Feds Reportedly Looking to RICO for additional Scruggs Charges
As reported in this Clarion Ledger story, the Department of Justice is reportedly looking at bringing RICO charges against Dicky Scruggs related to the bribery of Judge Bobby DeLaughter in the Wilson v. Scruggs case. As previously noted here, Joey Langston has already plead guilty to offering Judge DeLaughter a bribe in the form of a United States District Court judgeship.
What is particularly interesting in the context of a federal investigation and subsequent guilty plea, is that Scruggs’ plea offers him no protection in the ongoing investigation in the Wilson case.
Scruggs and his co-defendants, including his son, Zach, are all pending sentencing. I expect that the presentence reports for Scruggs and the others will be forthcoming any day now. That will, no doubt produce a number of filings. The docket in this case has been exceedingly silent for almost 2 months, but I expect we will shortly see a number of sentencing memoranda. I’m particularly interested to see if Zach Scruggs, for instance, will receive a downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility given his post plea statements that he really didn’t do anything wrong.
If the government is, in fact, pursuing RICO charges against Scruggs and others, we can expect that that case will not be brought for many months.
