TPMMuckraker

Scruggs Associate to Plead Guilty

Bad news for Trent Lott’s brother-in-law Dickie Scruggs:

Timothy Balducci, a co-defendant in the federal bribery case against plaintiffs attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, has agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy and to cooperate with the government….

Federal prosecutors have alleged that Mr. Balducci earlier this year approached state Circuit Court Judge Henry Lackey on Mr. Scruggs’s behalf and offered to pay him $40,000 for a favorable ruling in a civil case.

Balducci could prove a formidable cooperator. After all, in a conversation with Judge Lackey (one taped by investigators), he said:

[Dickie Scruggs] and I, um, how shall I say, for over the last five or six years there, there are bodies buried that, that you know, that he and I know where…where are, and, and, my, my trust in his, mine in him and his in mine, in me, I am sure are the same.

Not the guy you want talking to the feds.

Dickie Scruggs

Editor & Publisher

Josh Marshall

Managing Editor

David Kurtz

Senior Associate Editor

Paul Werdel

Associate Editor

Tom Lane

Assistant Editor

Igor Bobic

Reporters

Brian Beutler

Carl Franzen

Sahil Kapur

Eric Kleefeld

Nick Martin

Evan McMorris-Santoro

Jillian Rayfield

Ryan J. Reilly

Benjy Sarlin

Front Page Editor

David Taintor

News Writers

Kyle Leighton

Pema Levy

Video Editor

Michael Lester

Research Interns

Christopher Hohmuth

Tom Kludt

Publishing Intern

Christopher O’Driscoll

General Manager & General Counsel

Millet Israeli

VP, Ad Sales

Bruce Ellerstein

Waldo Tibbetts

Bob Edmunds

Manager, Ad Operations and Sales Support

Versha Sharma

Deputy Publisher

Callie Schweitzer

Director of Technology

Eric Buth

Designer/Developer

Ni Mu

Matthew Wozniak