Richard “Dickie” Scruggs is a disbarred Mississippi trial lawyer who built one of the most successful plaintiffs’ practices in American history through asbestos and tobacco litigation, then went to federal prison after pleading guilty to two separate judicial bribery schemes. He served roughly seven years, was released to home confinement in March 2014, and now runs an adult-education nonprofit in Oxford, Mississippi.
How He Got Rich: Asbestos and Tobacco
Scruggs was a Navy fighter pilot before law school. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Mississippi in 1969 and his law degree there in 1976, started out in Jackson defending insurance companies, then moved home to Pascagoula and opened his own practice.1Ocala Star-Banner. A Lawyer Like Hurricane
His first big campaign was representing workers at the Ingalls shipyard who had been exposed to asbestos. He described their treatment in blunt terms, saying the workers were handled “like another consumable in the manufacturing process. Like a welding rod.” Scruggs and his partners earned $50 million from the asbestos work, money that bankrolled a much larger project to come.1Ocala Star-Banner. A Lawyer Like Hurricane
That project was tobacco. Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore had the idea of suing cigarette makers to recover state Medicaid money spent treating smoking-related illness, and Scruggs signed on as lead outside counsel and head negotiator.2PBS Frontline. Interview With Richard Scruggs3Tulane Law Review. U.S. v. Scruggs
The litigation produced the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, valued at roughly $246 billion, the largest civil settlement in American history.4Legal Newsline. Tobacco Partners Suing Scruggs Under contingency arrangements, Scruggs stood to collect more than $1 billion. The size of the payout drew political heat. Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch floated a fee cap, and other members of Congress proposed limiting attorney compensation to as little as $150 an hour. Scruggs eventually agreed to let a national panel of judges set his fee instead.2PBS Frontline. Interview With Richard Scruggs
One biographical detail that would matter later: Scruggs’s brother-in-law was Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican who became U.S. Senate Majority Leader. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Scruggs pivoted again, this time suing State Farm and other insurers on behalf of Gulf Coast homeowners whose claims had been denied. Lott was among his clients.5Facing South. Gulf Watch: Miss. Lawyer Behind State Farm Settlement Indicted for Bribery
The Lackey Bribery Case
The Katrina work produced a fee fight that ended Scruggs’s career. In Jones v. Scruggs, other lawyers claimed he owed them more than $26.5 million from a State Farm settlement. The case landed in front of Lafayette County Circuit Judge Henry Lackey.6NBC News. Famed Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Bribery Charge
In March 2007, Scruggs, his son Zach, law partner Sidney Backstrom, attorney Timothy Balducci, and former Mississippi State Auditor Steve Patterson agreed on a plan to influence Judge Lackey’s ruling. Balducci offered Lackey a future “Of Counsel” position at his firm along with cash. He delivered $20,000, then another $10,000, with a total of $40,000 to $50,000 planned. Scruggs created a paper cover for the money by claiming the payments to Balducci were for legitimate work like drafting jury instructions.7FindLaw. United States v. Scruggs
Lackey reported the approach to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The FBI then spent months recording the group’s communications before indictments came down in November 2007. Balducci, Patterson, and Backstrom all pleaded guilty.7FindLaw. United States v. Scruggs8CBS News. Lawyer Cooperating in Scruggs Bribery Case
On March 14, 2008, Scruggs pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe a judge. In exchange, prosecutors dropped other counts, including fraud charges that could have carried up to 75 years. He also agreed to give up his law license.6NBC News. Famed Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Bribery Charge9Courthouse News Service. Dickie Scruggs Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Bribe a Judge On June 27, 2008, U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers sentenced him to five years in federal prison.10CNBC. Anti-Tobacco Attorney Slapped With 5 Years in Prison7FindLaw. United States v. Scruggs11Insurance Journal. Appeals Court Upholds Scruggs Conviction
The DeLaughter Bribery Case
While the Lackey case was moving, federal investigators uncovered a second scheme. This one involved a different fee dispute, the Wilson case over asbestos fees, and a different judge: Hinds County Circuit Judge Robert “Bobby” DeLaughter, best known as the assistant district attorney who had prosecuted Byron de la Beckwith in 1994 for the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.12Corrections1. Famous Civil Rights Judge Faces Prison for Lying to FBI
Scruggs used attorney Joey Langston and former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters as intermediaries. Peters, who had once been DeLaughter’s boss, was paid $1 million to work his personal relationship with the judge; Langston admitted delivering $50,000 in cash to Peters as part of the arrangement.13Mississippi Free Press. Mississippi GOP Politicizes Scruggs Plea The scheme also dangled something DeLaughter badly wanted, a federal district court judgeship. Because Trent Lott was in a position to recommend judicial candidates to the President, Scruggs had Lott place a phone call to DeLaughter, giving the judge the impression he was under consideration.14U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. United States v. Scruggs, No. 12-60423
DeLaughter was indicted in January 2009 and pleaded guilty that July to one count of obstruction of justice for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Peters. He was sentenced to 18 months and later disbarred.15FBI. Bobby DeLaughter Pleads Guilty16Mississippi Free Press. DeLaughter Sentenced to 18 Months Peters was not criminally charged, reportedly cooperated under immunity, and was permanently disbarred by the Mississippi Supreme Court in June 2009.17Jackson Free Press. Supreme Court Disbars Former DA Peters
Scruggs pleaded guilty to a superseding one-count information charging aiding and abetting honest-services mail fraud. U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson sentenced him to seven years in federal prison, to run concurrently with the five-year Lackey sentence, plus three years of supervised release and a $100,000 fine.18vLex. United States v. Scruggs, No. 3:09-CR-00002-GHD A later motion to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. ยง 2255, built on the Supreme Court’s narrowing of the honest-services statute in Skilling v. United States, was denied by the district court and affirmed by the Fifth Circuit in April 2013.14U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. United States v. Scruggs, No. 12-60423
Disbarment and Prison
The Supreme Court of Mississippi permanently disbarred Scruggs on July 28, 2008, following his guilty plea in the Lackey case.19FindLaw. Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance, Case No. 2008-BD-00451-SCT No reinstatement has been reported. He was released to home confinement from a federal prison in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 20, 2014, with a final release date of September 14, 2014.20Commercial Dispatch. Scruggs on Home Confinement After Prison
What He Does Now
Inside, Scruggs taught math to fellow inmates working on their GEDs, and he has pointed to that experience as the seed of his current work.21WJTV. Dickie Scruggs Talks About Second Chance Mississippi Program After release, he founded and now chairs 2nd Chance Mississippi, a 501(c)(3) based in Oxford that has been tax-exempt since September 2016. The organization partners with the state’s community colleges and early childhood centers to help lower-income adults earn high school equivalency diplomas and workforce credentials. His son Zach serves as executive director. The group reports supporting more than 2,000 adult students, with 847 earning high school equivalency and 532 obtaining workforce credentials.222nd Chance Mississippi. Our Team Scruggs takes no compensation from it.23ProPublica. 2nd Chance MS Inc. – Nonprofit Explorer
The Scruggs family has also continued giving heavily to the University of Mississippi, with cumulative gifts exceeding $18.9 million. These include a 25-year, $1-million-per-year pledge made in 1998 to support faculty salaries in the College of Liberal Arts, several named endowments, and the sale of a 10-acre property next to campus at a reduced price. In January 2026, the family pledged another $450,000, including $300,000 toward a new alumni center and $150,000 to the School of Law’s activity fund.24University of Mississippi Foundation. UM Receives Transformative Scruggs Family Gifts25Chronicle of Higher Education. U. of Mississippi Receives Gift of $1 Million a Year for 25 Years Scruggs and his wife, Diane, live in Oxford, Mississippi.