The Fall of the House of Zeus

by Curtis Wilkie

  (Although Patterson felt shortchanged in the deal, he continued to get piecemeal payments from Langston for other services rendered over the years.)

  Against this backdrop of tangled transactions and a federal investigation, Langston and Patterson went to Peters’s house. They gave him five minutes’ notice, calling him just before arriving. Though surprised, Peters was cordial yet guarded in his comments as they discussed the ramifications of the case.

  Peters was seventy. His hair, which had grown gray years before, had now gone white and wispy. He was growing deaf and suffering from a cold; his sneezes interrupted their conversation. Though known as the chief fixer of Hinds County, he did not appear very menacing. He merely looked old and harmless.

  Langston told him that the prosecutors kept bringing up 404(b) in connection with the DeLaughter case.

  “We didn’t give Bobby any money,” Peters rationalized. “Besides, I think he followed the law” in deciding the Wilson case.

  “I do, too,” Langston agreed. Still, he was apprehensive.

  Patterson appealed to his old friend to help him in the case involving the bribe to Judge Lackey. Peters said he would like to help. After forty-five minutes of rambling conversation, Langston and Patterson rose to leave.

  Peters looked at his guests. “Boys,” he said, “I’d cut my own throat for you.” Then he made a slashing gesture across his neck with his hand.

  Instead of protecting his old friends, Peters and his attorney, Cynthia Stewart, began meeting with federal authorities in Oxford just before Christmas. A veteran prosecutor himself, Peters realized that his position was tenuous. But he also knew that his cooperation would be invaluable to the U.S. attorneys trying to build a case against Scruggs and Langston. He was prepared to make a “Rule 11 proffer,” in which he would tell all that he knew of the maneuvering with Judge DeLaughter in exchange for an agreement not to bring charges against him.

  Because the case involved a public official—an elected judge—representatives of the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Justice Department sat in on the discussions. Peters did not know the federal prosecutors well, and appeared to be floundering. At one point, his own attorney burst into tears, charging that one of the FBI agents was being unduly harsh toward her client. Peters seemed relieved and visibly brightened when Tom Dawson came into the room during the negotiations. They had known each other for more than thirty years, from the time Dawson was a young attorney in Meridian and had been hired by Peters’s district attorney’s office to help select a jury in a trial moved from Jackson to Meridian.

  Peters rose to shake Dawson’s hand, then awkwardly embraced him.

  “It’s good to see you, Ed,” Dawson told him. “But I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

  During a series of meetings with the prosecutors, Peters laid out the details of his discussions with DeLaughter and the money that had been sent to Peters. It essentially corroborated what Balducci had said earlier. Peters’s account implicated Scruggs as the beneficiary of the scheme and the ultimate source of the money. The information also put Langston in what the prosecutors called their “trick bag,” enabling them to squeeze him further.

  The U.S. attorneys were confronted with a hard decision: to offer protection to a venal man who had held an important public office for decades in exchange for his testimony. In the end, they agreed to do so.

  Under the terms of their secret agreement with Peters, the prosecutors gave him transactional immunity from prosecution in the case they would begin to call Scruggs II. Not everyone was satisfied with the arrangement; especially the Public Integrity officials from Washington, who were dismayed over the deal Dawson had struck with his old friend and fellow prosecutor. But Peters’s cooperation would make it possible for the government to move against Langston, Scruggs, and DeLaughter. Peters would give up his license to practice law, turn over to the government $450,000 left from his share of the deal, and continue to be exposed to criminal charges if other cases developed. Nevertheless, the veteran dealmaker in the state capital would once again escape prosecution.

  Patterson, who described himself as “somewhat of a switchboard” between Peters, Langston, and Balducci, had a different account of Scruggs’s role. Scruggs had not been a party to discussions with Peters, he said later in confidential testimony never publicly released. “No one had a conversation with Mr. Scruggs. Mr. Balducci, I don’t think, had much conversation with Mr. Scruggs about this case … Mr. Scruggs was the guy with the money. Mr. Langston, above all others, recognized that fact, and therefore he kept me or Mr. Balducci—or anyone else who might get credit with Mr. Scruggs for having done anything—far away as he possibly could from Mr. Scruggs.”

  Patterson testified that P. L. Blake knew about the arrangement with Peters. “My guess is, I told him … We talked all the time. Mr. Blake was the kind of guy who, shall we say, dealt in information.”

  Throughout December, Langston worried over reports that the

  government was preparing a case against him. Despite the presence of three sons—two in college and one in high school—at home for the holidays, Christmas held little gaiety for Langston and his wife, who agonized over the situation. The most successful member of the Booneville bar felt that events were closing in on him.

  On the first Thursday of the new year, Langston and his associate Billy Quin flew to Washington on Langston’s jet to consult with a prominent criminal defense lawyer. Reid Weingarten had defended Bernard Ebbers, the former WorldCom executive whose case had been the state’s greatest white-collar crime story until the Scruggs affair.

  Langston thought the federal case being constructed against him might be handled out of Washington, rather than North Mississippi, so he wanted to play all of the angles available to him. He thought a Washington lawyer familiar with the criminal division of the Justice Department might be able to waylay an indictment. But Weingarten offered little help.

  On the flight home, Langston began speaking of himself in the past tense. It troubled Quin, who had worked for him for a year. The last time Quin had heard someone use the past tense in referring to himself, it had been his father, deflated after the death of Quin’s mother. He decided Langston needed a pep talk.

  “Joey,” Quin said as the small jet made its way back to Mississippi, “let’s talk about this. There are five people involved. There’s Dickie and Trent, DeLaughter and Peters and you. What are they going to say? Dickie’s going to say: ‘I didn’t do anything.’ Lott’s going to say the same thing. That leaves DeLaughter, Peters, and you. DeLaughter’s going to say: ‘I didn’t do anything.’ So what does Peters have to say?”

  Back home, Langston concluded that Peters had a lot to say. Peters and his attorney had been incommunicado for several weeks, not responding to Langston’s call for a joint defense agreement between the prospective defendants. Langston also worried over what Scruggs might tell the prosecutors. That Friday he called Scruggs’s office, but failed to reach him. He left a mysterious message with the receptionist: “Tell Dick that I’m no Tim Balducci.”

  While Langston was in Washington, his friend Tony Farese had begun plea bargaining with prosecutors in Oxford. Farese asked for immunity for Langston in exchange for his cooperation in the case the prosecutors were calling Scruggs II. No deal. As a fallback, Farese indicated that Langston would be willing to plead guilty to a reduced charge, a misdemeanor that would enable him to continue to practice law. No deal.

  The federal government held over Langston the specter of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute, which empowered them to seize any assets he might have gained illegally.

  Langston realized that aside from harming his professional reputation, the government might confiscate his personal possessions. The thought that he might lose his Booneville estate, his Colorado vacation home, his jet, became as great a concern to him as an indictment.

  Over the weekend, as he drove aimlessly around Booneville, he calle
d Scruggs at home. They had a convoluted conversation that Scruggs thought quite pointless. It consisted largely of Langston making ad hominem observations that had little to do with the case.

  All that Langston had built seemed to be crumbling. Only a few weeks before, the Langston Law Firm had been represented in a backcover advertisement of MidSouth Super Lawyers 2007, a slick supplement inserted in every copy of the The New York Times Sunday edition distributed in the region. The text of the announcement sang of Langston’s recent accomplishments—winner of the 2007 Mississippi Trial Lawyer of the Year, winner of an annual award given by the state Democratic Party.

  Langston had great pride in appearances, so much so that some detractors referred to him as Joey the Blade. He paid a local stylist to groom his hair. He wore tailored dress suits, silk ties, and shoes made of costly leather. Ordinarily his face had a cherubic glow, a picture of innocence. But now, it had taken on a washed-out, unhealthy pallor.

  Langston drove to his office, which was shuttered and unoccupied. He sat on a couch, in the darkness, and contemplated his situation. He tried to determine, in his mind, how the case might play out. He knew Balducci was already aligned against him and that Peters had probably become a cooperating witness. He wondered about Scruggs. He knew from his experience as a criminal defense attorney how the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oxford operated. He realized they would make threats and offer deals. If he chose to fight the charges, he believed the government would go to Scruggs and say: Here’s our deal on the indictments in Judge Lackey’s case. If you testify against Langston in the DeLaughter case, we won’t prosecute your son, Zach. Langston had three sons himself. He felt certain that Scruggs would turn on him to save his own son.

  Early Monday morning, he made one last attempt to contact Scruggs. Getting no answer, he left another message on voice mail. “Dick,” it said simply, “I need to talk to you.”

  The prosecutors had given Langston until that afternoon to make his decision. Expecting a breakthrough, Tom Dawson arrived at his office by 6:00 a.m. It was cold and rainy outside. An hour later, Joey Langston showed up, trembling and distraught.

  CHAPTER 22

  Joey Langston’s illustrious career, his life as a pillar in the northeast Mississippi community, were coming to an end, and he asked for a few days to wind up his affairs. U.S. District Judge Michael Mills, who had been given the case, was willing to grant him that much. It would be unpleasant duty for everyone involved. Mills knew Langston well. They came from the same part of the state, and Mills had presided over the Captain D’s trial, one of Langston’s great triumphs. So the judge allowed Langston to come quietly into his private chambers to finish the business. Mills agreed to seal the results of the hearing for a week, but he also showed that his lenience had limits. When he saw Shane Langston in the room and learned he was not formally representing his brother, the judge had three words for him: “Hit the door.”

  The hearing took only twenty-five minutes and followed a script the two sides had agreed upon. Although he had not been indicted, Langston would plead guilty to charges of conspiring with Dick Scruggs, Steve Patterson, Tim Balducci, Ed Peters, and others to corruptly influence Judge DeLaughter. Langston faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison, but the prosecutors, who were counting on Langston to cooperate, agreed to seek no more than three years’ imprisonment. The critical element in the plea bargain was contained in one line of Tom Dawson’s brief remarks: “The United States agrees not to seek forfeiture of the defendant’s assets.”

  The arrangement between Langston and the prosecutors had been completed quickly that morning. He pleaded guilty and told Judge Mills he intended to surrender his license to practice law. Then his voice gave way to crying.

  Langston’s lawyers, Tony and Steve Farese, asked if he could sit down. The defendant was able to regain his composure, but there was little left to say.

  As Judge Mills prepared to recess the hearing, he told a marshal, “Let’s not get into all that handcuff stuff if we can avoid it,” and then asked the fallen lawyer, “Can you behave, Mr. Langston?”

  “Yes sir,” Langston replied, weeping again. “I’m embarrassed and ashamed. And I should be.”

  “You’ve earned it,” Mills said.

  “Yes, sir, I have.”

  And with that, a few minutes before two o’clock on the afternoon of January 7, 2008, the public stature of Joey Langston and the law practice his father had established was extinguished.

  Langston’s associate Billy Quin was in Jackson when Brook Dooley, an associate of Scruggs’s chief defense lawyer, John Keker, called him later that day. “We know what your partner’s up to, and we know what’s going on,” Dooley told him.

  Quin was baffled by the accusatorial manner. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Dooley said Langston had spent the afternoon in the federal courthouse in Oxford, probably turning on Scruggs.

  “That’s news to me,” Quin said. As soon as their short conversation was over, he tried to reach Langston.

  He was interrupted by an incoming call, this one from Rhea Tannehill, the Oxford lawyer representing Sid Backstrom in the Lackey case. Quin and Tannehill, fraternity brothers at Ole Miss, were old friends, but Quin was suspicious. He thought that Tannehill, like Dooley, was fishing for information.

  Quin professed that he knew little. He told Tannehill of the trip to Washington with Langston a few days before to meet with Reid Wein garten, but he was stunned by news of Langston’s court appearance. “Listen, Rhea,” he told his friend, “if y’all think I know about this, you’d be wrong.” He was concerned that the other defense lawyers with whom he had been working would think that he, like Langston, had been double-dealing.

  He finally reached Langston on his cell phone. Their conversation lasted less than a minute. “I’ve taken care of my problem,” Langston said simply. He promised to tell Quin more later.

  When Quin got back to Booneville, Langston explained that he had had no choice other than to plead guilty. It was his only way out of a terrible bind.

  In a tearful session, Langston met with members of his staff at the Langston Law Firm. He begged their forgiveness and expressed hope that the firm could continue. He asked Quin about the possibility of his staying; he even talked of changing the name of the firm. But Quin was uncomfortable with the proposition. Booneville was Joey Langston’s town; it would never be Quin’s. He had come there to work with Langston, had even handled an awkward commute to Booneville each day from Tupelo, where he had settled his family. It would be best for Quin to move back to Jackson and open his own firm.

  Langston’s plea threw the Scruggs defense team into disarray as soon as they learned of it. Dick Scruggs suddenly faced a situation in which his own lawyer was prepared to implicate him in another bribery. His son had also been put in a difficult position. Zach’s defense attorney, Tony Farese, now represented someone planning to testify against his father.

  Dick Scruggs felt betrayed; Zach, enraged. For several weeks, Zach had been troubled by Farese’s behavior, and as he absorbed the news of Langston’s guilty plea, he began to retrace his recent dealings with the two men.

  Zach believed that both Farese and Langston had lied during their conversation with him and his father as they drove around New Albany before Christmas. At the time, they dismissed the likelihood that Langston would be charged. Zach also wondered about Farese’s connections with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. A couple of weeks before, Farese had complained that a motion by Keker had “pissed off the prosecutors.” Who cared if they annoyed the prosecutors if it helped Scruggs’s defense? Zach remembered that Farese had made an unauthorized overture to the prosecutors about a possible plea arrangement for his father the day after Christmas. When Zach questioned the wisdom of making this signal to the government lawyers, Farese said, “Things could get worse for Dick.”

  A few hours before Langston appeared before Judge Mills, Zach had a phone conversation with Farese, who had fai
led to return several calls over the weekend. Where had he been? “I’m in Oxford, killing some snakes on a Monday,” Farese said. A few minutes later, the lawyer came to Zach’s office but appeared in a rush. He said he had papers that Langston’s “D.C. lawyers” wanted Zach to sign, a “waiver of conflict of interest” form, which would enable Farese to represent Langston and Zach at the same time. He told Zach it was “no big deal … a pretty standard form.”

  Zach was puzzled by the request. Farese had reassured him that Langston was not a target, explaining that the waiver would merely authorize Farese to assist Langston’s Washington lawyers in dealing with documents before a grand jury as a result of the FBI raid on Langston’s office.

  Before leaving, Farese made copies of the waiver and said hello to Sid Backstrom.

  Later, Zach concluded that Farese was on his way to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a few blocks away, to complete the plea bargain for Langston.

  Farese would insist that the contract signed that day formalized an agreement he and Zach had reached orally on December 11, the day after Langston’s office was searched by the FBI. At that time, Farese said, he and Langston became part of a joint defense agreement with other defendants and their attorneys.

  Zach maintained that he never agreed to have Farese represent Langston at the same time. It was the beginning of yet another ugly dispute between lawyers.

  Farese, Farese and Farese had amassed a powerful reputation in the years since “Big John” Farese founded the firm in 1939 in the remote North Mississippi village of Ashland. The son of an Italian immigrant, Farese had come south from Boston on a football scholarship at a Mississippi junior college. He stayed to work his way through Ole Miss law school and open an office in Ashland, where his new wife, Orene, had a job as a schoolteacher. As more members of the Farese family arrived in Benton County, they gave up Catholicism for the fundamentalist Protestant faiths popular in the region. They also became political players in a rural area along the Tennessee state line that has no major highway. “Big John” and his wife served together in the state legislature. After a nephew, Anthony Farese, joined the law firm, he went on to be elected chancery judge for the district. By the latter part of the twentieth century, a new generation of Fareses, including Steve and Tony, took over the firm and specialized in criminal defense work.