The Fall of the House of Zeus
Page 43
Chapter 1
1 In the summer of 1992 … Interviews with Dick Scruggs, Mike Moore, confidential sources.
2 In Pascagoula … “The Asbestos Industry on Trial,” Paul Brodeur, The New Yorker, June 24, 1985.
3 Scruggs missed out … Assuming the Risk, Michael Orey (Little, Brown and Co., 1999); interviews with confidential sources.
4 After winning election … Interviews with confidential sources.
5 The network teemed … Interviews with confidential sources.
6 It was Eastland … Interview with Robert Khayat.
7 Judge Cox … Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1980).
8 Khayat fought the charges … “Settlement Ends Saga,” Sun Herald, March 22, 1985.
9 Emboldened by success … “Background of Asbestos Cost Recovery
Litigation by the State of Mississippi,” attachment to letter from Attorney
General Mike Moore to State Auditor Steve Patterson, July 31, 1992.
10 At first, nothing appeared … Interviews with confidential sources.
11 As money poured in … “A Bitter Battle for Tobacco Spoils in
Mississippi,” Curtis Wilkie, Boston Globe, Oct. 18, 1998.
12 One of the principal figures … 2007 brochure for Patterson, Balducci and Biden PLLC Law Group.
13 After Winter won … Interviews with confidential sources.
14 One document prepared … Response of Steve Patterson to motion, document filed in Circuit Court of Jackson County, Mississippi, Aug. 13, 1992.
15 Moore would be cited … Undated memorandum prepared for
Patterson by William Liston.
16 Scruggs would be implicated … Interview with confidential source.
17 To handle the criminal charges … Interviews with confidential sources.
18 Peters had a history … Interview with Dan Goodgame.
19 One evening in 1992, as Scruggs struggled … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
20 Blake had been charged … Newspaper clip, interviews with confidential sources.
21 By normal standards … Interviews with Micajah S. Mills, confidential sources.
22 Blake was a standout … Southeastern Conference Football Encyclopedia.
23 Sometime in the 1960s … Interviews with Pete Johnson, confidential sources.
24 When David Bowen … Interviews with David Bowen, confidential sources.
25 When Scruggs told his wife … Interview with Diane Scruggs.
26 Despite Diane’s misgivings … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
27 The case was effectively settled … Letter from Steve Patterson to District Attorney Edward J. Peters, Aug. 31, 1992.
28 Patterson would also … Letter from Patterson to Steve Hicks, Dec. 29, 1992.
29 For his part … Letter from Thomas E. Royals to Patterson, Sept. 14, 1992.
30 To cement the understanding … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
Chapter 2
1 For all of the wealth … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
2 Scruggs worked out compulsively … Interview with Johnny Morgan.
3 He was a bona fide … Interviews with Bill Furlow, Dick Scruggs.
4 Forty years … The Horse Soldiers, a film directed by John Ford, 1959.
5 In the seventh grade … Pascagoula, Jay Higginbotham (Gill Press, 1967).
6 Their homeroom teacher … Interview with Robert Khayat.
7 Otherwise, his was a normal … Interview with Sam Davis.
8 Just as he had been … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
9 The Pascagoula newspaper … The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (Knopf, 2006).
10 “A pall of contradiction” … Editorial, The Chronicle, September 1962.
11 For challenging orthodoxy … The Smell of Burning Crosses: A White Integrationist Editor in Mississippi, Ira B. Harkey (Harris-Wolfe, 1967).
12 To ensure that her son … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
13 There were few navy guys … Interview with Johnny Morgan.
14 In the summer of 1968 … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
15 Diane attended … Interview with Diane Scruggs.
16 A few years earlier … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
Chapter 3
1 To his delight … Interviews with William Winter, Dick Scruggs.
2 After graduation … Interview with Bill Reed.
3 The firm entrusted … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
4 When he decided … Interview with confidential source.
5 Before Scruggs made … Interview with Diane Scruggs.
6 Most of these local attorneys … Interview with Lowry Lomax.
7 One of the more … Interviews with confidential sources, confirmed in conversation with Joe Colingo.
8 At Ole Miss, Lott joined … “Secret History,” Curtis Wilkie, George, June 1997.
9 Thad Cochran … Dixie: A Personal Odyssey Through Events That Shaped the Modern South, Curtis Wilkie (Scribner, 2001).
10 After he entered politics … Interviews with confidential sources.
11 Blake once described himself … P. L. Blake deposition in connection with P. L. Blake v. Gannett Company, Inc., Gannett News Service, Inc., and
Mississippi Publishers Corp., April 9, 1985.
12 Court documents … “The P. L. Blake Empire Has Good Credit in Washington,” Mark Rohner and Dennis Camire, Gannett News Service, Clarion-Ledger, Dec. 11, 1983; Blake deposition; interviews with confidential sources.
13 Though he posed … Blake deposition.
14 The Louisiana Buccaneers … “Year-to-Year Notes” on New Orleans Buccaneers/Memphis Pros, courtesy of Robert Bradley.
15 In another sporting gesture … Interviews with confidential sources; Blake deposition.
16 The Reaganites … Interview with Clarke Reed.
17 In 1982, Jim Lake … Blake deposition.
18 In 1984, the U.S. Department of Agriculture … “FmHA at Fault in Blake Loan, Inspectors Say,” Mark Rohner and Dennis Camire, Gannett News Service, Clarion-Ledger, Sept. 15, 1984.
19 The news report … “Pleading Poverty, He Makes Millions,” an article in Gannett News Service Special Report: “FmHA: The Golden Yoke,” December 1983.
20 According to court papers … Schedule of Dewitt Corp. assets filed in tax returns, from documents in connection with Blake v. Gannett.
21 The grain was stored … Interviews with confidential sources; “The
P. L. Blake empire …,” Clarion-Ledger; “The Billie Sol Estes Scandal,” Time, May 25, 1962.
22 Blake, in applying … “The P. L. Blake empire …,” Clarion-Ledger.
23 (Perry was later fired … “Cochran’s Record of USDA Jobs Patronage Less Than Stellar,” column by Bill Minor, Clarion-Ledger, Oct. 17, 2008.
24 Anderson, for his part … “The P. L. Blake empire …,” Clarion-Ledger.
25 Outraged by the Gannett series … Blake deposition.
26 In a decision … Supreme Court of Mississippi ruling in Blake v.
Gannett, May 25, 1988.
27 Later in the decade … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
28 After obtaining records … “Patterson Linked to Farmer in Bank Case,” Associated Press, June 30, 1997.
29 Although Scruggs … Interviews with Mike Moore, Diane Scruggs.
30 Nevertheless, both Patterson and Blake … Interview with Joey Langston.
31 Blake also retained … “Blake Still Enigma,” William Browning, Greenwood Commonwealth, Feb. 26, 2009.
32 When … Tom Anderson … Washington Times, Oct. 3, 1989.
33 The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee … Associated Press, Oct. 16, 1989.
34 According to Blake’s testimony … Blake deposition.
35 In November 1993 … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
Chapter 4
1 The asbestos industry … Civil Warriors: Th
e Legal Siege on the
Tobacco Industry, Dan Zegart (Delacorte Press, 2000); “Orey, Assuming the Risk.”
2 He began to acquire … Interviews with confidential sources.
3 While lavishing millions … Interviews with confidential sources;
letters in support of Dick Scruggs, filed in 2008 in U.S. District Court in
connection with U.S.A. v. Scruggs.
4 Scruggs and Wilson … Interviews with Dick Scruggs, Diane Scruggs, confidential sources.
5 After Wilson threatened … Letter from Dick Scruggs to Roberts
Wilson, Feb. 17, 1992.
6 The contentions … Boston Globe, Oct. 18, 1998.
7 Though it seemed relatively insignificant … Interview with Charles Merkel.
8 The lawsuits got uglier … Affidavit of Mitchell Tyner, filed in Hinds County Circuit Court in connection with Luckey v. Wilson, Scruggs, and
Asbestos Group, Dec. 8, 1996.
9 He followed developments … Interviews with Dick Scruggs, Don
Barrett; Orey, Assuming the Risk.
10 The mother of Lewis’s secretary … Interviews with Mike and Pauline Lewis, Mike Moore, Dick Scruggs; Orey, Assuming the Risk.
11 A few months later … Interviews with Dick Scruggs, Mike Moore, Danny Cupit, Crymes Pittman.
12 In casting about … Interviews with Mike Moore, Dick Scruggs, Crymes Pittman, Don Barrett, confidential sources.
13 Despite his misgivings … Interview with Mike Moore.
14 As they plotted … Interviews with Dick Scruggs, Don Barrett, Mike Moore.
15 Scruggs reflected … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
16 While men such as Blake … Interview with Pete Johnson.
17 Johnson was not a registered lobbyist … Interviews with Johnson,
confidential sources; Mississippi 1994 Session Laws, Senate bill 2503:
Medicaid—General Revision.
18 Later in the decade … Orey, Assuming the Risk.
Chapter 5
1 For much of his life … Interviews with Dick Scruggs, Don Barrett; Orey, Assuming the Risk.
2 The same spring … Interview with Mike Moore.
3 For Mississippi … Interviews with Scruggs, Barrett, Moore;
confidential sources; details of joint venture agreement for HALT, signed
autumn 1994; deposition given by Scruggs on Aug. 25, 2004, in connection with Wilson v. Scruggs.
4 As Mississippi’s case … Orey, Assuming the Risk; interview with Scruggs; deposition given by Scruggs, Aug. 25, 2004.
5 (A few years … Interview with Scruggs; The Insider, a film directed by Michael Mann, 1999.
6 In the fall … Interview with Scruggs.
7 The tobacco issue … Herding Cats: A Life in Politics, Trent Lott
(ReganBooks, 2005).
8 The process … Interviews with confidential sources.
9 After Liggett … Interview with Scruggs, confidential sources; Orey, Assuming the Risk; Lott, Herding Cats.
10 After seventeen years … Wilkie, “Secret History”; interviews with
confidential sources.
11 Though both Anderson and Sears … Interviews with confidential sources; letter from John P. Sears to Richard Scruggs, Jan. 12, 2000.
12 Hoppenstein’s curriculum vitae … Joel Hoppenstein biography posted by Jewish Policy Center.
13 There was never … Interviews with Scruggs, confidential sources.
14 Before the struggle … Deposition given by Scruggs, Aug. 25, 2004.
15 At the same time … Lott, Herding Cats.
16 The deal was set back … “Plan to Settle Tobacco Case Draws Fire,” Milo Geyelin, Suein L. Hwang, and Alix M. Freedman, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 27, 1996.
17 Scruggs felt betrayed … Interview with Scruggs.
18 On June 20 … “The Tobacco Settlement—Elements of the Deal: Pros and Cons,” New York Times, June 21, 1997.
19 For the next twenty-five years … HALT documents.
20 Looking back … Interview with Scruggs.
21 Less than two months … “Plaintiff in Tobacco Suit Targets a New
Adversary: Her Lawyer,” by Milo Geyelin, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 19, 1997; interview with Scruggs, Joey Langston, confidential sources.
22 Diane Scruggs … Interview with Diane Scruggs.
23 While various claimants … Interview with Mike and Pauline Lewis.
24 There were other … Interviews with Scruggs, Pete Johnson,
confidential sources.
25 There were others … “Tobacco Wars’ Huge Legal Fees Ignite New Fight,” Myron Levin, Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2001; interview with Scruggs; flow chart of payments by Delmas Capital, LLC.
26 A particularly nasty … Interview with Scruggs, letter from Scruggs to John P. Sears, Developing Markets Group LLC, Jan. 13, 2000.
27 Nevertheless, according to court documents … Deposition given by Scruggs, Aug. 25, 2004; testimony of Scruggs in trial transcript, Alwyn H. Luckey v. Richard Scruggs, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Mississippi, June 8, 2005; interviews with Scruggs, confidential sources.
28 Charles Merkel … Interview with Merkel.
29 But U.S. District Judge … Injunction ordered by U.S. District
Judge Allen Pepper in Northern District of Mississippi in connection with P. L. Blake and Shirley Blake v. State Bank and Trust Co. of Greenwood,
Mississippi, Jan. 3, 2005.
30 Back at Ole Miss … Wilkie, “Secret History.”
31 Scruggs attributed … Interview with Scruggs.
32 When Scruggs was asked … Deposition given by Scruggs, Aug. 25, 2004.
33 Blake’s explanations … Deposition given by P. L. Blake in connection with Wilson v. Scruggs, August 2004; “Blake’s Information ‘Right-on,’ ” Anita Lee, Sun Herald, Dec. 17, 2007; interview with Scruggs.
34 While Blake got … Deposition given by Scruggs, Aug. 25, 2004.
Interviews with confidential sources.
35 In addition … Deposition given by Scruggs, Aug. 25, 2004. Interviews with confidential sources.
36 The New Yorker … “Fight on the Right,” Philip Gourevitch, The New Yorker, April 12, 2004.
37 Scruggs’s contribution … Interview with Scruggs.
38 After Michael Kranish … “Special Interests Aided Tax-reform
Advocate,” Michael Kranish, Boston Globe, March 31, 2006.
39 Later, after Scruggs … Interview with Scruggs.
40 In 2000 the bickering … Letter from John P. Sears to Scruggs, Jan. 12, 2000.
41 He told Sears … Letter from Scruggs to Sears, Jan. 13, 2000.
42 Sears wrote back … Letter from Sears to Scruggs, Jan. 24, 2000.
43 In a subsequent letter … Letter from Sears to Scruggs, Jan. 25, 2000.
44 Scruggs finally came … Interviews with confidential sources; flow chart of Delmas Capital, LLC; deposition given by Scruggs, Aug. 25, 2000.
45 In addition … Interview with Rex Deloach.
46 On a schedule … Flow chart of Delmas Capital, LLC; interviews with Deloach, confidential sources.
47 At night … Interview with Scruggs, Sept., 1998; Boston Globe, Oct. 18, 1998.
Chapter 6
1 Politics had been embedded … Interview with Dick Scruggs.
2 To protect their position … Interview with Danny Cupit.
3 The idea took form … Interview with Jere Nash.