Richard Scruggs

rdf:langString Richard Scruggs

rdf:langString Richard Scruggs

rdf:langString Richard Scruggs

rdf:langString Zach Scruggs, Claire Scruggs-Walczak

rdf:langString Class action lawsuits against the asbestos, tobacco and insurance industries

rdf:langString Former attorney, philanthropist

rdf:langString Dickie

rdf:langString Diane Thompson

rdf:langString Richard F. "Dickie" Scruggs (born May 17, 1946) is an American former naval aviator and disbarred trial lawyer. He is the brother-in-law of former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. Scruggs first came to the public eye after successfully suing the asbestos industry on behalf of ill shipyard workers. He later represented the state of Mississippi in the tobacco litigation of the 1990s. He also represented hundreds of homeowners in lawsuits against insurance companies following Hurricane Katrina, and a national class action of patients against HMOs in the early 2000s. Scruggs' legal career was derailed by his indictment in a judicial bribery scheme in 2007. Scruggs pled guilty to conspiracy to bribe Circuit Judge Henry L. Lackey in 2008. He also entered a 2009 guilty plea for a scheme to influence Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter. Scruggs was sentenced to five years in prison on June 27, 2008, by U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers; and on February 10, 2009, Judge Glen H. Davidson sentenced him to seven years for the second scheme, to run concurrently. He served six years in federal prison and was released in 2014. Kings of Tort, by Alan Lange and Tom Dawson, released in 2009, documents the rise and fall of Scruggs. The Fall of the House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America's Most Powerful Trial Lawyer, by veteran journalist Curtis Wilkie, was published in 2010.

rdf:langString Dickie