The Fall of the House of Zeus

by Curtis Wilkie

  “I’m the man.”

  “You the man.”

  Balducci said he would have lunch before heading back to New Albany. Patterson asked if he had heard yet from Zeke, the Texan with the money.

  “Hadn’t heard from the motherfucker.”

  The next afternoon, Patterson had a surprise visitor at his home. Joey Langston had been to see Scruggs earlier in the day and stopped in New Albany on his way back to his own home in Booneville. The encounter developed into an awkward conversation between the successful lawyer and Patterson, his former associate.

  Patterson sensed that Langston was fishing for something when his visitor said he was troubled that his one-time colleagues Patterson and Balducci might be working behind his back. It would be bad for everyone’s image, Langston said.

  “Nobody’s going behind anybody’s back,” Patterson told him. “We’re all big boys and we can do business with whomever we want.” He confirmed that he and Balducci had a “done deal” with the Bidens and planned to open an office in Washington.

  That was not comforting news to Langston. He considered himself a key Mississippi connection to Senator Biden, even though it was Patterson who had originally introduced Langston to Biden. But Langston didn’t want to betray his feelings, so he told Patterson, “That’s fine. Have at it. I think you ought to.”

  The atmosphere at Patterson’s house was thick with treachery, and the distrust intensified when the telephone rang. Patterson’s wife, Debbie, answered. Both men could overhear her. “Oh, Mr. P.L., he’s in the middle of a meeting. I’ll have to let him call you back.”

  Having no inkling that she should handle the call with discretion, she hung up and called to her husband: “Mr. P.L. says he just got out of that meeting you told him to have.”

  Langston grinned. When he was in Oxford that morning, Scruggs had told him he was going to Birmingham later to see Blake, who had moved to the Alabama city. He wondered why Patterson had arranged the meeting between Scruggs and Blake. He worried that it was another instance of Patterson conniving behind his back, perhaps trying to sabotage Langston’s relationship with Scruggs.

  Patterson shrugged off the call with a lie. It was some bullshit bit of business, he told Langston, involving help for somebody’s son-in-law.

  Before Langston left, Patterson revealed a few more dimensions of the new firm of Patterson, Balducci and Biden. The information would give Patterson the appearance of leveling with his old boss, but it also had the effect of turning the knife. He told of contacts that had been made in Venezuela, and of an ambassador who was joining the team. “We’re fixing to have some pretty big announcements,” he said to Langston. “They’ll be getting a lot of attention. We plan to do all the national business we can do. Where we can use Dickie, we’re going to use him. And where we can use you—if there’s something you want to bring to the table—we’ll use you, too. We’re going to all go make a lot of money, and if you want to do the same thing, then go to it.”

  Langston nodded sadly at the changed dynamics. Patterson no longer worked for him. “I can’t do that without you,” he said.

  “Well,” Patterson replied, “I ain’t there anymore.”

  Although Patterson had promised Langston he would not tell Balducci about the conversation, he reported the details of their talk later in the day.

  “The only thing Joey was saying was ‘I don’t want people thinking that we’re being deceitful to each other,’ ” Patterson told Balducci. “And I said, ‘Let me clear the air with you on that. I’ll tell you everything I know.’ And I did. Except I didn’t tell him you were going to Switzerland.” He laughed. Balducci was flying to Switzerland that weekend to try to tie up a contract with Gabor Ondo. Patterson added that Langston had said, “Please don’t tell Tim” about their talk.

  “Yeah, he don’t want to piss me off so I don’t hurt him on MCI,” Balducci said, referring to the giant settlement Langston had helped win for the state. Balducci was still miffed over Langston’s failure to give him a respectable cut of the multimillion-dollar fee.

  Patterson had another thought. “I think, if Langston could, he’d kill the deal with Gabor, and try to put it together himself.”

  They speculated that Langston was also trying to wring information out of Jim Biden and the senator’s son Hunter Biden.

  Balducci’s bitterness toward his former boss poured out. “I want Langston—if he hasn’t figured it out already—I want him to get the message and understand that if he tries to fuck us, that I’ll fuck him on MCI. The best thing for him to do is to get the fuck out of the way and shut up.”

  That same afternoon, Scruggs made a short flight to Birmingham in his jet to see P. L. Blake. There were issues he needed to talk over. One involved the pending criminal contempt charge against Scruggs in federal court in Alabama. He wanted to learn the temperature of the courthouse crowd in Alabama, to see if fault lines were developing in Judge Acker’s action against him. Now that he lived in Alabama, Blake would know some of the right people. He could pass on intelligence to Scruggs. Blake was, after all, still being paid handsomely.

  He and Blake met in a quiet room at the facility called the FBO, fixed base operation, by pilots flying private planes into the Birmingham airport. They had always been an odd pair, the debonair Scruggs and the gruff, laconic Blake, whose poor grammar spoke of the rural background he had never shed. Despite their differences, Scruggs enjoyed his conversations with Blake. In a way, their meetings were a throwback to Scruggs’s daring days as a navy pilot when he devised a method to hurtle through the air undetected by radar. Blake was a guy, Scruggs thought, who always flew below the radar. He knew Blake was unvarnished and that not all his activities were taken from the Boy Scout manual. But he realized that Blake was a valuable asset. He epitomized Scruggs’s vision of the dark side of the Force, and Scruggs always wanted these men on his side.

  Near the end of their meeting, Blake told Scruggs that Patterson and Balducci—he called them “the boys in New Albany”—needed help. He suggested that Scruggs give them $40,000 and find some work to justify the payment. It was an elliptical conversation, as most talks were with Blake. Nothing was ever etched out clearly by him. But Scruggs agreed to furnish Patterson and Balducci the money. To him, $40,000 was relatively insignificant. He had thrown far more than that at problems in recent years.

  Blake remained vague when he talked with Patterson later on the telephone. He told Patterson that the chat with Scruggs had gone well. They had talked of the new law firm being developed, and Scruggs volunteered that he would help Patterson and Balducci in any way he could.

  “I think I’ve got your horse sold,” Blake added. Patterson dealt in Thoroughbreds on the side. “I told him how much the horse would cost, and he said, ‘That’s no problem.’ ”

  Blake said there would be nothing to worry about. He would be able to deliver Patterson “your money on your horse.”

  Listening to the recordings of the conversations between Patterson and Balducci, the federal authorities decided to broaden their investigation. They went back to Judge Biggers with a new request, which would remain secret, seeking authorization to intercept calls made on Patterson’s telephone.

  In the affidavit submitted by the prosecutors, at least four suspects were singled out. “There is probable cause,” the document stated, “to believe that Timothy Balducci, Richard ‘Dickie’ Scruggs, Steven A. Patterson, Presley L. Blake a/k/a ‘P.L.’ and others as yet unknown, are in the process of committing and will continue to commit violations” of bribery, wire fraud, and money laundering.

  Biggers, who had been following the progress of the investigation, approved the new wiretap of Patterson on October 16.

  CHAPTER 17

  If Dick Scruggs’s name was essential to the success of the superfirm that Tim Balducci and Steve Patterson envisioned, so was the name Biden. From the time that the pair had formed a partnership they invoked the names of Scruggs and Biden, when they could
, to impress others.

  There were legitimate connections. Patterson had known Scruggs from the time P. L. Blake brought them together. Balducci had also worked alongside the Scruggs defense team while he was associated with Joey Langston’s firm. They were not the types to belong to Scruggs’s social circle. Certainly they would never have been welcomed by Diane. But Scruggs, ever enchanted by consorting with “the dark side,” had respect for what he called their “low cunning.”

  The Biden connection went back more than twenty years, to the time when Patterson signed on as a southern coordinator for the young Delaware senator in his first, quixotic campaign for the party’s presidential nomination. In the intervening years, Patterson stayed in touch with Biden and became acquainted with members of Biden’s family, who formed the nucleus for the senator’s political operations.

  Patterson and Balducci were both supporting Biden’s quest for the 2008 nomination, and co-sponsored with Scruggs and three others a fund-raiser when the candidate came to Mississippi in August 2007. On that visit, Biden was accompanied by his brother Jim, who used the trip to cement plans with the Mississippians to open a Washington office that would capitalize on the name Biden.

  Langston was conspicuous in his absence at the Biden event in Oxford. Once he had hosted Joe Biden there; now Patterson and Balducci had cut off his access.

  The presidential candidate made a rousing appearance on behalf of his autobiography, Promises to Keep, before a full house at a book store on the square, then went up the street for a small evening reception at the Oxford University Club. Dick Scruggs was out of town, but his son, Zach, attended. The crowd was small, but the hosts succeeded in producing nearly $70,000 in contributions for the Biden campaign.

  While the senator charmed the Mississippi guests at the party, his brother was busy talking with the hosts. It was determined that Jim’s wife, Sara, an attorney, could credibly bring the family name to the firm they planned.

  Though purportedly a “law group” with a base in Washington, the firm would specialize in lobbying. No law degree was necessary for any of the firm’s associates in the District of Columbia, freeing Patterson and others to operate under the banner of an office engaged in legal work. But they would be dealing with power and political connections instead of legal briefs, and they would be drawing on relationships the Bidens and Patterson had developed over the years.

  A month later, the idea had become a reality. On September 27, the same day Balducci handed over the first $20,000 payment to Judge Lackey, Balducci also visited Scruggs’s office to tell him of a more savory initiative. Enthusiastically, he described plans for the firm of Patterson, Balducci and Biden.

  “We’ve formalized our relationship with the Bidens,” he told Scruggs. “It’s not going to be some bullshit thing, with a bullshit shingle hung somewhere in a window. This is the real deal. Sara’s coming on as a named partner with an equity share in the venture, and we’re changing the name of the firm to include her.” Speaking of the senator’s son, Balducci said, “Hunter’s going to be involved, and Jim Biden, too.”

  He told Scruggs it was critical for them to be able to have some kind of association with the Scruggs Law Firm. “We need you,” Balducci said, stressing the word need.

  Balducci’s animosity toward Langston spilled over during the conversation. He warned Scruggs that Langston was “overselling his relationship” with the powerful Oxford lawyer while attempting to subvert their New Albany firm. “He’s out there trying to put a little piss on the fire that we’re building.”

  Scruggs laughed. He had long ago recognized that all three men—Langston, Patterson, and Balducci—were using their proximity to him to promote their own interests. Sometimes it was annoying. But he considered all three men his friends, and he had no intention of siding with one or the other in the current feud.

  Scruggs told Balducci he would be willing to join them on any reasonable project they might put together, but he was careful not to denigrate Langston. At Balducci’s request, he made two calls, leaving phone messages with both Gabor Ondo overseas and Jim Biden in Washington, assuring them that the nascent firm had his blessing.

  As soon as he left Scruggs’s office, Balducci reported a more glowing version of the meeting to his new partner. He told Jim Biden that Scruggs had said, “Tim, I know what a fireball you are. I know you’re out there beating the bushes. I know how hard you’re gonna work, and with the political connections you guys are putting together now, I know you’re going to do really, really well. The fact is that Joey doesn’t have that anymore. Anything y’all want me to be involved in, I want to be.”

  Balducci sounded ecstatic. “Joey may be out there pissing and moaning and scratching, but at the end of the day, if we bring a deal together on a project that’s gonna make money, Scruggs is in. Scruggs is in! Shit, that’s his real interest, making money. So at the end of the day, whatever we want him to do, if it’s the real deal, then he’s gonna be in.”

  Over the next twenty-four hours, Balducci and Jim Biden had several other conversations as the Mississippians prepared to fly to Washington to join Senator Biden and other members of his family at a black-tie dinner sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, where they hoped to recruit Charles Stith to give them clout in Africa.

  They also discussed the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Joe Biden had just appeared in a televised debate with the field of Democratic presidential hopefuls, and Balducci and Jim Biden were scornful of his rivals as they discussed the event.

  “I thought it went well with what he had to work with,” the senator’s brother said.

  “He was stuck over in the fucking corner,” Balducci complained. “He didn’t get much time, and the questions were stupid fucking questions. That sucked.”

  “We got to do something to break out here,” Jim Biden said. “That Edwards is such a screaming fucking asshole,” he added, referring to former North Carolina senator John Edwards.

  “I’ll tell you what: he is!” Balducci agreed. “And I tell you I thought Obama looked like a fucking retard last night. And Clinton—boy, she looked like a damn raving bitch, I thought.”

  “Yeah, so did I,” Biden said. He carped about “all the time that fucking moron from New Mexico got. I mean, shit …” He was talking about New Mexico governor Bill Richardson.

  “Yeah, what the hell was that?” Balducci said. “What a blithering idiot that guy is. But, hell, you’re right. Looked like this was the ‘Prop Up Bill Richardson Show’ last night.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Biden said, offering withering words for yet another candidate, Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut. “That fucking Dodd. Joe has to be frustrated beyond belief.”

  One of the earliest trophy names in Mississippi to be identified with the new firm was that of Ed Peters, a former district attorney in Jackson and a durable figure in the sprawling political network that Eastland had built. Peters had held the office for seven terms, between 1972 and 2000, and over the years he developed his own personal power base in the state capital. For more than a quarter century, he had given thumbs up or thumbs down on criminal prosecutions, collecting countless IOUs from those who sought his favor. Peters was well known in the state for his ability to control the courts in Jackson, to clear the docket of names of friends, and to threaten enemies with prosecution.

  He was a longtime associate of Steve Patterson’s. It was Peters who had been prepared to have Dick Scruggs indicted in 1992 and who, just as quickly, was willing to drop the case when others in the organization were told to lay off in the directive delivered by P. L. Blake. He was not only a member in good standing of what Scruggs called “the dark side of the Force,” Peters was a ringleader.

  When Peters signed on with Patterson and Balducci in the spring of 2007, he was billed as the head of the firm’s “civil rights defense and victim protection practice.” In the first public manifestation of the firm, Peters and Balducci were hired to represent the family of a you
ng black man killed by police in Jackson, Tennessee. The pair held a press conference to denounce the shooting.

  · · ·

  Patterson also persuaded another prominent Mississippian to lend his name to the firm’s letterhead. Though he was nearly eighty and enfeebled, former governor Bill Allain became associated as a “public policy advocate and constitutional scholar.”

  Allain was another product of the political organization that had once permeated the state. Elected attorney general in 1979, he ran for governor four years later as the Democratic nominee. In the last days of that race, a wealthy Jackson oilman and right-wing Republican, Billy Mounger, financed one of the most vicious campaign attacks in the state’s history to try to defeat Allain. Mounger was not so much interested in reform; rather, he wanted to break the old Democratic monopoly in the state. Relying on the work of private detectives and a spokesman who had credibility with the press, the Republican interests sponsored a lurid news conference in which Allain was accused of having sex with several black transvestites who trolled the streets of Jackson. Allain’s alleged consorts—who went by such pseudonyms as “Nicole Toy”—were paid a fifty-dollar per diem and sequestered in a Louisiana hotel across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg to be available for interviews.

  Patterson was deeply involved in the defense of Allain and helped devise the Democratic counterattack, which denounced the GOP maneuver as an outrage so unbelievable that no self-respecting Mississippian would fall for the story. Allain won the election, and the transvestites later recanted their story. But Allain never really recovered from the ordeal. His counterpart in Arkansas, Bill Clinton, said that Allain seemed so shell-shocked by the experience that he played little role at southern governors’ meetings. Still, he served for four years and continued to practice law for another two decades, holding the portfolio of a former attorney general and governor. On paper it looked impressive.