Leniency Asked for Mississippi Lawyer Caught in Scruggs Conspiracy

December 12, 2008

Mississippi U.S. Rep. Travis Childers, doctors, Prentiss County officials and hundreds of others have written letters asking a federal court to have mercy on their friend and colleague, former Booneville attorney Joey Langston.

Langston, 53, faces up to three years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to influence a circuit judge to help resolve a legal fees lawsuit against then-Oxford attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs.

Langston is to be sentenced next Tuesday for his role in a sweeping federal investigation that toppled Scruggs.

It’s common for people to write letters to a judge before a defendant’s sentencing, especially in a high-profile case, either asking for leniency or a stiff penalty. But Langston had asked for the letters to be kept secret after several media organizations requested access to them.

Chief Judge Michael P. Mills, however, allowed the letters to be released. Four reporters, who asked to see them, got a look this week at the nearly 340 letters sent to Mills.

Childers, a friend and business partner of Langston for many years, wrote that he was saddened, even “heartbroken” to need to write his letter to Mills.

Gary Walker of Booneville offered to serve the sentence in Langston’s place.

“I humbly ask that you let me do his time,” he wrote, giving Mills his telephone number “so we can work out the details.”

The letters were similar, with the writers telling Mills of Langston’s good deeds and kindnesses he’d done through the years. Many told of his paying for cancer treatments, funeral expenses, house repairs and community youth opportunities as well as college scholarships.

Only one letter urged Mills to send Langston to prison, and its writer only signed it “P.”

It’s not clear how much influence the letters will have.

Langston was representing Scruggs when Scruggs was indicted in November 2007. Scruggs’ son and law partner were also indicted on charges they conspired to bribe Lafayette County Circuit Judge Henry Lackey. As the investigation progressed, investigators began looking at Langston’s activities and raided his Booneville office in northeast Mississippi.

Langston pleaded guilty in January to charges he conspired to influence Hinds County Judge Bobby DeLaughter, allegedly on Scruggs’ behalf.

DeLaughter, who is well-known for his prosecution of a cold case from the civil rights era, which was portrayed in the 1996 movie “Ghosts of Mississippi,” has insisted he did nothing wrong. He has been suspended from the bench.

Scruggs eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe Lackey in a dispute over $26.5 million in legal fees and was sentenced to five years.

Scruggs gained national prominence and earned hundreds of millions of dollars by leading the charge against tobacco companies in the 1990s, a feat portrayed in the 1999 film “The Insider.”

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Information from: Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, http://www.djournal.com

Topics Mississippi

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