testimony in [the] Hurricane Katrina lawsuit from becoming public and ‘undermining the presumption of innocence’ if they face criminal charges in the future” — that is to say, separate and distinct charges from those in the bribery scheme under which they are already headed to prison. More at Y’allPolitics here and here.
Excerpts from the questions State Farm lawyers unsuccessfully sought to ask Scruggs can be found in the comments at Y’allPolitics, and are truly eye-popping:
Q. And you knew that the Rigsbys — one of the Rigsbys had stolen this document out of the State Farm file, and based on that information, you informed Attorney General Hood that he could subpoena those records from State Farm and the company would never be able to produce them; isn’t that a fact?
Q. You did tell Attorney General Hood to subpoena this document from State Farm knowing that it had been removed from their files and could not be produced; isn’t that a fact?
Q. And, in fact, that’s exactly what occurred, isn’t it? General Hood subpoenaed the document, State Farm couldn’t produce it, and you were able to report to the press that they were shredding or deep sixing or destroying evidence that you knew they didn’t have; isn’t that a fact?
Q. That was part of a program which you euphemistically called the play book from tobacco, wasn’t it?
Of course, we don’t know what answers Scruggs would have given had he not taken the Fifth — maybe he would have had innocent explanations for everything. More on the Mississippi AG connection here. For questions about Scruggs’s skillful manipulation of ABC News and CBS News coverage, which allegedly included sending the networks copies of documents which were under seal in court proceedings and not to be disclosed, see excerpts here, here, and here. What did ABC and CBS know, and when did they know it?
PointofLaw.com
7/31/8
