Declarations

Racketeering
“They willfully caused victims of Hurricane Katrina extreme emotional and financial distress in their calculated strategy to falsify and conceal evidence, intimidate anyone who got in their way, and used their privileged position to pressure policyholders into accepting pitiful payments both before and during the mediation process.”

— Don Barrett, an attorney with the Scruggs Katrina Group, upon filing federal racketerring charges against State Farm, E.A. Renfroe Co. and Forensic Analysis and Engineering Co. on behalf of 21 Mississippi policyholders whose homes were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. He said the law firm has proof that State Farm and its partners conspired to cheat policyholders out of millions of dollars in payments.

Oldest trick
“This is (Dickie) Scruggs using one of the oldest tricks in the book: If attacked, deflect. Clearly he’s stung by U.S. District Court Judge Acker’s criminal contempt charge and surprised by the evidence that could disqualify him from other cases and now is trying to deflect it all.”

— State Farm National Spokesman Jonathan Freed, firing back at the Scruggs Katrina Group, which filed racketeering charges against the insurer and its engineers over Hurricane Katrina claims.

No change
“I’m not going to do anything different.”

— Bill Proenza, director of the National Hurricane Center, who has been warning about an aging satellite used for hurricane forecasting, after he was chastised by a superior for his comments. Proenza said that the QuikScat satellite, launched in 1999, is showing signs of age and certain hurricane forecasts could be up to 16 percent less accurate if it fails.

WTC fireproofing
“One thing it does point out … is the absolute essential nature of fireproofing steel structures. This is something that wasn’t done originally in the World Trade Center when it was built. It wasn’t code at that time.”

— Christoph Hoffmann, a Purdue University professor and one of the lead researchers on a computer simulation of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks that supports a federal agency’s findings that the initial impact from the hijacked airplanes stripped away crucial fireproofing material and that the weakened towers collapsed under their own weight.

Cracking down
“The Office of Attorney General will aggressively crack down on credit repair services that violate the law.”

— Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, announcing a settlement with Steve H. McIntosh, the owner of Austin Credit Doctor and America’s Credit Doctor, who is charged with violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and unlawfully overstating his ability to improve consumers’ credit ratings. McIntosh agreed to pay $75,000 in civil penalties and attorneys’ fees.