The Fall of the House of Zeus (36 page)

After Smith left, the prosecutors tried to buck up Lackey’s spirits.

Lackey described the meeting in his journal:

    
While Judge Lackey was feeling some apprehension, Balducci and Patterson were confronted with severe money problems. They got $40,000 from Scruggs on October 18, the payment he had told P. L. Blake he would make.
In a letter he left with the check Balducci picked up, Scruggs wrote, “Thanks, once again, for undertaking the analyzing of the voir dire” in a recent Katrina case and “constructing one for me to adapt” in a forthcoming trial. Scruggs attached a transcript for study. The voir dire work involved jury preparation.

When Balducci picked up the package, he left an invoice for $40,000 for a “retainer fee for preparation of voir dire for trial.”

(The prosecutors would later describe the documents as a cover for reimbursing Balducci the cash he’d paid Judge Lackey; they also suggested that $40,000 was a preposterous figure to pay for voir dire work.)

    It did not take Patterson and Balducci long to spend the money. By the end of October, Patterson calculated their dwindling resources and reported that they needed to write bad checks in order to maintain the appearance of solvency. He looked to an officer at his bank in New Albany to cover the overdrafts until their accounts could be replenished.

Meanwhile, their credit cards were on the verge of maxing out.

One afternoon, Patterson’s wife, Debbie, interrupted her husband’s meeting with Scruggs in Oxford with a cell phone call warning her husband that a check was due in New Albany. “We got to have that check today,” she hissed with an anxious note of urgency. Patterson told her to put off the creditor. His meeting with Scruggs, he explained, “is more important than that.”

As November approached, the New Albany partners saw they couldn’t make their payroll. Not only had Norm Gillespie and others “of counsel” failed to get their $1,000 payments, but the principal members of the firm had stopped returning their phone calls.

Balducci was asked by one of their employees if a contingency plan existed to keep the firm afloat.

“
I have Band-Aids to get us through if Zeke sends the money,” Balducci said. “But if Zeke doesn’t send the money, there is no contingency for that. It’s just a gauze pad. We need fucking surgery, open heart surgery. We don’t need a fucking Bayer aspirin.”

A
s Halloween approached, the Mississippi partners of Patterson, Balducci and Biden papered over their financial woes by considering the upcoming evening. Patterson playfully announced that he intended to be the Incredible Hulk and asked Balducci about his disguise. “I’m going to be a squirrel,” Balducci replied, chirping squirrel-like clicks of his tongue.

In Oxford, Halloween had grown into an extravaganza in recent years. On the witching night, hundreds of children—infants in red wagons pulled by parents and schoolkids in elaborate costumes representing all sorts of characters from Batman and Princess Leia to angels and skeletons—clogged the residential sidewalks in an informal parade, seeking treats at every home near the square.

Few found their way to the Scruggs’s new mansion, tucked away on a wooded hill several blocks from the revelry, where the owner had other concerns on his mind. State elections would be held the next week, and though the Democrats had no chance of unseating Governor Haley Barbour, Scruggs continued to pour money into the campaign of Gary Anderson, the party’s candidate for insurance commissioner.

Scruggs had already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to drive George Dale out of office in the primary, and now he was dumping thousands more into a one-man effort to ensure that a sympathetic figure would govern state policy for insurance over the next four years.

He called Patterson to inquire about ways of routing another
$100,000 to buy more advertising. Scruggs said he was willing to make the expenditure because he had been told that Anderson was “within the margin of error” in polls that showed him still trailing the Republican. “I need you to contact Howard Dean,” he said, referring to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Patterson said he did not know Dean and preferred to deal with Congressman Bennie Thompson, who represented the predominantly black Mississippi Delta and presumably had an interest in seeing Anderson, another African American, elected.

But there was confusion. Thompson agreed that the DNC could handle Scruggs’s contribution, while Anderson maintained it was illegal to channel the money through the party apparatus. The candidate suggested that it be sent to a friend, who would then pass it on to the campaign. When Patterson mentioned this approach to Jere Nash, a Democratic operative working with Scruggs, Nash emphatically discouraged the idea. “I don’t think Dick wants to be within five hundred miles of any kind of fucking conduit going to Gary Anderson.”

Nash was able to speak from his own experience. Ten years earlier, after serving as a consultant in a Teamsters election, he had pleaded guilty to a federal charge of illegal fund-raising and was put on two years’ probation. It had been an embarrassing experience for a man ordinarily identified with liberal causes.

Patterson reported the problem to Scruggs, who said he was willing to send the money “as long as it’s kosher.” He said he would not pass it through Anderson’s friend. “I’m not going to do anything like that, that blows back on him or me.”

Patterson was relieved until Scruggs told him he had already sent Anderson “two hundred grand last week as a loan to him along with a promissory note. He’s loaned that to his campaign.” The transfer of money was of questionable legality.

Patterson called Nash again. “The plot thickens,” he said. “Guess where the loan came from?”

“Oh, no,” Nash said, moaning. “That is not pretty.”

“Jere, what kind of idiot is it that does that when he’s just been through this crap with Minor and all that crowd?”

“And got his hands full in Alabama,” Nash added. “You’re right. And Minor’s going to jail.”

    The next day dawned with barely a hint of autumn chill, the sky clear of clouds and the early sun winking on the land.

As he drove toward Calhoun City, Tim Balducci was able to forget some of his financial worries because he had an important task ahead: delivering the remaining $20,000 in cash due to Judge Lackey.

Though some of his associates teased him for “trying to be Joey” in his choice of clothing, Balducci was hardly dressed for a court appearance.
He wore a light button-down-collar shirt, jeans, and boots. Nor did he have the air of a supplicant before the bench when he sat down in Lackey’s office to talk with the judge. Making himself comfortable, Balducci twirled a cord attached to the telephone on Lackey’s desk while he discussed one of his clients, whom he described as “just a habitual fuck-up.”

The young man, Balducci explained, was the nephew of a state official, and he faced a drunk driving manslaughter charge. His father had already paid Joey Langston a $30,000 fee in cash—“which Joey pockets”—to deal with the case.

“He’s eaten up with money,” the judge observed.

Balducci, who despised Langston, his former boss, agreed. “I’m not going to just screw people over like that,” he said.

The drunk driving case was still pending, and Balducci was ready to take it.

With confidence that he and the judge had formed a partnership to fix cases, Balducci boldly mentioned a new deal. If Judge Lackey could intervene by postponing the trial and quashing his client’s indictment, it could prove profitable.

Balducci said he would be able to tell the father of the defendant, “I think I’ve got a good theory. I can get the legs cut out of this beforehand. Gimme twenty grand to do it.” Then he looked to the judge. “If he does, then I thought me and you could split it and we could get it taken care of.”

“We can do that,” Lackey said, still playing the role of a corrupt judge willing to sell decisions to get over a personal hump.

They also talked about the attorney general’s race, which would be decided the next week. Balducci said he believed Jim Hood would “pull it out.”

“Maybe he’ll get that tit out of Joey’s mouth,” the judge said, referring to Langston’s agreement with Hood to represent the state in recovering back taxes from the bankrupt company MCI/WorldCom. In the current campaign, Hood was under fire from Republicans for the pact with Langston, who had earned $7 million in the case.

As Balducci prepared to go, he left an envelope containing cash on
Lackey’s desk. The two men shook hands, then shared a hearty embrace.

When Balducci was gone, the judge thumbed through the bills for a moment, paused, then held his hands to his head. “Oh Lord,” he said, sighing, as if in recognition of the lives, including that of his younger friend, that would soon be devastated by the sequence of events nearing their climax. “Oh Lord.”

While Lackey sat at his desk with his head bowed, the torso of an FBI agent became visible on the video, walking toward the hidden camera to shut it down. It was as if the curtain fell on the last act of the short life of Patterson, Balducci and Biden.

    
Shortly after Balducci drove away from Lackey’s office, he was pulled over by Bill Delaney and another FBI agent, Gil Surles. The two men had a disk recording of his encounter with the judge minutes before, and they did not have to play much of it for Balducci to realize he was trapped. The agents gave him options. He could be taken to the Lafayette County Detention Center in Oxford, which doubled as a federal jail, or he could talk with the chief U.S. prosecutor, Tom Dawson. If he refused, he would be free to go, but he could not escape the consequences. He agreed to go see Dawson, and was driven to Oxford in a car with tinted glass.

Along the way, they passed pastoral scenes in the North Mississippi landscape. Hills where cattle grazed. Fields where the remnants of the year’s cotton crop still clung to stalks like scattered popcorn. It was the first day of November, and though the oaks had lost much of their summer luster, the leaves had not yet fallen. Balducci was unable to appreciate the scenery. In a few minutes, his dreams of a rich life had been destroyed, and all he could now consider were ways in which he might salvage something out of his dilemma.

To ensure that no one saw him, the FBI team drove Balducci into a parking garage in the basement of a building housing the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a couple of blocks from the Oxford square. Dawson, who had been notified by Delaney, sent for another prosecutor, Bob Norman, to join them.

Balducci was led into an interrogation room upstairs. Dawson told Balducci that he was not under arrest, but needed to understand that “your life, as you know it, is over.” Oddly, Balducci did not ask for a lawyer to represent him. He said he would do it himself.

Dawson informed him that he could plead guilty to one felony
charge of conspiracy that carried a maximum sentence of five years. If Balducci cooperated, he would be able to see his twin sons graduate from high school.

Balducci said he understood the situation and wanted to cooperate. Then he began to pour out some of the history of the last seven months. His cooperation would also involve a role as the newest undercover agent for the federal government. He attempted to make a telephone call to Scruggs’s office that would be recorded, but Murphy’s Law—the theory that had hampered the investigation all fall—intervened. The recording device did not work. So Balducci, who appeared remarkably composed, said he would deal with the contact personally. He knew his future depended on it.

    
Less than four hours after he had been intercepted in Calhoun City, Balducci was back on the street in Oxford and off to meet his friends at the Scruggs Law Firm. This time Balducci wore, under his clothing, a device given to him by the FBI. Before he dealt with anyone, he cleared his throat and announced:

“My name is Tim Balducci. Today’s date is November the first, 2007. The time is approximately one twenty p.m., Central time. I’m attempting to make a consensual recording of a conversation between myself and Sid Backstrom at the Scruggs Law Firm—and possibly with Richard Scruggs.”

He was standing on the west side of the square when he spotted Dick and Zach Scruggs walking back to their office after lunch. Without betraying any trace of his traumatic morning, Balducci greeted them: “Hey, man. What’s happening?” He said he had come to see Backstrom, but needed to talk with Scruggs as well. As they climbed the stairs leading to the firm’s second-floor office. Scruggs seemed preoccupied. He said he had to deal with something “time critical”—the new transfusion to the Gary Anderson campaign—so Balducci wound up talking with Zach for a few minutes.

“I just hate how bad our Kentucky thing turned out,” Zach said. “Joey came over on Sunday.”

(A few days before, the Scruggs firm had pulled out of plans to work with the other Mississippi lawyers on the Kentucky coal miners’ mask litigation.
The arrangement had collapsed after bickering broke out between the pair from New Albany and Langston, who was attempting to get in on the deal. To undermine his rivals, Langston had routed to Kentucky some uncomplimentary documents concerning Patterson
and Balducci.
Patterson and Balducci, in a snit, withdrew from the project, too, sending a colorful letter declaring they had no interest in “filthy lucre.”

(The quarrel among the three men had become increasingly unpleasant to Scruggs. He had been visited the previous weekend by Langston, while Scruggs tried to relax beside his swimming pool. Langston warned Scruggs about his association with Patterson and Balducci. “Look,” he said, “I’m telling you this as a friend. You don’t need to be doing business with these guys.” Langston made the same argument with Scruggs’s son while he was in Oxford that day.)