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.

From the Politico:

Lott had said he has heard the various rumors regarding his decision to retire, but said the real reason is that which he publicly declared at his first press conference in Pascagoula, Miss. - it was just time for him to leave the Senate.

"I have heard everything," said Lott "That it was a health problem, that it was a sex problem, that it was a problem with his brother-in-law. None of that is true, not even close."

Lott said he has spoken to Scruggs, who he is husband of his wife's younger sister, just once since the indictment. Lott said Scruggs "is still my friend," and he suspects that the well-known lawyer became enmeshed in "a sting" by the FBI.

Being an author of legal thrillers, John Grisham knows a sophisticated bribery scheme when he sees one. And frankly, he seems a little disappointed in his fellow Mississippian and friend Dickie Scruggs. Or at least that's the impression one gets in reading his comments about his friend's predicament to The Wall Street Journal:

"This doesn't sound like the Dickie Scruggs that I know," Mr. Grisham said yesterday. "When you know Dickie, and how successful he has been, you could not believe he would be involved in such a boneheaded bribery scam that is not in the least bit sophisticated."

As we detailed last week, the indictment alleges plenty of boneheadedness. Would a villain in a Grisham book be so dumb as to refer to a bribery payment as "the package?" Surely not. Is he wrong to expect at least as much from his friends?